A Parent's Story

It seems like a long, long time ago, when a friend handed me a catalog and it began a paradigm shift in the way I taught, and what I considered important in the process of how my children learn.  That catalog was about critical thinking resources and the idea that children learn best and more deeply when they are given the necessary skills, and then introduced to more challenging and engaging activities by which to use them - activities that require higher thinking, problem-solving, risk-taking, and learning that not knowing the answer easily is 'OK'. My teaching and my family have not been the same since. 

The following are characteristics oftentimes shared with me by parents when talking about their children.   Many of these were characteristic of my children before we began working on improving 'thinking' and all that it entails:

• a disposition to guess rather than think it through

• a willingness to quit in the face of challenging work, saying things like: "It's too hard", or "I don't know how", and then refusing to work the problem

• an inattention to details - in instruction, directions, clues, and their own work product

• a loss of enjoyment in learning because the materials we were using were too boring

• an inadequately developed or non-existent ability to use questioning to obtain alternative approaches, preferring rather that answers be given, rather than derived from their own efforts

• a deep lack of confidence in their ability to strategize a new approach to a never-seen-before problem

• risk avoiding behavior, a fear of failure, perfectionism

• self-evaluation statements like, "I can't do that", "I'm not smart enough", "I'm no good at_______", when the opposite was true

It took personal involvement on my part, and will for you, too - to make a lasting impact on children's thinking skills.  Thinking is hard work and developing the disposition to think critically takes practice.  Yet, the rewards are well worth the time investment.   I encourage you to engage with these resources and to think about how to encourage the development of creativity, persistence, questioning, risk-taking, and critical thinking in your children. 

I also invite you to join my enewsletter - a vehicle through which I share parent tips, education current news, shared stories from parents engaging with their children and announcements of new resources that I will provide through Thinking To Learn®.  You can be a part of my enewsletter by enrolling now.

I also invite you to consider participating in my newest adventure - a blog, entitled: Learning and LifeSkills™ where I'll be sharing from the reading and learning I've done as a home educator, proponent of education reform, advocate for increasing parental involvement in the education of their children, speaker, and entrepreneur.  You can join my blog by following this link:

Please contact me if I can assist you.  

Ask for a copy of my "Parent Tips" when you do. 

All the best,

Sandee Wright

Owner, ThinkingToLearn, LLC

How to Order

 

Visit my resource pages for parents of gifted/talented children.

 

Join my enewsletter to receive sample activity pages and learn about special offers available only to members of my list.

**Bookmark this website**