by Bob Doman

My son won’t do what I tell him to do.

Mom said, “Stop it!” for the ten-thousandth time.

Why should I?

The kids are out of control.

You’re not the boss of me.

Susie won’t sit at the table and finish her meal.

I can’t get him to do anything.

Many parents feel powerless to get their children to obey. They try rewards and every “punishment*” under the sky, but the kids still ignore them and do what they want, when they want.

Even though I’ve heard it perhaps thousands of times, every time I hear an adult, a parent, tell me their little thirty-pound child won’t listen to them and that they can’t get their child to obey, follow directions, stop doing something harmful or dangerous, or do something important for their development and education, I am a bit taken aback. Whether your child is two, ten, or a teen you have power—if you wish to exercise it—to gain control.

Your child can’t eat something unless you buy it; they can’t watch TV, listen to music, play a video game, use an iPad or any screen for that matter unless you let them. They can’t go to the park or do many things unless you facilitate or permit it.

The things your child really likes are the things that provide you with parent power; if you are willing to use your power. Access to favorite foods or treats, access to screens, music, special toys, extra or special events, etc. are not in the category of necessities. They are things you as a parent can choose or not choose to provide. These things need to be perceived by you as special things you are providing for your child; not having them is not deprivation.

If I suggest to some parents that they need to withhold favorite items or activities and use them as rewards for compliance, cooperation, or trying, I will hear comments such as, “Johnny will throw a fit if I limit his screen time!” A parent who is afraid to control their child is the parent of a child who is doing a better job of using rewards and consequences with their parents than the parents are with them.

A rule of thumb with children’s behavior is that they do what works, regardless of how self-defeating it may appear to be. If you tell Johnny he can’t play with the iPad and he throws a fit, he is doing it because throwing a fit works; it gets you to do what he wants. He is punishing your behavior. When you need Johnny to keep himself occupied and stay out of trouble and he quietly spends hours on the iPad, he is rewarding your behavior of letting him do what he wants. If Johnny’s fits didn’t work, he would stop having them. The typical parental response to this is, “I don’t let it work, I don’t give him what he wants.” My response to the parents is, “How consistently do you not give in and let it work?” Even if the parent’s response is, “most of the time,” that isn’t enough. If Johnny believed you, he wouldn’t do it because he knows it’s not going to work. Kids are terrible with odds. You wouldn’t gamble on something with lousy odds, would you? It depends, doesn’t it? You might buy a Powerball ticket with odds of 1 in 292,201,338 with the chance of winning millions. Guess what? To your five-year-old, getting the iPad right this minute is more significant than 100 million dollars to them (at least in part because they may have spent so much time on it that they are now addicts).

Historically I haven’t found that taking everything away from children to be productive. It is and feels to them to be punitive and it doesn’t work. But controlling their one favorite thing, or a few of their favorite things, and having them earn them does work. There is a difference, a significant difference.

There are a few important principles for parents to learn in dealing with their child’s behavior.

Behavior Principle #1

First is the concept of opposite incompatible behaviors. If you take advantage of this concept, in many, if not most cases, you can reward a behavior rather than punishing an opposite behavior. Rewards almost always work better than punishments and they make us as parents feel much better. They also move us toward creating a positive environment.

Examples of Opposite Incompatible Behaviors:

• not staying in bed/staying in bed
• not doing a chore/doing the chore
• siblings fighting/siblings not fighting
• not cooperating/cooperating
• having a lousy attitude/having a good attitude

Behavior Principle #2

Second, if we are trying to start a new behavior, we start with a small demand and a big reward. In the category of behavior, we have everything from a child saying “please”, to a child playing nicely with a sibling, to taking off their socks, to working hard on a processing activity. As we get the new behavior started and are establishing a new behavior pattern, we decrease the intensity/size and the type of the reward.

Behavior Principle #3

Third, always couple a tangible reward such as a treat, a special privilege, or even money, with a “social” reward. A social reward means praise, a hug, a high five, etc. As we build the habit of the new behavior, we decrease or phase out the tangible reward and maintain the “social” reward, albeit perhaps at a less intense level.

Behavior Principle #4

Fourth, if we are using something they like and that is important for them as a reward, if that thing can only be accessed as a reward, it has much greater power than if it is just a way to get more of whatever.

