Stand tall with a flashing light on your head?
We’ve noticed a big difference in our kids over lockdown. They’ve become calmer (note in a mind sense, they’re still grenades of energy and clambering) and opened up to the option of eating different foods.
We started homeschooling them about 3 weeks prior to lockdown because K was really struggling with learning. Due to her background she didn’t ever really feel safe. Sometimes break-away study groups would be in the corridor.
Her mind couldn’t focus on the tasks being set because of how busy the environment was. There was a lot of noise and that triggered her survival strategies.
Our strategy was nothing to do with education because she couldn’t put herself in a place to learn; it was always about improving her emotional health and confidence.
When her and A played schools, she would always line the students up and boll0ck them, shouting that they were going to be put on red and sit out if they didn’t listen.
Over the past few months, she has watched me and Fran teaching our classes and recording our bootcamp follow along sessions. She has started to go in the cabin and ‘teach’ her classes a bit of fitness, dancing, martial arts and more recently some numbers and letters (we are doing some ‘real’ learning too).
The main thing we’d picked up on in the cabin was her energy and excitement for teaching to the screen and also how well she was doing burpees and squats.
However, the biggest breakthrough was when I witnessed her teaching a more traditional class; the dreaded phonics and numbers.
She was calm and encouraging to her dolls and babies. No-one got yelled at or bollock3d.
She has consistently witnessed another way of doing things and has mimicked that behaviour. We haven’t tried in anyway or forced this to be her approach; it just how we teach.
The same is happening with food and exercise.
We always have veggies on our plate and put a portion on their plates. We don’t make a big thing about it. Sometimes they eat them without fuss and sometimes they ignore them.
They do see us eating lots of vegetables every day, consistently. We don’t tell them they have to eat them and have none on our own plates.
Exercise is also part of what we do in the day. Having a dog helps as a daily family walk is something we do to be kind to Pop. However, we also both train a few times per week, either in the gym in the garage or the garden. As well as filming our classes.
As a result, they both play games where fitness is part of it. Doing little runs with press ups etc.
If you want your kids or family members to do something, you need to do it yourself without comment or recognition. Be the lighthouse and lead the way.
It takes time but it does pay off.
Darren ‘shine’ Checkley
P.S. This isn’t a criticism of her teachers in anyway, we don’t have 30 screaming kids in a room so we don’t need to raise our voices at all. K can experience a slight volume lift in voice as a shout or aggression. Her teachers didn’t scream at their students in the same way that she perceived and copied. She heard it that way because of her past experiences.
This is something we are constantly working on with her; she still has meltdowns and outbursts. She is simply getting better at controlling them. We are trying to be the best example of that we can and it takes time; they moved in with us nearly 4 years ago.
