Teaching your child to follow directions

We all know what it's like to ask our little one to do something, and they carry on as if they've never heard us or can't understand what we're saying. However, it's important for children to be able to follow instructions - whether its a request or a warning for their safety - by the time they enter school.

As with everything else in your child's life, following instructions is learned through repeated practice. It will not happen overnight and will take some effort from your part. So the idea is to start with the easiest instructions and gradually progress from there. Here are some great everyday tips:

Give your child a sense of competence - praise more and correct less. With following instructions, and in general, a child who feels competent - who believes that he can understand, remember and act accordingly - will be more likely to follow instructions.


Make the most of every opportunity - children learn better when the directions that you give makes sense in the context of what is happening. For example, helping to set the table at mealtime, or putting things away after bath time. The more often you do things together, the more teaching opportunities you will have.

Ensure your child listens and understands when you give directions - avoid failure by making sure that you have your child’s full attention when you give directions. Get down to his eye level so that he can see your facial expression. Squat if you have to. Make eye contact; speak clearly and slowly (where appropriate) using simple words and short, simple sentences.

Use gestures to demonstrate the meaning of your words - when dealing with a baby or toddler, add a natural gesture to help your child understand your message. For example, "come here" paired with a hand gesture; “Give it to me” paired with your hand reaching for the item; or “Go to your room and get your coat” paired with pointing to your toddler’s room. 

*Note: As children near the age of 24 months they typically rely less and less on gestures to understand the meaning of language. It’s a good idea to use gestures when you teach new concepts to a child of any age, but if your 2½ year old is unable to follow a wide variety of everyday two-step instructions without gestures, it would be wise to have the child’s hearing tested and consult a speech-and-language therapist. An example of a two-step instruction would be, “Take off your shoes and put it in the bag.”

Use repetition - to follow your directions, your child has to do some mental work. The first step is to understand the meaning of what you are saying and the second step is to remember the directions while acting. After giving the instruction, give him some time to process the information. Then repeat the instruction slowly. This demonstrates to him that repeating an instruction in his head after he has heard it is a good way of remembering it.

    With older children, ask your child to repeat your directions after you. This activates his memory. It also tells you if he actually understood your directions.

    If needed, take him to a quiet room in the house before giving directions. This eliminates distractions and demonstrates that you have something important to say. The sounds of a radio, television, or others talking, make it more difficult for your child to listen to your directions.

Give your child clear feedback - when your child completes your directions, let him know exactly what was done correctly. This reinforces the learning that has taken place, and builds his confidence. If he didn’t complete your directions at all, show him or tell him exactly what needed to be done. If an attempt is partially successful, praise whatever he did correctly.

Adapt to your child’s level of development - he will be able to understand and follow more difficult directions as his language and memory skills develop. Use the following guidelines to help him progress:

1. At first, use gestures to demonstrate the meaning of simple directions: “Give it to me” while extending your hand.

2. Then teach your child to follow simple directions without gestures: “Stand up.” “Get the ball.” “Sit down.”

3. Following that, he will learn to do one thing with two objects: “Give me the bowl and the spoon.”

4. The next step is where you ask him to do two things with one object: “Get your shoes and put it in the cupboard.”

5. He will then learn to understand a combination of where to go and what to do there: “Go to your room and get your shoes.”

6. Then develop his memory even further by linking two totally separate directions together: “Put your glass on the table and get your teddy from the toybox.”

7. Finally, he should understand and follow a series of three unrelated directions involving three actions: “Put your toys away, go wash your hands and meet me in the kitchen.”

Once you are able to 'place' your child based on the above sequence of their ability to follow instructions, you know where to progress to next.

Most small children want to help out and feel independent and teaching them how to follow instructions is a great way to do this while growing their confidence in their abilities!

Words: Loren Stow
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How to demonstrate our love for our children

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Today we introduce our very first guest post - we will be inviting many people who work within the child development field to give us their take on what's important to know when it comes to your little one!

This guest post is written by Carol Bailie, a Child Educator and Parenting Workshop Facilitator. To learn more about Carol, visit http://www.daretolove.co.za/.


The Five Love Languages (Gary Chapman and D Ross Campbell’s book) is a wonderful general parenting book that gives such helpful insights into how to help our children feel loved and cherished, and is certainly worth the read. One of the Five Love Languages is “ACTS OF SERVICE”. It is an interesting love language because of the huge spin-off it has for general, as well as academic development. Looking closer at this love language is a fascinating topic.