How to Implement These Principles

Let me give you two examples of how to implement these principles:

Example 1:

You have taught little Susie how to make her bed and the expectation is that she will now make her bed before leaving her room in the morning. If Susie does not make her bed, do we come up with a punishment? Do we punish this “bad” behavior or find a way to reward the opposite incompatible behavior? After we have taught her how to make her bed independently, we tell her that we want her to make her bed by herself before she leaves her room and comes to breakfast. To help this brand-new behavior along, we kick-start it with a BIG reward. So, for example, you tell Susie what you want and that you are going to be very proud of her if she does this grown-up thing. If she does it, you will make her pancakes for breakfast with syrup, strawberries, and whipped cream. Then after breakfast, you will go to the park. When she comes out for breakfast, you go into her room with her to see if she has completed her job. If she has, you cheer, pick her up, twirl around and give her a big hug, then proceed to make her pancakes, and then head to the park, all the while taking opportunities to tell her how proud you are of her for making her bed. If it turns out she did not make her bed, say something like, “I’m sad you forgot to make your bed. I was going to be so happy to make you pancakes and go to the park, I bet you can remember to do it tomorrow. Without mentioning it, plain eggs for breakfast and no trip to the park; also do not make a big deal of it all. Any attention has the potential to be rewarding, so drop it and move on.

As we continue with Susie making her bed, we slowly decrease the size and frequency of the tangible reward and to some degree the intensity of the “social” reward. Day two of success may earn the pancakes with all the fixings and the trip to the park. Day three, the pancakes, without the strawberries and whipped cream, but no park. After day six or so, start making the pancakes randomly every two to three days, always praising her for the good job she is doing, and then slowly phase out the pancakes, leaving a new behavior pattern and small social rewards, shifting emphasis to new behaviors. We can now avoid the unhealthy pancakes again or save them to help start another new behavior, but only make pancakes when they are being used to build a new behavior—they’re special and have special power.

Example 2:

Sean spends every possible minute he can watching YouTube on the iPad and when you try to take it away so he can do some reading, chores or other productive activity, he throws a huge fit. Sometimes he wins immediately, and you give up and let him watch his favorite videos. Other times you take it away and fight with him for an hour until he sort-of does what you want and then is immediately back to his screen. Do we punish the negative behavior of throwing a fit and not giving up the iPad, or do be find a way to turn the iPad into power?

In Sean’s case we actually have a few issues. He is addicted to watching/perseverating with YouTube videos, he is being defiant, and he is wasting his day doing an unproductive and harmful activity rather than being present, engaged and learning. To compound the problem, the constant negative attention he was getting from fighting and often winning was making his world extremely negative. The negativity was teaching Sean to work for the negatives, not the infrequent positives. It was defining him to himself and others as a negative, unhappy, and uncooperative child. Used correctly, the iPad could not only provide us with power, but it can be used to develop new positive behaviors.

The first thing I would do with Sean, is to take away the iPad completely for a week or two to start breaking the addiction and to teach him that you, and not he, are in control. Take it away, lock it away, and tell him that he has been watching it too much and that it has become bad for him. Period. No further discussion, no arguments. Of course, he will throw a massive fit, but don’t argue, discuss, or give in. As soon as you convince him that he isn’t getting it (if you have an option like going with him and leaving the iPad at Granddad’s house, use it), he will stop fighting. Kids do what work, and when he decides that you aren’t giving in and that his fit isn’t going to work, he will stop. After a few days of peace, it’s time to use the power.

Our goal is to turn the negative behavior of Sean watching endless YouTube videos into the opposite incompatible behavior of working, cooperating, and doing things that are positive for his growth and development. For Sean there is probably a long list of things you would like to see him do, from specific chores, to reading, working on processing, to math. In the past, every one of these things had become negative and he would either have a tantrum and win or throw a fit and eventually sort of do what was asked, but neither well nor as an active participant.

To start on the road to the new Sean, we would define a task that is definitive, that is clearly accomplished correctly. Examples include things like doing five math problems correctly (make it easy), taking the trash out, or emptying the dishwasher. Sean is told that when he accomplishes his task well he will be permitted to play on the iPad for 10 minutes. If Sean enjoys playing good games or doing things other than watching YouTube, I encourage removing all of the offensive material, including YouTube, from the iPad before giving him access. Upon proper completion of the task, give Sean a lot of positive praise and then set a timer for 10 minutes and immediately let him play for the ten minutes. As you proceed with Sean, you would add more and more projects for him, and while maintaining all of the positive social rewards, you would also increase the demands and decrease the iPad time and start looking for other perhaps healthier rewards. As Sean’s world becomes more and more positive, he will hopefully start perceiving himself differently and being happy, while you are moving the tangible rewards in better directions and slowly phase them out completely. You should also be able to decrease the intensity of the social rewards. It’s important to note that another term for “social rewards” is “adult rewards.” As we teach Sean to be a positive active participant and how it feels to receive positive acknowledgement for his efforts, we are also teaching him to appreciate adult reinforcement and to become more mature and responsible.

