By Bette Freedson, MSW
Introduction
The best way a parent can encourage their four year old to love learning is to model it! If you love learning (and it doesn't have to be academic), your child will see it, and the encouragement will be a natural.
You did not have to be the star in your school to encourage your kid to love to learn. Just do this. Think about what you love to learn, how you learn best, and about what juices up your own learning excitement.
Some Tips:
- Read, read and read some more to your child, and let your four year old "read" to you. You might choose some stories you liked as a child. You might pick up on what naturally interests your child for choices of what to read– and choices of what to do.
- Take them to museums.
- Take them to gardens, and to lakes and woods.
- Take them on field trips to see things being made. And yes, even to amusement parks. All kinds of fun can turn children on to curiosity about how things work.
Teach your child to do the things you enjoy doing, and be generous with showing your pleasure. The secret is to let your child experience your own joy when you go where you love to go, and do what you love to do.
Four-year-olds are precious sponges, who will soak up your enthusiasm and very possibly be turned on for the rest of their lives. And then, lucky parent, they will teach you!
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- Resources on Healthy Parenting
- Healthy Parenting Real Life Stories
Bette J. Freedson, LICSW, LCSW, CGP is the author of the "Relax and Learn Seminars: Skills For All Seasons," a repertoire of workshops based on the principles of effective stress management. In her work Ms. Freedson emphasizes the power of the mind/body connection to improve decision-making, increase effective coping, reduce time wasted in conflict, boost morale and productivity at work, and create greater harmony in relationships.
Ms. Freedson practices clinical social work at The Listening Place in Lynn, Massachusetts. Besides maintaining an additional private practice in South Berwick, Maine, Bette is Social Work consultant to Maine School Administrative District #35.