“Acts of Service Love” occurs when a parent demonstrates their love for their child through doing things for them that they can’t do for themselves. Examples would include cooking supper, changing clothes, bathing, carrying, feeding and helping with tasks they can’t quite manage.

However, acts of service love has to evolve as the child gets older – they have to learn the art of serving themselves and serving the family, and not having everything done for them all the time. This is where it gets interesting – how do you cultivate independence by teaching your child “Acts of Service Love”, and what is age-appropriate?

Gary Chapman says in his Love Languages book that “we do our children a disservice if we do not teach them to do laundry.” The principle is simply this – children of all ages need to be actively involved in all chores around the home regardless of how imperfectly they contribute.

So let’s have a look at some age-appropriate chores for little children:

• From the moment a child can walk (technically then a toddler), they can be involved in many acts of service. They can lay the table (one fork or knife at a time, and probably not in the right place) and they can take their own plate to the kitchen after every meal.

• From the moment a child can sit upright, they can and should be involved in helping to pack their own toys away. A good way to do this is to sit on the floor and help them, but you only do one handful or one toy when they do one handful or toy. So you take turns. While packing away you sing a little pack-away song (make something up if you like) to signal that this is the time to tidy up.

• Small children of 2 or 3 years enjoy cleaning activities, especially if they think they are helping mom or dad. They gain a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. You can try giving a small spray bottle with clean water and a cloth and ask them to “wash” the windows – granted it will only be the bottom bit, and it may not be sparkly clean, but it will keep them occupied for some time if you work close by doing something else. They can wipe the windowsill, dust with a brightly coloured yellow duster, and wipe out toy drawers or containers when you sort toys.

• My children always loved washing activities – I give them play kitchen plates and cups in a basin of soapy water with a drying rack and dishcloth. Washing plastic items in a basin is great fun, as is cleaning plastic toys or washing dolls.

• Gardening is always brilliant – small rakes for raking leaves may take forever, but working alongside you with your big rake they will have a huge amount of fun. Putting the leaves in a wheelbarrow and then climbing on for the ride is even better!

• I started a very small vegetable garden when my son was about 2 or 3 years, as I found it to be a fun and constructive activity to involve them in putting compost in the bed, digging it over, making little spaces for seeds, planting out seedlings and best of all, picking vegetables for our table. Our gems have been far and away the most fun!

• From about 3 years, a child should start to help with the making of their bed.

• All children from two onwards should carry their own bags to school and back again!

• Children who can walk can help to put their pyjamas under the pillow and dirty clothes in the laundry basket and towels in the bathroom. At this age they will have to be reminded and accompanied, but from about 3 – 4 years they should be able to do it as a matter of course.

• Washing is indeed full of opportunities – putting the clothes in the machine, pouring in the soap, handing mom the pegs, sorting the colours of the dirty clothes. From about 4 years they should be able to take their own clean clothes to their drawers and put them away.

Acts of service involves a number of very important skills which all children need when they go into a playgroup or preschool setting:

1. Hard work
2. Work ethic (i.e. we value hard work)
3. Team work
4. Appreciating the work of others
5. Responsibility (care for toys, the house)
6. Perseverance
7. Doing things you don’t like
8. Eye hand co-ordination
9. Crossing the mid-line
10. Visual perceptual skills
11. Satisfaction
12. Patience
13. Following instructions
14. Autonomy and independence
15. Task specific skills

Involving small children in manageable acts of service each day not only helps them to learn the art of loving others through serving, but it serves the purpose of preparing them for many educational and life activities. Have fun!



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How to discipline your child - part 6

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Understanding how to follow a calm, collected and effective discipline routine is one (very important) thing, but actually deciding which behaviours are deemed unacceptable is another. This leaves some parents with a lax approach, allowing their children to explore (and conquer) at will. While other parents swing to the opposite end of the pendulum, and discipline their children for every conceivable ‘offence’, leaving their home feeling like Bosnia in the 1980’s.

It is obvious that both approaches are extreme, and ‘somewhere in the middle’ is a whole lot easier, for both parents and their young children. One of the most important factors to consider when deciding which behaviours will require discipline, is the need for consistency. The more rules you have, the bigger the challenge to remain consistent. So, it is sometimes more effective to have a handful of ‘true north principles’ rather than countless codes of conduct.

