Welcome to part 2 of dealing with homework. Last week we spoke about how to organize school material and time. This week let’s talk about mindset specifically the mindset of the parent and child with a disability. Now I am not an expert in the field of child/teenage education. However, I have spoken with several teachers as well as dealing with my brother over the years. Based on my mistakes, what I have learned is that having the right mindset can make a world of difference.
Parent Mindset
I know when I started trying to tutor my brother, I thought I had the right mindset. I was smart and I can teach him Math and English. I know my brother can learn this. This “can do attitude” may seem like the right approach, but it leads to a whole lot of pain. The problem here is something I have discussed in previous posts. I tied my idea of success to my brother learning the school material (i.e. tying it to results). We as caregivers need to realize we do not control results, but we can control hard work. Sitting with your child and spending time explaining the material or practicing homework exercises, these are things we can control. We need to take ownership of thing we can control and accept the things we cannot.
Child Mindset
It is also not enough for the parents to have this mindset but for the child as well. Being on the same page is so crucial. One biggest mistakes I made when trying to help my brother with homework, was getting him to think that his success was when he got a question right and his failure was when he got a question wrong. Over time what happened was he began to feel fear and sadness when he made mistakes and he would get happy when he got things right. Here is the problem with that mindset. Whenever you learn something new for the first time you are always going to make a ton of mistakes at the beginning. That is just how learning works. With my brother’s current mindset of thinking mistakes are failure, means all new lessons were extremely painful. In the end he just tried finding a way to run away from his lessons.
If I could go back I would definitely change my approach. At the beginning of every lesson I would start off by saying “I love you. Even if you get all the questions wrong that is okay. As long as we study for the 1 hour we agreed to that would be success”. At the end of every session I would tell him how proud I was that he got through the study session. It didn’t matter about the results, what mattered was he tried. The strength of this mindset is that it cultivates the love of hard work and learning. It shows that making mistakes is part of the process, and eliminates the pain of failure.
Teaching a child with a mental disability is exceptionally difficult. There are specialized teachers who practice for years, to learn how to teach children with learning disabilities. It can be extremely painful seeing other children excelling at schoolwork as your child struggles along. Let me be clear “IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT OR YOUR CHILD’S FAULT”! Just know that as a parent you are going to make mistakes. That is okay. As long as you can be supportive, patient and kind you are already doing a lion share of the work.