How to Get Your Kids to Love Learning

Try the following tips to help your children become successful learners:

• Be relentlessly positive. Try to maintain a ratio of at least four positive remarks to every critical one. If you're not sure how you're doing, keep a tally for a day or two.
• Remind children that it's OK to make a mistake. Fear of making mistakes can be one of the biggest obstacles to learning.
• Praise effort as well as success.
• Keep all praise genuine. This is easy when children are doing well, but even when they're having difficulties, you can find something to praise. Try phrases such as "That was a good try," "You got part of it right" or "I'm proud of you for doing your best even though it was hard."
• Celebrate every accomplishment, even the small ones, by doing something special. By acknowledging your child's progress, you'll help him or her maintain a positive attitude toward learning.
• Show that you're proud of your child's accomplishments. Display your child's work on the refrigerator door or somewhere else in the home.
• Encourage self-reliance. When your child gets stuck on a problem, rather than giving him or her the answer, try rephrasing the problem or asking open-ended questions, such as "Is there another way to do that?" or "What made you think of doing it that way?"

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