Parents, learn not to jump when your child says, “jump.” If you are tired of your child pulling the strings and if you would like to gain control, help your child develop, and make his or her world and your world more positive, use the “power” and remember to use the four principles.

*Punishment—a consequence to a behavior that decreases the frequency of the behavior. If you continue to “punish” a behavior and it is not decreasing or being eliminated, you are in fact not punishing, but may be reinforcing a behavior with attention, possibly being abusive or punitive and definitely creating a negative environment.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 33 No. 7, 2020 ©NACD

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by Bob Doman

My teacher thinks I’m dumb!

I must be!

The other kids don’t like me!

Something is wrong with me!

I’m just not okay!

Granddad thinks I’m the greatest!

He’s smart—I must be great!

Mom likes me and loves me!

I’m likeable and loveable!

Everyone who comes in contact with our children has some influence on them. The more important the individual is perceived to be by the child, the more credibility and impact the individual has and the greater their influence.

I recall hearing the story about a seven-year-old girl who saw her teacher go into a restroom at school; she came home devastated. She had put her teacher on such a high pedestal that her teacher was perceived as virtually God-like, and as such she shouldn’t need to use a bathroom. Gods don’t poop and pee! If a child perceives a teacher or a coach or anyone in authority as special or important, anything and everything they say can have incredible impact.

In the past 50 years there has been a dramatic increase in the exposure of children to outside influences. Prior to the age of five, children used to be at home and were exposed to a very short list of individuals—family, family friends, and neighbors. Back then it was much easier to supervise and control the input and minimize negative input. Children today are put under the care of many people beyond the immediate family, often almost from birth. Our children are spending a significant part of their waking day under the “supervision” of daycare staff, teachers, aides, coaches, piano teachers, gymnastics teachers, ballet teachers, and on and on. All of these exposures have the potential to be positive and enriching; but the point is that even a single word or look from the “right” authority figure can have a huge impact on the developing child. And many children get a lot more than a single word or look, and, sadly, any child with any kind of developmental, behavioral, or learning issue is much more likely to receive even more negative input.

I recently saw a ten-year-old, Tim. Tim came to us with labels including Anxiety Disorder, OCD, ADHD, non-compliance, and just to add as many labels and as much baggage as possible, dysgraphia*. This boy was a major challenge for his school and his parents. He would incessantly lie and steal, and he was defiant and manipulative. His family was at wit’s end. Tim’s psychiatrist had him on Prozac and Clonidine to “address” his “psychiatric disorders.” Tim hated school and received ongoing intense negative reactions from every authority figure in his life throughout most every day. Truth was, he was a smart, hurting little boy, whose biggest developmental issue wasn’t his weak working memory and essentially an absence of executive function, it was the impact all of the negative reactions/input he was receiving that was defining him. His behavior was largely a reflection of who he was being taught that he was. He was lowering himself to everyone’s expectations of who he was. He was who he was being taught he was.

We gave Tim a program to address his developmental and learning issues and taught the family how to turn his world around, making things positive for him. We encouraged them to take him out of school and do an NACD home education/developmental program with him. Literally, within days of being home and creating a positive environment (before program could have impacted any of his developmental issues), this boy was transformed into a happy, pleasant, cooperative child. Hopefully he will be completely weaned off his medications very soon. It’s amazing what can happen when you view a child as a whole child and address the cause rather than attempt to treat the symptoms.

If we wish to have control over outcomes, we need to control as many variables as possible. Parents are continually and not-so-subtly being encouraged to abdicate their role and position by “responsible” others, professionals, institutions, and society.

To produce good outcomes, it is very difficult to beat what proactive, involved, informed, caring, loving, and trained parents can do. It is virtually impossible to direct and supervise any aspect of a child’s development and education without understanding the whole child. If the parent doesn’t know the whole child, then no one does. Rarely does anyone other than a parent know and understand the whole child as does the parent—or, as did the parent. Children are coming under the influence of more and more people who are for the most part well intentioned, but who neither know or even wish to know the whole child and often don’t realize the power of their looks and words. Their perceived job is to work with their piece of that child, not necessarily contribute to the well being of the whole child, whoever he or she might be.

