Protecting Your Child’s Love of Learning: Learning Differences Part 9

Children are born with an innate drive to learn. This is a precious thing. With no direction whatsoever, hunter-gatherer children will learn and master huge volumes of information.

Medicinal plants, seasonal foods, animal habits, hunting, building, creating, music, dance, cooking, fire building, fishing, weaving…the depth of knowledge and skills needed for adult survival are vast.

Children learn all of this on their own through observation, play, and experimentation. This love of learning is a powerful drive within all children.

Most modern parents understand the importance of nurturing their child’s curiosity and exploration. What we often don’t know is that for some kids, school is going to absolutely crush their love of learning.

Think about it. We evolved to learn and grow while freely roaming in a multi-age play group. Each child was free to learn things at their own pace, and in their own time.

About 200 years ago, we suddenly started stuffing kids into a small room for long hours every day and telling them what and when to learn everything. We also decided, quite randomly and without any data to support it, that all kids of the same age should be able to learn the same things.

As a mother of twins, I can assure you that my kids developed on their own completely different time frames. They were often a year or more apart in the timing of learning skills.

My daughter held her pencil correctly long before her brother. He on the other hand was a whiz at puzzles that left my daughter stumped. Same home, same parents, same toys, yet profoundly different developmental schedules.

We know that this developmental variation is in fact completely normal. If you then add learning differences to this situation, it becomes even more unlikely that all kids are going to feel good in a modern classroom.

You might think our schools will be flexible enough to accommodate this range of development and abilities. Unfortunately, most public schools are completely unequipped for the developmental diversity of kids in their classrooms.

The teachers don’t have the training in developmental variations or learning differences, the class sizes are too large, the curriculum is focused on what to teach not how to teach, playtime has been drastically reduced, and Common Core requirements drive the classroom.

In Finland, they wrote into their educational laws the importance of joy in education. Year after year they have the highest scores in the world for high school achievement. Joy. Learning should be joyful.

Some kids will find that joy in school. Their skills and interests mesh with what is asked of them. But, the schools can also fail your child miserably. They may be completely unable to tap your child’s inborn love of learning and curiosity. They may be unable to teach your child the way they need to be taught.

Kids want to please adults. So, for a while, they may struggle to do what is asked of them. At some point, however, they will shut down to school and often to learning.

One of the most important jobs of a modern American parent is to protect their child’s love of learning. This can be quite hard for some families. Even bright kids can be hurt by schools.

At one school my top of the class 6-year-old daughter was so stressed by school pressure that she cried every night. At the same school, her twin brother was so lost he began saying he didn’t want to live anymore! This was first grade!

I volunteered in their classrooms to see what I might do to help and quickly realize there was no fixing the situation. This was a highly ranked school in a middle class community.

I moved my kids to a Montessori program and within a month they loved school again. In 2 months they were soaring academically…and happy! They wanted to go to school every day! Same kids, same age, much better environment.

In order to protect my children’s love of learning, I’ve had to change my kid’s school multiple times. Every time it was worth it. Absolutely worth it!

The difference between a child who is toughing it out in one environment and joyously thriving in another is huge. You can’t miss it. Their curiosity explodes. Their interests expand.

Not everyone can move their child. Not everyone has the time to research other school options or afford a private school approach. Even well off parents can be overwhelmed by the time it takes to recognize and then find a solution to a bad situation.

There are no easy answers here. Until we fix our public school system, there will be kids who get lost there. Kids whose love of learning is crushed there. What you can do is pay attention to joy in learning. And if your child is losing this joy, do something.

It may be that what you do is within the same school or system. Maybe a charter school will be better for them. Maybe you can help them find the love of learning outside of school.

I encourage you to take your kids seriously when they are unhappy at school. They spend a lot of time there. It can be a place where they blossom or a place they are crushed. If they’re getting crushed, take action. It is one of the most critical roles of modern parents.

Protect your child’s love of learning.

Kathleen Cawley is a physician assistant and author. She is a regular guest columnist for the Auburn Journal and Folsom Telegraph where she writes on parenting and childhood. Her books, Navigating the Shock of Parenthood: Warty Truths and Modern Practicalities — from a mom with twins, And Grandma Becky’s Blue Tongue, a children’s picture book, are available where books are sold.