HOW TO DISCIPLINE YOUR CHILD

Pearl of Wisdom #6

Pick your battles – less is more

When it comes to parenting, and life in general, it is always easier to keep things simple and straightforward. Having a million things to remember is difficult enough - especially when it comes to discipline. We suggest the following list of discipline-worthy behaviours:

1.       When your child is disobedient and defiantly ignores you when you give him a direct instruction.

2.       When your child behaves arrogantly, for example slamming doors, spitting or hitting at you when he is angry, screaming at people and being generally disrespectful towards other people.

3.       When your child breaks well-known obvious and well-known rules such as climbing on the table in a restaurant, throwing stones at a window, hanging out the window of a moving vehicle, and the like.

Obviously, every parent and every child is different, and so each discipline routine will be unique. However, it is sometimes best to not sweat the small stuff and rather focus on the important principles with the conviction and consistency that is required to make a real change in behavior.

Present a united front to your child:

As children develop morally, they go through various stages during which they learn to think differently about right and wrong. (Academically inclined parents can have a look at Kohlberg’s Six Stages of Moral Development on http://faculty.plts.edu/gpence/html/kohlberg.htm)

Morally, all children start off at a place where they assume that rules are fixed and handed down by powerful authorities. A child who functions on this level believes that rules should be obeyed unquestioningly. Their reason for obeying is “because it’s WRONG to break the rules” and “because you’ll get PUNISHED if you do that!”. They still have to learn that an action may be “right” in one situation and “wrong” in another, that different people may have different perspectives about right and wrong and that one may decide to stick to the rules to uphold social order and not necessarily to avoid punishment. And children who function on the first level of moral development are most definitely not yet thinking about whether or not their actions align with their inner rudder or conscience.

Naturally, some people make it all the way to level six with regards to moral development, while others don’t. That’s a topic for another article. The point that we’re trying to make here is that every child starts at the same place. In other words, the very foundation of moral development is where a child views rules as “unquestionable”, “the same for everyone” and “applicable in all circumstances”.

With this in mind, one can imagine how disturbing and confusing it is to a young child when he is often confronted with two parents who openly disagree about what the rules should be, whether or not the child should be punished, and exactly what the punishment should involve.  Disunity amongst parents clearly has the potential to rock the very foundation of a child’s moral development!

 Why do parents typically disagree about discipline?

The most common conflict occurs between parenting couples who have opposing parenting styles. By the time we’re old enough to have children all of us have developed an individual belief system and an ingrained idea of what it means to be an effective parent. The greatest polarization and conflict typically arises when one parent is very authoritarian, while the other is very indulgent.

An authoritarian parent is more parent-centered and more committed to control and direct a child’s behaviour. An indulgent parent, on the other hand, is more child-centered. They are nontraditional and lenient; they do not require mature behavior and they generally avoid confrontation.

Practical advice:

As an Authoritarian Parent you can:

1)      Make an effort to be clear about rules and guidelines so that your child can have the security of knowing that he can predict how you’re going to react in different situations. Explain the reasoning behind the rules that you lay down. “Because I said so” doesn’t build bridges between you and your child.

2)      Deliberately make an effort to become more child-centered by taking time out to listen to your child and answer his or her questions. Older children can also be invited to give input into family activities and decision making.

3)      Use your knowledge of normal child development as a framework to better understand your child’s perspective in a given situation. If needed, deliberately learn more.

4)      Spend more time with your child in mutually pleasurable pastimes. Making memories and simply having fun together will help to strengthen your bond.

As an Indulgent Parent you can:

 

1)      Learn to see discipline as ‘training’ and an opportunity to shape a child’s character and develop self-control. Consider what the outcome will be for your children if you don’t help them to mature and develop the social skills they need to be respected and succeed in life.

2)      Practise saying ‘no’ to your child without trying to avoid confrontation and protecting him or her from frustration. Some of the most valuable lessons are learnt at the feet of pain and discomfort.

3)      Model by what you say and what you do that you expect of your child to respect the authority of adults and authority figures in his world.

4)      Be a parent to your child. He will have many friends in his life. He needs you to fulfill your special role as his parent and ‘trainer’. Remind yourself constantly that ‘parent’ is a verb.

The only way to resolve conflict between authoritarian and indulgent parents will be for both adults to make the effort to learn from each other. It’s not so much about compromise as it is about learning new skills.

Parenthood is clearly a journey that has the potential to shape us in profound ways when we let it. We have to agree with Queen Rania of Jordan when she said:

Children keep us in check. Their laughter prevents our hearts from hardening. Their dreams ensure we never lose our drive to make ours a better world. They are the greatest disciplinarians known to mankind.

when we know better... we do better

If you would like to be notified of all new posts via email, please send an email to lizette@practicaprogram.co.za