The whole child is something I talk about a lot because it is so very important. Tragically the reality is that there are often so many fingers in the metaphoric pie that there is virtually no one who even knows what kind of pie is being made.

Children need parents to be in charge; children need the people who know them, know them as a whole unique human being, who are responsible for that whole precious human being, and who hopefully also have a vision for that child’s future.

But lest we forget, the most important people to most children are the parents, and it is critical that parents understand how to interact with their children, how to create a positive environment, and how to provide them with quality feedback. Our children do not come with a manual. Fortunately parents are educable.

I would suggest you read the first four articles in this series and read the ones to come.

Our children cannot become all they can be if we parents aren’t all we can be.

*Dysgraphia – Dysgraphia epitomizes the issue of labeling individual differences as diseases. Dysgraphia has been described as an issue with writing/forming numbers or letters, or simply “messy writing.” It is also used as a label for children who have issues expressing themselves in writing or typing. It is called a learning disability and a neurological disorder. What is it really? It is merely a symptom of differences in rate of development and generally temporary individual weaknesses, that when addressed individually are generally easily remediated. One of the more significant causes of “dysgraphia” is trying to teach children to write before they have even established a dominant hand or even know how to read. It’s difficult to write with the wrong hand and compose a sentence if you can’t read one. It would be nice if the educational system understood child development, individual differences, and whole children.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 33 No. 5, 2020 ©NACD

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You say nice things –I like you!

You’re fun to be around!

You think I’m good-you like me!

I’ll be good for you and try hard!

You just say ugly things to me!

You think I’m bad and dumb—then I’ll be bad and dumb!

Simple statements: The more positive you are with a child, the more they will like you, respect you, and work to please you, because they will feel better about themselves when they are with you. What we and others say to them forms their self image. We tell them who they are.

Good quality positive feedback develops positive attitudes, good self-image, and it motivates. Providing quality feedback is not necessarily easy nor does it come naturally to many of us. Please see my article Feedback Part 1 to get a better picture of what good quality feedback needs to be.

The more problems and issues a child has, the fewer obvious opportunities there may be to give them positive feedback; but the more problems and issues they have, the more they need positive feedback.

Most children who are high functioning and doing well receive lots of positive feedback. Every good grade on a test provides positive feedback; if they made a basket or scored a goal, they receive positive feedback; if they look nice, they receive positive feedback; if they have friends, they receive positive feedback. High functioning children tend to do well socially and have friends and positive social relationships—all things that provide positive feedback and, in turn, motivate and encourage the child to try more and do more. If you do a lot of things well, you receive a lot of positive feedback, generally feel pretty good about yourself, and on the occasion when you receive criticism, you accept it, learn from it, and are better for it.

Children who do not do well academically or in sports or socially tend to receive very little positive feedback. Their life is often filled with poor grades and failures in many, if not most, of the things they do. On the occasion when they receive positive feedback, they don’t believe it; and when they receive negative feedback/attention, it’s an affirmation that they are “dumb” or “bad” or whatever.

The children who receive the least positive feedback are the ones who need it the most.

Who children think they are is primarily a reflection of the feedback they receive. The feedback they receive determines how they define themselves.

Giving children real, true, and positive feedback is imperative.

One very important way to help every child is to create a positive environment for them. A positive environment helps motivate them, helps them develop a positive self-image, and it provides you the parent, caregiver, coach, or teacher with power to influence them in a positive way.

I define a positive environment as one that has a ratio of four positives to every one negative. The ratio of 4:1 is strong enough on the positive side to provide all the benefits of a positive environment, but also provides the opportunity for constructive criticism or feedback to extinguish unwanted behaviors and make corrections.

Think of a common scenario involving a child with a developmental, learning, or behavior problem or combination of all three. Typically such a child may live in a world where they receive only one positive to every four negatives. The sad reality is that for many such children that ratio is 1:10 or more, much more. Imagine their life–they are doing math and they hear, “That one is wrong. So is this one and that one and…”

When they are reading, for every word missed they hear, “Wrong!” and every word read correctly gets ignored. They play appropriately by themselves and get ignored. Then they poke their sister, who squeals, and they get a quick sharp, intense response from Mom. This is their day. Do something right—minimal or no feedback; do something wrong, and you are “bad” and “dumb” at math, reading, and even playing, or simply just “bad” and ”dumb.”

When balanced, negative comments and reactions generally have a significantly stronger impact on us than do most positives. Also, most negative responses are delivered with greater intensity than positives, thus the need for the ratio of 4:1 positives to negatives to create a good positive environment.

