Children won’t learn unless they’re made to
Hey guys!
I recently posted something on Instagram that I thought would do as a great blog post where I have more space to write about it…
It’s based on the misconception that ‘Children won’t learn unless they’re made to‘ (WTF! *eye-roll*)
Some people think that they have to force, push and manipulate kids, otherwise they won’t learn and achieve anything in life.
That they would always choose the easy path… (OMG I can’t stop rolling my eyes!)
But nothing could be further from the truth. It’s total BS and this is why:
Look at these two… It would be easier to just walk but they set themselves the challenge of not touching the lines (does this look familiar?):
Instead of sitting on the moving horse, Lima decides to balance on it:
Instead of walking up the hill next to Bo, Lima decides to put her on her back:
Everything is hard when you do it for the first time. From the moment they were born (and that is true for every human being, not just my daughters), they had to face daily challenges. Kids LOVE challenges and they look for them and create them for themselves!
They’ve learned to walk, talk, manipulate tools, machines, toys etc and most of it ALL BY THEMSELVES, BECAUSE THEY WANTED TO.
One could argue that they would have learned to walk and talk anyway because their bodies were made for it but this is not the case. If a human never sees another person walk, they won’t learn it. If they never heard someone else speak, they wouldn’t speak.
They learn by copying and trying. They fail and try again and again until they know how to do it. Whatever it is. Without external motivation, without reward or punishment.
Conclusion
Kids learn everything they need for their own life because they want to.
What do kids need for their lives? That’s for THEM to decide, not up to you, my dear parent! Sorry, for spoiling your good intentions but I’m here to remind people of the fact that children are their own person and not our property or pets that we need to teach everything we believe is important for them.
Why? Because we simply don’t know.
We limit them when we try and teach them what we think is best for them. We take their attention away from what they’d be focussed on by internal motivation and pure interest.
Every day, my kids use many opportunities to challenge themselves, to learn new things, to explore al different kinds of stuff, to repeat what’s fun and interesting. We get better at something by repetition and combined with fun, it’s the key to learning fast and retain what we learned.
School kids don’t get those opportunities. For about 8 hours a day they have to do what teachers and parents want them to do and have very little time to repeat what’s interesting and fun which means they miss out on hour and hours of learning possibilities day in day out, for 13 years or more.
So don’t worry about kids not learning when you’re thinking of homeschooling or even unschooling. The less home education resembles the typical school environment, the better and more your children will learn. I know it’s counterintuitive but true.
