Parents & Engagement Learning

When children are engaged, regardless of how old they are, we can always see the same key aspects to the way they are relating to their experience: Their involvement is total. Their senses are open and their focus is complete. This is what we call “Engagement Learning” and it describes a child's healthy interaction with his or her world.

STRUCTURE

As parents, we create the structure for our child's life at home. This is the "what happens when and where" day-to-day plan. It forms the basis of what a child expects to happen each day. Habits and routines are the product of a helpful, steady structure.

Children need this structure in their day. It releases time and it increases security. They are not having to make choices about everything they do. We lift a burden of misplaced responsibility from their shoulders when we set and maintain a dependable structure for our children.

PARENTS' WORLD / CHILDREN'S WORLD

We allow children to get on with their "work" when are clear about what is our business as parents and what is their business as children. Drawing children too early into the adult world sabotages childhood.

Because parents often lack the confidence to be adults, they rely on premature negotiation to disciplne their children- threats, bribery and pleading - all of which hand over the power in the relationship and the weight of responsibility for their children to carry.

THE SKILLS' DILEMMA

It is a natural drive for parents to want to do the best for their children. But children need time more than anything in their childhood years. They need time to balance the stimulating input and activity directed from outside of themselves with their own self-directed play and busy exploration.

If our children find it hard to settle into something which is not entertaining, capturing their interest, demanding their response, then we need to look at how we can rebuild the powers of focus and imagination. Responding to outer stimuli - sports' clubs, screen culture and shopping - is not enough for a child. Being creative is an inner drive. It connects what we do with our instincts.

Too great a focus on developing children's skills takes up valuable childhood time, increases obsessive attitudes and encourages them to mimic adult behaviour.