Parents, caregivers, and teachers need to learn how to find the opportunities for positive feedback. Mark and comment on everything that is right; don’t emphasize what is wrong, comment and emphasize what is right. Take note of those things that are wrong and come back and teach them. For children with behavior issues, catch them being good and let them know it. Perceive the struggling child as a child with the potential to do well, and work to help them develop that new perception.

We change the brain through the neuroplasticity fundamentals of frequency, intensity, and duration. It’s important to understand that neuroplasticity is how the brain changes and develops. Consistent positive input/feedback helps produce positive outcomes–motivation, good intentions, good self-image, and happy children. Consistent negative input/feedback creates negative self-image, poor attitudes, and unhappy children and helps produce negative outcomes. Negatives impact the brain, and if delivered with sufficient frequency, intensity, and duration, we do change the brain, building negative perceptions and making the brain more receptive to interpreting even positive comments as negatives.

Creating a positive world for your child goes a long way toward gaining their attention and cooperation and toward developing the strengths and abilities that you want to foster.

Your goal: four positives to every negative.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 33 No. 3, 2020 ©NACD

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by Bob Doman

Was that right or wrong?

Did I do well or not?

Was that important or not?

Does getting it right matter, and if so how much?

Should I care—do I care?

Is it fun?

Do I like this and want to do it again?

Am I good at this?

Am I smart or dumb?

Most children’s answers to these questions are based on the feedback they receive. It’s not the actual performance at the moment that counts; it’s the response they get from it.

Your children, regardless of level of function, are reacting, changing, and developing based on how targeted the input, the frequency, intensity, and duration of the input, and the feedback they receive or not. Most children’s direction and rate of development can be significantly, if not dramatically, altered based on the feedback they receive.

At NACD we are fortunate to have a Portal upon which our families post videos that show how children’s programs are being implemented, and also how the children are functioning. One of the things we watch for on these videos is the feedback that the children receive and the general tone of the session. Inevitably we see a correlation between the quality and consistency of feedback and the rate of development of the child.

One glaring area where the feedback, or lack of, is easily seen is when we see a video of family or caregiver doing an activity that is repetitious. A common activity is working on sequential processing in which a child listens to or sees a sequence of items, then says or demonstrates in some way what they saw or heard. The feedback we observe varies from negative, to nothing, to fair/poor, to good, up to spectacular. We can fairly accurately predict the child’s rate of progress, or lack of, based on the feedback they are receiving. Let’s look at examples of each:

Negative Feedback

Essentially here we are seeing correct responses ignored and errors acknowledged. If the only attention the child receives, even if negative, comes when they make an error, you are actually increasing the odds of getting incorrect responses.

No Feedback

This is perhaps the most frustrating interaction to observe. Regardless of whether the response was correct or incorrect, the response is to simply give the child another sequence. If they don’t know if their answer is correct or incorrect, that is essentially communicating that it doesn’t matter one way or the other. So who cares and why try? The message is, “Let’s just get this over with.”

Fair/Poor Feedback

In these instances the child receives a relatively neutral response, such as “good” to every response whether it was correct or not. Or the child receives a low intensity “right” or “wrong” or “yes” or “no” response, or the equivalent. The reality of these responses is that the negative “wrong” or “no” has a greater impact on the child than do the affirmative responses. This makes the entire experience negative. These responses have low intensity and essentially communicate that it’s not really a big deal if you get this right or wrong, so why put yourself out. It also says, “This really isn’t fun, and I stink at it.”

Good Feedback

In giving good feedback, there is strong acknowledgement of correct answers: “Super!” “Great—you got it!” “Wow- you got another one!” And in response to incorrect answers, there is encouragement: “Almost, you’re going to get the next one,” “Oh, close—come on, let’s get the next one!” With good feedback the child should be feeling good, the emphasis is on their success, there should be smiles from both the caregiver and the child, and the child should be motivated to try hard and welcome the next session.

Excellent Feedback

Excellent feedback requires attention and preparation. The caregiver needs to observe the child and determine if it’s a good time to do the activity. Is the child wide awake? In a reasonably good mood? Are you making sure you’re not pulling them away from something fun? Part of the preparation is also getting yourself pumped so that you can start the activity with energy and the intention that you are going to be successful. And in some cases, part of the preparation is setting up some kind of reward system. The excellent feedback doesn’t need to sound significantly different than the “good feedback,” but the energy level is higher, the intention acknowledged before the activity is even started, and if needed some kind of reward system beyond the social/verbal acknowledgement is employed. What this additional reward system is would be very child specific. For young, lower processing children, that reward would need to be immediate and could range from a little food reward, to physically picking the child up and dancing around the room, to them engaging in one of their very favorite activities. For older, higher processing children, some form of a positive token economy system is often effective and appropriate. If you value the results you are trying to achieve, then give value to the results.

