The first and most important teacher in your child’s life is you! Your baby is gathering new information and developing new skills every day. Teaching various skills at the early child development stage is the most appropriate way of managing their behaviour. Instruction is the common way in which all of us try to teach our kids different skills. But the more effective and pleasant way of teaching children skills by example.
Teaching Children Skills Through Instruction And Example
Telling your child how to do things is the first method we use to develop children’s skills. But this method can sometimes ignite toddler temper tantrums which can turn into rebellion as the child grows. But if you combine examples along with instruction, then you are bound to get a more positive response from your kid.
To make your child follow the instructions, always:
- Kneel and speak to the child as an equal
- Speak in simple sentences that your toddler will understand easily
- Use a calm and pleasant tone of voice
- Alternate between instructions and requests to get the desired result
- Avoid using your smartphone while teaching your child skills
- Make sure a distraction like TV is shut off
- Use hand or facial gestures to emphasize important aspects of the instruction
- Use props like drawings, posters, pictures, photos, educational toys, etc. to teach skills.
Set an example
- Demonstrate a new skill by showing how to do it
- Ensure your child is watching carefully while you do it
- Teach your child social skills by following a certain pattern of social behaviour
- Lay emphasis on some important aspects of a particular task
- Give your child ample practice
- Indulge in role-playing games where these skills can be included.
- For instance, you can play the game “party-party”. While playing, you can demonstrate and teach skills like greeting the guests, laying the table, serving the food, etc.
Teach Skills At The Child’s Pace
You cannot expect your toddler to learn everything at the first attempt. Overloading your kid with instructions will only confuse the child. This can result in frustration and potential toddler temper tantrums. Understand the speed at which your child can assimilate information and teach your child skills at that pace.
Teaching children skills one step at a time is a pleasant way of going about it. This way, you will not overestimate your kid’s abilities. For example, if you are teaching your toddler to wear his footwear, on the first day just teach how to wear socks. The next day, teach your kid to slide the feet into the shoes. Once your toddler has learned to wear the correct shoe on the correct foot, you can teach the skill of fastening the strap or tying the laces. Splitting the task of wearing socks and shoes into three distinct steps is an easy way to teach a child skills.
To sum up, the most effective habit of parents in improving a child’s skills is doing things at the child’s pace. You should neither overestimate nor underestimate your toddler’s capacity to learn new skills