Getting to Know Your Kids (Part 2)

This is the continuation of part 1. Wow, really? Part 2 is the continuation of part 1?... Sorry, please excuse my private conversation making fun of myself. With that out of the way, part 2 begins by addressing some of the major contributors to learning a child's more dominant personality and character traits. The gamut is ominous, so I will stick more closely to what is most applicable to the daily interactions we have with our children. Part 2 will contain the first important tenet of getting to know our kids. Successive parts will introduce additional ideas.

One of the key elements of getting to know our kids may seem obvious, but to many of us it is a difficult task for myriad reasons. This first element involves working to understand and collaborate with our kids in what areas they are gifted. There is a natural propensity in each of us to gravitate toward certain interest areas. I know I can't do a lot of things very well (art, music, drama, science, mathematics, etc.) that other professionals can do quite well. We would be bordering on naivete to proclaim that these areas of expertise can not begin as early as conception. There is too much concurrent evidence that is indicating that children's giftings and skill sets develop at the earliest stages possible.

There is a lot to glean from what the industrial age did to the majority of humanity. There is a lot to forget as well. (I pick on the industrial era, but this has happened throughout history). One of the items that we need to forget is the theory that people can be managed into compliance to do whatever those in leadership can get them to do, and perform it at maximum efficiency. Many of us thwart our greatest benefit to ourselves and to our society by foregoing our innate talents and abilities because we are taught to simply comply. Contemporary studies of employee satisfaction have indicated that the majority of employees are currently dissatisfied with their work experience. One of the top reasons is because they do not get to perform the duties they are most equipped (and gifted) to perform.

The attitude of employee compliance has inextricably tarried into the parenting philosophies of many homes. This attitude conveys that if we simply tell our kids what to do, they will be managed enough to simply follow our directions. There is no freedom to explore, no interest areas that are fostered effectively, and little room for learning from mistakes. Of course the opposite, liberal-minded attitude; that if we just let kids be they will find their way, poses an equal threat to the health of children. With everything, there is of course an advantageous balance that must be sought.

The ideal of fostering children's talents usually starts to become blurry right at the earliest stages in our development. Our greatest contributions to society are often obscured by our response to the environment we grew up in, our vices as individuals, and by the way in which we are either encouraged or discouraged by our parents/guardians to do what God has ingrained in us to do. Because we as parents play such a vital role in nurturing our children's best assets, it is important we recognize our tendencies in order to effectively reproduce a clear picture of what is best for our kids.

The most effective way that I reflect on to learn our children's talents, is to watch them work. The world of child-centered therapy has introduced us to the notion (or reminded us) that children communicate their experiences, feelings, and social intricacies through the way they play. Breaking this down is outside the scope of this blog, but we can deduce it down to the fact that kids don't have the language or thought-processing to be able to express everything they feel or experience. They have to manifest this, just like we all do, through some medium of communication. Children can indicate a multitude of emotions and thoughts about their perception of life by having opportunities to interact (play) with the world around them. As they develop language skills and more social maturity, it becomes far more conspicuous to understand what they are experiencing.

We can also attain an understanding of what children are skilled to do through viewing them in their element of play. Some kids work best with other children; organizing, structuring, developing the best teams. Some kids are more individually geared; creating, meticulously exploring, initiating. The more we study the depths of child development, the more we are seeing that kids have propensities toward certain areas of expertise. It is a fascinating concept that must be handled gently, inspiringly, and with much discernment. But, the earlier we can gain insight into the inner workings of what our children desire to engage in, the more effective we can be in nurturing their talents, and subsequently the course of their development into adulthood. I want to be clear that I don't suspect anyone will be able to effectively interpret and dictate what a child will develop into simply by paying close attention to their play habits. There is more mystery to human nature than that. But what we can be certain of is that from infancy to adulthood we are always communicating, and an important piece of this communication is our individual talents. If something can be communicated, it can be worked on and supported more effectively. We learn this at our jobs and in our relationships as we hash out the best ways to work together. Because of this, I believe the world of early childhood development is convincingly becoming the most significant environment to reveal and foster our individual gifts.

Getting to know your kids (part 1)

Before I began this blog I decided to google, "getting to know your..." I found some pretty interesting hits, including, "getting to know your: students, lawn, computer," and actually one entitled, "getting to know your opticlik pen." Needless to say, there is a lot of stuff out there that we can access that will help us get to know our belongings, and everything else, a lot better.

I decided to title the blog, "Getting to know your kids," because I have long been intrigued by how children develop such unique skills, personalities, etc. In addition, I have a growing curiosity how soon these strengths and traits start to develop and how much or how little they tarry into adulthood.

The point of this blog is to reflect on how important it is to understand our children's tendencies before we have all of our parenting strategies set in stone. I have doubted for some time that every child should be raised the same way, with the same guidelines, boundaries, strategies, and expectations. Humanity contains extroverts vs. introverts; analyticals vs. globalized learners; technical minds vs. artistic minds; etc. I think that for many years we have been stuck in a one-track direction regarding the way that people (kids included) need to be directed and taught. We now live in a society where we can't simply give information and expect people to learn it. Rather, we have to be creative with the information, imaginative with our presentation of details, and adaptable to teach knowledge through multiple styles of learning. I know this seems like a forbidding task for educators and parents as we teach and raise our children in the way that best fits their learning style and personality. But, it is tenable that the more we invest in relationships with children and study their traits, the more efficient our translation of knowledge will be to them.