Whenever possible you want to teach your child to love whatever it is that you want them to do and do well. Simply put, if they love it they are going to do the activity with a lot of positive intention and intensity and do well. You really have the power to do this with virtually anything. One of the things I hate to hear from parents and caregivers is that Johnny is bored with the reading, math, processing activity, or whatever. In any activity that you are engaged in with the child, you are the one in control of how much fun it is, how much positive intensity there is, and ultimately how much the child loves the activity and thus their success.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 33 No. 1, 2020 ©NACD

The post Feedback and Its Impact on Behavior, Learning, Development, and More – Part 1 appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

by Bob Doman

I’m good at reading!

I love to read!

I stink at reading—I hate it!

I’m great at soccer!

I really like playing soccer; let’s play some more!

I’m lousy at soccer—I hate it, I quit!

Simple statement: You like what you think you’re good at. The ramifications of this simple truth are tremendous.

If you feel you are doing well at something, you are motivated to do it more. You approach each new event with a positive attitude. You approach each new event with intensity, and you want to keep doing it, and you want to do it again. The key to triggering neuroplasticity is providing specific targeted input with the necessary frequency, intensity, and duration. Learning is changing the brain—physically changing the brain by growing connections and building networks. The process is what it is—the components are written in our DNA; we can’t escape it. We need to understand it and use it to the child’s advantage.

For fifty years I have been preaching that the first thing, the first goal when trying to teach a child anything is to first teach them to love it. Whether we are hoping to teach a child to crawl, walk, run, read, do math, or do chores, we need to teach them to love it or at the very least, like it.

“You can’t teach a child to love cleaning a toilet!” I beg to differ. If you know your child, you should be able to use that knowledge to create a fun, motivating environment around teaching them how to do it; and once learned, give them a lot of real and positive feedback. You can teach them to love cleaning a toilet.

One of the first things I often have to encourage parents and caregivers to do before starting to teach a child anything is to remember school. Odds are fairly good that if you replicate a lot, if not most, of what you remember school being like, you’re doing it wrong. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Learning can be and should be fun.

Back at the beginning of my career, I was a special education teacher. I worked hard to teach the eighteen children in my class, who all had serious learning challenges and labels like Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, and autism, to love reading and math. Randomly throughout the day I would have class question sessions and would throw out questions to a few of the kids in each session. I knew the kids and knew what they knew, so I would call out a child’s name and ask them a question that I felt confident that they could answer correctly; and when they did, I would wing a poker chip at them that they would have to scramble for. The token bought them time at the reward table at the back of the room. I taught the group to cheer at every correct answer, and the lucky child would grab his poker chip and go back to the reward table, where there were math papers with their names on them and books with their names as well. The kids loved doing math and reading and loved earning the reward of doing more math and reading. The tone, the environment, and the feedback can make most anything fun and positive. If the child likes whatever is to be taught and feels they do it well, they are going to approach the session with intensity and are going to want to do it frequently and to continue to do it (duration).

Another thing I did as a teacher was to mark only what was right/correct on a paper. I could give a child ten math problems, and if they only got one right, that gave me the opportunity to say things like, “Wow, you got that tough one right,” “See? You’re getting it—you got that one!” “Great, I bet next time you’re going to get more of them.” Why do schools always mark what’s wrong not what’s right? Typically if a child is given ten problems or questions, and if they got nine correct and one wrong, there is a big red mark on the one they got wrong. This essentially communicates to the child that you don’t care what they know, the emphasis is on what they don’t know.

We aren’t going to change what is happening in school very soon. I’ve spent fifty years trying to do it, with minimal success. But we can change how we do things at home.

I have spoken to groups of parents who have opted to keep their children home rather then send them to school, and I have actually encouraged them to refer to what they are doing as “home education,” not “home school,” because so many homeschoolers work very hard to replicate just what they do at school. We can do so much better.

You have the power to create fun, positive environments around teaching most everything. And you have the power to control the feedback and to make it positive. If your children approach what you are doing with positive intention and intensity, you are going to see them progress well, and you and they are going to enjoy doing it.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 33 No. 2, 2020 ©NACD

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