Celebrating kids’ efforts and pointing out their progress as they go can keep them engaged and motivated to learn instead of feeling stressed or bored.
Welcome to Part 4 (of 6) in the Brain Stages Social and Emotional Learning series.
If you missed a previous post, you can click on the links below.
- Part 1: How to Help Kids Identify Emotions and Work Through Them
- Part 2: Build Children’s Confidence and Empathy for a Better Life.
- Part 3: Giving Your Child a Purpose for Learning
Sometimes kids can be excited at the beginning of the school year, and then their enthusiasm wanes. They start counting the days to the weekend.
Kids who experience learning challenges or focusing issues may have high hopes at the beginning of the school year. But eventually their troubles resurface. They either stress out or they check out on schoolwork—neither of which are good for their emotional development.
Being engaged, understanding the purpose, and tracking progress in projects and goals leads to competence.
And remember, competence leads to confidence.
So, if you want to keep your kids engaged in their learning . . .
Try These 6 Simple Ways to Celebrate Effort and Progress
1. Set realistic goals WITH your child.
Remember, to get buy-in, your child has to feel like the goals chosen are theirs, chosen by them.
And “realistic goals” doesn’t mean there’s no room to dream big and come up with a huge goal they want to accomplish in the future that they can work toward.
Their learning goal might be:
“I plan to check off everything on the list that I’m supposed to learn this year and challenge myself to use each concept in some way in my life.”
Brainstorm smaller benchmarks together that show progress toward a goal.
Breaking a learning goal, or any goal for that matter, into bitesize chunks removes the fear of not being able to meet the larger target. Checking off each step along the way, no matter how small, allows your child to enjoy the journey of effort and progress all along the way.
2. Limit the number of goals to no more than three.
You may have noticed that three is sort of a magic number when it comes to these things. When we get past three things to focus on, the extras tend to get lost.
For example, you and your child come up with the goal above for learning (with your guidance), a health and fitness goal (which includes mental health), and a spiritual goal.
3. Post goals somewhere visible to be read and evaluated often.
We had a family bulletin board in the kitchen where we pinned such things. Our kids also wrote goals on large Post-Its and stuck them on the wall above their beds.
Remember to reread their goals with them occasionally to keep the goals fresh in their minds.
Now our kids use their cell phones.
When your kids get old enough for a cell phone, they can type their goals into an app to keep track of their effort and progress.
Our kids found this to be rewarding because the apps usually give visuals, like graphs and written acknowledgements. Many give visual “awards” like “medals” when a benchmark has been met.
4. Point out specific accomplishments—large and small.
Apply new concepts in some way at home so they see the value of what they’re learning.
Maybe your child is learning multiplication or division. Have them use that skill by creating equal amounts of almonds, for example, or some other snack with family members or friends. Then praise them for figuring out how to give each person their fair share.
Maybe your child is learning to write.
Write notes to your kids on Post-Its and stick them in various places. Have them write notes to you and other family members too.
Be sure to remind them how a sentence begins with a capital letter and ends with punctuation.
Model positive statements about the notes you are given, and encourage siblings to do the same, allowing for “invented spellings” using letter sounds.
Maybe your child is engaged in a group project. Ask what their role is and what they’ve done so far. Praise them for whatever tasks they’re doing to participate in reaching the group’s goals. No matter the subject, give specific praise for progress and effort all along the way.
5. Give small rewards for effort and progress.
Examples:
- You use specific praise to point out the effort and progress your child has made.
- Maybe you slap a high-five.
- You could offer a “treat” whatever that means in your family.
- If your child is into screen time, maybe they get “bonus minutes” to celebrate their effort and progress toward learning something.
- Maybe you plan a trip to the museum, library, or other significant location that has to do with the project.
- Maybe you have a “movie night” or play at the local park.
Note: The best way to get more of a behavior we want from our children is to acknowledge them in a way that makes them want to repeat it.
6. Encourage your child to evaluate their own effort and progress.
You’ve heard the saying:
“Give a man a fish and your feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you’ll feed him for a lifetime.” ~ mid-19th century author Anne Isabella Ritchie
Supporting our kids in paying attention to their own effort and progress gives them a lifelong skill that will move them toward any goal they choose.
We can do this by asking open-ended questions like the examples below.
- What do you feel good about that you’ve done so far?
- Where do you think you are at this point?
- What do you think you want to do next?
- What do you wish had turned out better?
- What do you think you can do to get the result you want?
Depending on the age of your child and their personality, invite them to write down a few questions for themselves in first person (What do I feel good about so far?). They can post their questions next to their goals and use the questions periodically to evaluate their effort and progress.
It’s important to tailor these six ways to celebrate effort and progress to what inspires your child. The key is to create a supportive environment where your child feels valued and motivated to keep making progress toward their learning goals.
And, as always, if you would like support, you can schedule a consultation with me here.
I love helping kids come up with goals that excite them.
I’m also great at helping to set up an effective routine for building confidence and growth along the journey to reaching those goals.
And the first consultation is complimentary. 😊
Best wishes on your parenting journey,
Trish Wilkinson, Parent Coach, founder of Brain Stages Parenting and Education
