A lesson for confidence & competence

Young children sometimes face times when they are not very confident and feel incompetent. Sometimes, their friends make them feel less confident because they know more than them and sometimes they feel this way because their siblings overrule them.

There is one skill all teachers at preschools and daycare centers should do. It is one lesson all kids should get. Your students should go home at least once a week and teach their parent or sibling something they have learnt at school.

This idea was adapted by our daycare for all our classes. Once a week, every child had to teach their mum or dad something that they had learnt in school. This simple idea, we realized, is something that should happen at home too – children passing on a skill to others.

Teaching someone something you know enforces learning and also makes children feel good about themselves. The two prime ingredients for learning are at play here: reinforcement and confidence.

Many families end up doing this without knowing. There are families who provide many teaching opportunities. When siblings help one another, teach or pass on some wisdom or knowledge to each other, all these are opportunities to instill confidence and competence.

Here are some ways you can get your preschooler to be more confident:

1. Invite your preschool child to show you something they learnt in school. Ask them to show you how they add up a couple of numbers or how they match a colour to an object.

2. Use ‘show me’ more and more in your vocabulary when you are talking to your young children. Ask them to show you how to clean a room, not just do it. When they think they are showing you how they do something, they automatically feel they are teaching you something!

So go ahead…………make teaching a family habit!