Let me give a personal reference regarding what I am alluding to with this concept:

I am a fairly analytical person who likes to function within a fairly elementary, systematic construct. I like for the rules and expectations to be laid out pretty obviously, and from there I can develop and grow. When I am micro-managed, checked on, inundated with rules, I tend to get too overwhelmed to progress. As I work with a simple, sensible set of guidelines, I begin to establish my own rules of engaging my knowledge and strengths. I begin to think introspectively about how I can add to the job based on being given the freedom to do so. If I am told exactly what to do with little basis for the expectation I become wearily unproductive. I will do my job of course, but it will be done within the limits of the rules. I think to some extent we all can feel this way from time to time regarding micromanagement. I think the way I learn and perform on the job is not exactly like everyone else. I believe there are many people who function most effectively and efficiently in a detailed system that offers a high set of expectations that they can work hard to achieve. There may be a large number of people who fit somewhere in between these sometimes conflicting learning/work environments.

As we consider what learning style we are or what ideology of management we prefer to work within, there must be a recognition that we are indeed unique. Let us then move to the idea of how to raise kids with a burgeoning knowledge of their uniqueness (since we have now hopefully accepted that we all work better under varying conditions). I believe that as we study our children, we gather insight into how they like to learn and grow. We can do the most good for our children as we raise them and teach them based upon their individual strengths.

Our children start to evoke personality from the womb. If you ask parents to reflect on what their child was like in the womb compared to how they are several years later, many parents will be able to have connected their child's current traits to the way they acted very early in life. There are numerous studies which defend the connection of neurological pathways and the retainment of information and experience back to the first DNA replication within a child. If personality traits and unique responses are developing this early in life, would we not do our best as parents to begin getting to know our kids even before they enter school and start manifesting difficulties with particular subjects, socializations, or physical detriments? Now I am not trying to be too scientific here. I believe in the notion of choosing a road when we have two or more to go down, but also believe that we are created with a propagating personality that dictates much of who we are.

With this in mind, I contend that as our children are growing and are experiencing life with us as parents, we have an obligation to get to know how they like to learn, to invest time into asking them more questions rather than laying claim to their personality, and to give at least a little rope for them to deviate away from where we had expected them to go. The parent that has developed systems of child-rearing that create a foundation from which to guide and direct, while maintaining a flexibility that allows for creativity and ingenuity, has done much to provide a meaningful and purposeful environment from which their child can flourish.

Part 2 of this blog will express practical ways to get to know your child's personality and how we can work with them in their development.

Our Children's Surroundings

The concept of surroundings has been on my mind a lot as of late. Let me explain... In the world of psychology (of which I spend a lot of my time), there is a sub-field that is called organizational psychology. In organizational psychology, nerdy adults (like myself I suppose) spend an obscene amount of time meditating on how companies can produce the greatest efficiency from their employees. This is everything from encouraging physical fitness programs, hiring company therapists, adding plants to the workspace, and changing the lighting to something more incandescent so employees can maintain production through weary times during the day. You get the idea, and believe you me, this works on our body's physiological and chemical system in unbelievable ways! Organizational psychology has revealed a number of successful transformations in companies across the globe. One example is Google, who offers one free day to their employees weekly to work on any product that they want without having any connection to a Google project (called - "20% time projects"). The results have been stunning as several programs have come from these self-initiated "work days," including "gmail." The point is, that sometimes we make minor changes in a workplace environment, and the effect can alter the productivity of the company in unexpected ways.

Well, with that introduction, I take us to the field of child development and the educational environment. Let me first start by saying that as a teacher I have had a front-row seat in seeing how simple environmental changes in a classroom can alter the entire mood and disposition of children. I have also invested some of my own time researching and rearranging my own classroom to encourage a more calm and soothing ambience. This might be getting slightly weird for some of you, but bear with me. In recent years, entire theories of classroom productivity have evolved from the research and experiences of students and teachers who have adhered to the practice of softening the muddle of the typical classroom in the U.S.

Without going into ominous detail about how this happens, I challenge the readers to take inventory of what your child's play space looks like at your home. Don't stop here... the next time you are in your child's classroom at school, take a look also. If we all take a serious look around, I bet we see that our children's spaces are inundated with bright colors, boxy structures, maybe disorganized, little representation of their own creations and work, etc. I know that the majority of the time when I step into a school classroom, I see much of what I just mentioned. At times it appears like a child factory where strict observation and compliance of teacher and school-directed guidelines are expected. I believe this to be highly indicative of what I mentioned above with the organizational psychology reference: maximum efficiency to maintain order.

Let me shake things up a bit by saying, these are outdated, militant, and non-creative techniques and standards by which to teach a young child. I challenge us to think outside the box as parents and teachers. Introduction of natural products, more subtle colors and patterns, real furniture, anything but flourescent lights (please!), less posters, and more artwork or creations from the children's hands themselves are pre-eminent ideas when helping young minds develop. I realize this just touches on a pretty in-depth and potentially paradigm-altering subject, but I will be delving into further detail in future blogs of how a more calming environment for children can produce ownership, creativity, and visionary results from our kids. I want to maintain a softness when hashing this out because I know many of us are not entirely on board with this idea of change and I totally understand that!

My wife and I have already started this at our house because we saw it as a simple, yet effective way of encouraging more child-centered ingenuity from our son. There is not much in his world to dictate what he should do and create, but rather, he has opportunity and materials to design his understanding and learning from his own senses and mind. We believe it has done a lot to encourage his inspiration and foster perceptiveness in his young life.