Helping Children Grow

I love Spring in the Northwest. After months of gray skies, torrential rain, hail, freezing winds, and snow, cherry trees start blooming. Its hard to capture the beauty of the blooming trees. You are driving along, surrounded by evergreens and trees bare of leaves and then you are astounded by a vibrant tree covered in showy, bright pink flowers. Its almost as if a cosmic artist reaches down from the sky one morning with pink, fuchsia, and purple brushes and says, "Today, this tree will burst with color."

Children are like that. Some bloom vibrant and showy. We know exactly where they are in their life journey. They always tell us what they want, need and desire. They usually love and are good at reading, math, sports, or music. Other children take much longer to bloom. As parents, we might get discouraged. We're not sure how to help them bloom. They may not be crazy about reading, math, sports or music. All school work is a chore. Getting them to sit still to read one book is practically impossible. They seem to jump from one thing to another.

As parents, one of the most important things we can do is empower our children to discover what they love and are good at. We also need to help them recognize and deal with the inevitable frustrations and plateau times that come when they learn a new skill that does not come easily.

TIPS FOR HELPING CHILDREN BLOOM

1) Show them different gardens

Children see the world we show them until they are old enough to move around for themselves. Give your children the gift of seeing how wide and different the world is. Take them to the zoo, the science museum, the candy factory, the ocean, the river, the forest, the history museum, the desert, the library, the art museum, the symphony, the flea market, the fish market, the local bakery. Walk different neighborhoods in your city. Talk about the different nationalities of people that live there. Take them to different grocery stores and let them experience how a Japanese grocery store is not the same as a Walmart. These are all different gardens in our world. Some of them your child will love. Others will only require a short visit before you realize your child is not interested. Take pictures of your adventures to help your child remember what they liked and what they didn't like.

2) Show them different gardeners

Introducing our children to the fact that individuals have an infinite number of differences is an incredible gift. Allowing them to experience people outside of their immediate family who are gregarious or shy, athletic or artistic, competitive or easy-going, technical or mechanical, verbose or taciturn, gives them different pictures of how people can be. While interacting with a variety of personalities, temperaments and intelligences, children realize everyone has a place of importance. In discovering this, they become more confident in their own skin.



3) Allow them to experience different ways of learning

As parents, we are our child's first teacher. Parents are also our child's most enduring teacher. We will be with our child through millions of moments of learning throughout their lives. As parents we can empower our children by helping them experience different ways of learning and to identify their particular learning style. Some children learn best verbally. Others learn visually by seeing something. Still others learn best by using their bodies to learn new skills. How can you discover your child's learning style? When helping them learn to read, pay attention to whether they like singing songs and rhymes, or picking out words and letters in their surroundings. Have them make letter shapes with their body, or shape them out of playdoh. Do they prefer telling you a story, drawing a picture of it, or acting it out? Encourage them to try all of these ways of telling a story and see which ones they are most comfortable with. See Michelle's book, "What Children Need to Learn to Read" for more ideas for reading activities that use different learning styles. When helping them learn to count, try using blocks for counting, or having them jump a certain number of times, or draw you a picture of a certain number of things. Try different board games to expose them to spatial, logic, sequencing and counting activities. For ideas, check out some of my favorites at Learnerslane.com

The miracle of children is that they are so open to learning. Some children might be shy and tentative. However, their love of learning something new and mastering a new skill will overcome any uncertainty, if they are given a garden of openness, encouragement and patience. They will rise to any opportunity we give them to explore new gardens in life if we give them the tools to bloom in their unique way. Start discovering new gardens today!

TIPS FOR BEING A SECRET MILLIONAIRE

My daughters and I have watched the Secret Millionaire show for the last two weeks. The show's idea is when a millionaire goes to a depressed part of town and lives incognito, looking for people who are doing good in their community. The millionaire lives on a welfare wage, in a very poor part of town and gets to know different community groups working to improve their communities. At the end of the show, the millionaire of the week reveals their identity and makes a donation to one or more groups they liked.

Last week featured Marc Paskin, who lived in Detroit for a week. He met a single mom who was raising her 4-year-old, while taking weekly kidney dialysis. She shared that her body rejected her kidney the same week her daughter was born pre-maturely at 27 weeks.

This week featured James Malinchak, who lived in Gary, IN for a week. He met a woman who was hiring people to go out and clean up piles of trash because she believed that it was possible to bring Gary back to its original glory.



All of us would love to be millionaires. We would love to have thousands to give away to groups helping others. We may not have a million dollars, but we can make a difference in other people's lives. Michelle met James Malinchak at a recent author conference and they talked about her book, What Children Need to Learn to Read, and agreed that being able to read well is essential for children.

Make sure people in your life know how special they are.

One of the most poignant scenes in Secret Millionaire happened when James Malinchak gave $20,000 to a woman who had set up an organization to clean up trash in Gary. She gave people jobs and she made the city cleaner. She was taking tangible steps to restore hope. She was a vivacious, positive, upbeat lady. She dressed with a beautiful sense of style. When John gave her a check, she burst into tears and said, "No one has ever believed in me like this."

As parents, it is essential that we take tangible steps everyday to make sure our children know we believe in them. There is nothing we do that is more important than this. Our children need to hear this loud and clear from us in a million different ways. Believing in them does not mean giving in to every thing they want and do. It means we make sure they know that we believe they will succeed in life.

Give your children the gift of education.

In the first episode, the single mom received a gift of $20,000. She started crying and said that she just wanted to buy some nice things for her daughter. At the end of the show the update showed that the young woman had decided to use the money to go back to school, so that she could get a better job. Education is critical. She understood that schooling is worth more than new shoes or clothes. As parents, every time we help our children learn, read books to them, teach them new words, make sure they know their math facts, we are instilling a love of learning in them that is priceless. Children who can read well, use math concepts easily and write critically, will be successful adults. Play learning games with your children. Build on their natural curiosity and energy. Use this to make sure that they love learning for the rest of their life.

Give to the causes that touch your heart.

In each episode of Secret Millionaires, James and Marc had a special bond with one or two people that they met. With our children, we always love them. However, there are certain causes or commitments our children have that especially touch our hearts. Some parents love taking their children to basketball 3 times a week. To other parents, this would be torture. Other parents love sharing their love of music and will take them to piano lessons for years. To some parents, music lessons are wasted time away from sports. Some parents are great with stories and language. Others of us are better at math. Know what you love and share that with your child.

Take care of the basics.

One of the individuals who touched James Malinchak was a basketball coach. This coach had helped a number of teen-age girls go to college by giving them opportunities in basketball. Because he wasn't making much money, he was close to losing his home. James decided to give him some money to help him so he could go on coaching. The man was able to pay off his mortgage and continue coaching. It is essential that we help our children take care of the basics so they can focus on doing what they love most. After good food, sleep and a warm house, the basics of learning to read, add and write are critical. Once these skills are mastered, our children can reach whatever dream they set for themselves.

Time is worth more than money

Every single moment you spend with your child helping them master new skills, learn fundamental things like the alphabet and phonetic sounds, and math facts -- comes back to you and to them 10 fold. You are investing in a life. What greater investment can you make?

Go out today and be with your children. Recognize all the ways that you are already a millionaire. Be aware of all the millions you receive in hugs, smiles, giggles and the music of your child's voice.

For new learning games to play with your child, visit
Learnerslane.com