Helping your child develop more skills

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Instructions: teaching by telling

This is simply teaching a child how to do something by explaining what to do or how to do it. You will find yourself giving instructions and explanations to your child all the time. It comes so naturally in most instances that you might wonder why we need to write about it.

For sure, simply giving instructions is the easiest and sometimes the most efficient way to teach someone something new, but it’s not foolproof by any means. Anybody who knows how hard it can be to follow assembly instructions for new furniture or children’s toys will know what we are talking about here. And everyone has heard a parent say things like, ‘How many times have I told you …’ or ‘You never listen …’ This is because instructions are not always the most reliable or best way to teach children.

Nevertheless, teaching with instructions is an important tool. Here are some ideas on how you can make your instructions more effective when you are teaching your child:

• Only give instructions once you have your child’s attention; encourage him to look at you while you speak to him.
• Use language that he understands. Keep your sentences short and simple. If the task involves a number of parts, break down your instructions into a series of simple steps.
• Try to explain exactly what you want your child to do. What behaviour are you asking for?
• Use gestures to highlight and point to things that you want your child to notice.
• Watch the tone of your voice. Your child can be distracted by emotional messages in your voice, and focus on these rather than on what you are saying.
• Provide lots of positive feedback when your child follows your instruction; be specific, telling him exactly what he is doing right or well.
• Avoid giving lots of negative feedback when he makes errors or doesn’t get it right. Instead, you might point out only one or two things he might do differently.
• As your child learns, phase out your instructions and reminders so that he can do it independently.
• Keep in mind that there are many reasons why a child may not be able to follow an instruction. He may not understand. He may be inconsistent while he is learning and need more practice before he can do what you are asking consistently. He may not want to do what you ask.

Modelling: teaching by showing

On a balmy summer evening, a three-year-old boy follows his father down the beach, imitating his walking style and every move that he makes. Scenes like this are powerful reminders of how closely our children watch and learn from us. We are modelling behaviour for our children every moment of every day. Through watching us, they learn what to do and how to do it. In other words, they learn our approach and our style. The challenge of being the major role model for our children is to demonstrate behaviour we value and like, and to not demonstrate behaviour we do not like or do not want to encourage. A tall order for any normal human being!

This learning through observation has been called ‘modelling’ by behavioural scientists. Modelling can be used by parents to teach children new skills. Naturally, we teach many things through showing children what to do. For example, you are more likely to rely on demonstrating how to make a bed, sweep a floor, hold a football or throw a ball than just telling your child how to do these things (that is, by using instructions).

However, you can also use modelling to demonstrate other useful skills and behaviours like how to interact with others – for example, asking a teacher for help, introducing yourself to another person, greeting a guest and so on. Modelling is a great way to demonstrate some of the subtleties in interaction, such as body language and tone of voice, that are hard to explain in words.

Here are some ideas to make your modelling – or teaching by showing – more effective:

• Ensure that what you are modelling is within your child’s basic abilities. He will not be able to copy you if he does not have the coordination, physical capabilities or developmental maturity required to perform the task.
• Start modelling only when your child is looking and you have his attention.
• Get him to watch first, then move slowly so that he can clearly see what you are doing.
• If the task is complex, show the first part of the task and give him a chance to practise before moving to the next bit. Start with the easiest parts.
• Draw your child’s attention to important aspects of what you are doing, for example, ‘See how I am …’
• Give your child the opportunity to practise after he has watched you. The more practise, the better. Being successful at doing something is often reward enough, but it doesn’t hurt to offer praise and encouragement in the early stages of learning. Repeat the modelling if he needs to see it again.
• Sometimes gently guiding your child physically through the actions can help him to follow your demonstration.

Shaping: teaching by approximations

This approach is based on a very simple principle. Our eventual behaviour is based on earlier behaviors that may only remotely resemble what we do now. For example, saying ‘dada’ may be preceded with earlier sounds like ‘d’ or ‘da’. Each time they occurred dad would have responded enthusiastically and positively. As time went on, the earlier versions of the response gets less attention and reaction, and dad begins to notice and get excited about sounds that are more and more like the true word ‘daddy’. Pretty soon, the father has helped shape the toddler’s attempts until he is saying ‘daddy’ clearly.

You can use this principle to help your child learn a whole range of new skills and behaviours. Here are some ideas on how to use shaping effectively:

• Be clear about what you are aiming for. What behaviour, exactly, are you aiming for?
• What is the starting point? What is your child doing now that could be shaped?
• Start noticing and rewarding the starting-point behaviour. When that is occurring more frequently or reliably, begin to look for the next step and reserve your praise and attention for when that occurs.
• Move slowly – going too fast can lead to losing small gains that are being made.

Here are some examples of behaviour and skills you might help your child acquire through shaping:

• table manners
• politeness
• sports skills.

Also, be aware of the dark side of shaping. You can inadvertently use shaping to encourage behaviour you don’t like. Consider this example: a child asks for something in a conversational voice. He is ignored. He asks again, using a louder voice and a more demanding tone. This time, his parent notices and gives him what he asks for. Next time he wants something, he asks in a demanding voice … he is ignored … so he asks even more loudly and then gets a response. Over time, his demanding and loudness is being shaped into something worse.

Teaching step-by-step

When tasks or activities are complex or require a sequence of actions, it can be useful to break down the task into smaller steps and teach your child one step at a time.

Here is how you might break down the task of dressing:

• get clothes out
• put on underpants
• put on socks
• put on shirt
• put on pants
• put on a jumper.

And each of these steps could – if needed – be broken down into subparts like the ones that follow for the jumper:

• face the jumper the right way
• pull the jumper over the head
• put one arm though
• put the other arm through
• pull the jumper down.

The idea of step-by-step teaching is to teach each step one at a time. When your child has acquired the first step, you then teach the next step, then the next, and so on until he can do the whole task for himself. You can use instructions and modelling to help your child learn each step (described above). Providing physical guidance can also be helpful. Put your hands over your child’s hands and guide him through the movements. Phase out your help as he begins to get the idea. It's better not to move to the next step until he can do the step before it reliably and without your help.

You can teach the steps by moving forwards (teaching the first step, then the next step and so on) or by moving backwards (teaching the last step, then the second last step and so on).

There are many advantages of teaching backwards. Chief among these is that one the most rewarding things about lots of jobs and tasks is getting them finished! Taking our earlier example, a dad might start teaching a child to dress himself by starting with his jumper. In this instance, he would help him get dressed until it came to the final step – the jumper. Dad might help his child put the jumper over his head and put his arms in – then Dad might let him pull the jumper down by himself. Once the child can do this, dad might encourage him to put his arms through by himself and then pull the jumper down – and so on and so on, until he has mastered each step of the task and can do the whole thing for himself.

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