How to Teach Your Child by HubTactics

I've been thinking lately. Actually, I've been thinking all my life. Actually, I've been thinking since my brain stem developed several month's before my 'life' began. And I've been thinking about thinking. I've been thinking about how I can think how to encourage you to think. I've been thinking how I can encourage you to think about how you can encourage your children to think.

If you've read my first article in the "How to Teach Your Child" series you will appreciate that I do not adhere to the idea of 'Teach'. My raison d'etre is to encourage you to think about how to develop a strategy to allow your child to think. The younger the child is when you conclude the methods you are going to employ, the easier it is for the child to develop a thinking mindset.

Once they have gone beyond the first time that you, or their teachers, or whomsoever, said to them "you are wrong", the task becomes exponentially more difficult. My bywords are 'Encouragement not Discouragement'. Your child will thrive on encouragement. They will wither under the burden of discouragement.

In the first article I placed some tools in front of you that were the basic tools of your future trade. They were the 5 W's and the 1 H (with a little shake of the table-salt of T).

• Why, Where, What, When, Who and How, with a Think chaser.

These are also the words that your child uses to make sense of the world abroad. Please, if there is one insight you gain from this Hub, it should be that you never ever ever discourage your child from utilising these words. The only way for them to develop, to understand, to make sense of, to survive in their world is to ask these questions. The only other thing they need is feedback.

We, after a while, here at HubPages, get to understand that for our musings to be noticed in the world beyond the Hub we must develop back-links. If you are not aware of these by now then you have not been at HubPages long enough.

What are back-links?

Back-links are the feed-back loop that allows our thoughts to be projected to a wider audience. Why am I supplying this piece of information? Because I hope that this example is one that is generally understood by the HubMass - the broadest audience that I hope will read this article. We, as parents, have a duty to create the back-links, the feed-back loops for the thoughts and questions of our children to be addressed.

I've been thinking lately.

How can this be achieved in the hectic lives we lead?

We all need some "my time" now and again. That time when our minds can wander, relax, let the strain of the day wash down the plughole of time. And I guess, since you are here, at HubPages, that at least a little of that "my time" is spent at HubPages. Right? I am going to ask you a question.

Has your child ever asked you what you are doing?

Have you ever felt guilty taking some time 'for yourself'?

OK, two questions, I can count.

This is your greatest chance to offer your child inclusion into your world. For you to share your passions with them. They are interested: they just told you so. It is your best chance to relax in the knowledge that sharing your passions with your child will assuage your guilt. It is the time to employ the psychology of an adult. It is the time that you utter the phrase:

"Let's find out ............... together".

'Inclusion not exclusion' is the process by which we can develop an understanding of how best our children undertake learning. There are so many new 'learning difficulty' syndromes about these days that one loses the will to try to spell them. My view is that they all fall within one group. They are not learning difficulties, they are labels placed on the child by those that have not found the way that the child learns.

If a child does not conform with the way that the teacher has been taught that the child should learn, then the child is labelled. It has learning difficulties. No! It is the teacher that has 'teaching difficulties'! Too many perfectly capable, intelligent children with the greatest mind's of our time, have been put to one side because the time necessary to find out how they learn is too much to be expended.

And this goes for all children that learn in a different way than the 'norm'. The 'gifted' are not allowed to develop at the speed they are capable. The children that are different are the ones that suffer. The education system is designed for the masses to be educated alike. All this does is create a mediocre education - the medium is met - no child that falls too far outside of the mid-point will gain what they need from the education system as it stands.

This is 'Your Time' to make a difference for your child. 'My Time' can be used to include your child and to find out how they learn.

Learning together is the name of the game. You have taught yourself that to produce good Hubs you must do at least a little research. OK, you may be as old as me and have concluded that you know best and you can produce Hubs just from your experience. But I have learned that just by writing a Hub I am learning a great deal about myself that I had not thought about previously.

'Let's find out together' allows your child to be included in the research and learning processes. The methods you use to do the research will stand your child in good stead in the future. When they reach the University stage of their lives they will find out that education at that time is self-education. It changes from teaching to informing, from being told the answers to being informed where to obtain the information on which to base a considered argument. Knowing where to go to get the information needed is the basis on which your child can progress, whatever their age, into their life beyond.

Whether your child is 16 months or 16 years old, they should be included in the methods you use to gain information. Do not, under any circumstances, believe that your child is too young to be able to understand anything that you do. Your research for your HubPages will be fascinating to your child because they have obtained what they crave. They have your attention! But you have theirs as well!

And HubPages can be so many other things that assist you in your quest. Have you thought about using HubPages to:

• Allow your child to create Hubs to be used as their homework repository
• Bring together all information on the subjects they are interested in at the moment
• Give your child the chance to learn how the keyboard of a computer works
• Answer questions posed by other Hubbers
• Ask questions of the HubVerse
• See what other Hubbers have written about a subject in which your child has an interest.
• Allow your child to develop an interest in subjects you could not possible have a knowledge of
• Allow your child to see and analyse what is good and less good writing.
• Allow them to find out how to develop arguments for and against a point of view
• See how to use the Internet to their best advantage
• And so on, and so on...................ad infinitum

Think - that is the name of the game.

Allow your child to think.

Only supply boxes in which to categorise them if you want to allow them to think 'outside the box'.

Include your child in (almost) everything you do.

Use HubPages as your tool to achieve all that you want to achieve for your child.

Let them have your attention, your attention will be rewarded. Why is it only when your child 'needs' attention that they receive it. Believe me they need it all the time. A well-balanced individual only develops if they are given the balancing pole whilst they are on the high-wire of life. You are the one that supplies that balancing pole.

And HubPages can be that balancing pole if you utilise it in the right way and allow it to eke out the creative juices that all children have.

HubPages ......... for you, for your child ................for you both to share!