As parents, we often take on a teaching role for topics that we might not know more about than our kids, like table manners, or world geography. Our role in helping our children understand these things is vital, and it can even help with strong bonds and your child’s sense of security. But, do you ever wonder what it would be like to learn alongside your child instead?
Learning is a lot of fun, after all, and it’s also something that we often stop doing as we grow and settle into our adult lives. We certainly lose our sense of wonder as we get used to predictable daily routines or the same job we’ve had for years. By embracing learning again, we may well be able to recapture our childish wonder while also improving our approach to raising a family in general.
The question is, how do you make room for new lessons when you’re an overwrought parent? You bring your kids on board, of course. Embarking on learning new things as a family could be great for everything from bonding to your ability to do something for yourself. In this article, we’ll consider the best lessons you and your kids could enjoy learning together.
The Benefits of Learning As a Family
The benefits of helping your child with their homework are well known. Kids who regularly learn with the help of their parents will generally have a much firmer grasp on each topic, and even improved school grades.
Luckily, learning together also makes most of these benefits possible, as well as opening the doors to additional plus points that you might not find otherwise, such as –
- More relatable lessons: It can be difficult trying to explain a topic you already understand, as you will have lost your connection to the learning process. By comparison, learning a brand new topic with your child ensures that you’re fully connected to the learning process, and are better able to deliver relatable lessons that a full beginner can easily understand.
- Lessons in perseverance: Committing to your learning journey, and showing your children that process (including any failures) can serve as a great lesson in perseverance, and the need to fail sometimes before a win.
- Dedicated quality time: If you have multiple children and a job to think about, you probably dip in and out of homework guidance, rather than sitting down and spending actual time with each child. By comparison, if you’re learning too, you’re more likely to carve out dedicated time for this process, and thus increase the quality time you enjoy as a family.
Things to Bear in Mind Before Starting
Learning together has the potential to provide a whole host of benefits for every family member, but it’s also important to bear certain things in mind. This is key to ensuring you enjoy all of the benefits mentioned and more. Things to consider include –
- Get ahead sometimes: While learning at the same level as your kids can be a fantastic journey, there may be times when you’d be better off getting ahead. This is especially true to begin with, or when you’re approaching complex areas of learning. Simple things, like doing a little preliminary reading or practice, will put you in a far better position to direct your kids where necessary.
- Stay calm: Learning together will be fun most of the time, but there will be some stressful moments along the way. It’s easy to snap at these points, especially if you’re struggling with your learning and helping your children. Getting ahead can help here, but it’s also important to remember that this is supposed to be fun. Avoid snapping and step away if you’re overwhelmed, as one bad experience could stop this journey in its tracks.
- Choose something for everyone: It’s always worth picking an activity that everyone’s excited to learn about, as this will be key to the happiness and enthusiasm that will make this a fun activity.
The Best Skills to Learn Alongside Your Child
Once you’re ready to undertake whole-family learning, it’s time to consider which skills would be best for this purpose. Luckily, there are plenty of lessons you could all learn together, including –
# 1 – School-Based Learning
While you might be used to offering homework advice to your child, you might not have fully engaged in school-based learning that could be very different from when you were a student. For instance, many schools in the US now use phonics, a reading technique that you might not be familiar with.
Deciding to engage fully in these lessons is especially beneficial because it places your child in the position of teacher. And, as they explain things like graphemes (groups of letters) to you, that learning will solidify in their own minds.
Learning modern schooling techniques also helps you to become fully involved in what your child’s doing at school, and your excitement will inevitably rub off on them.
# 2 – Learning a New Language
Children can enjoy many benefits from learning a new language, including enhanced academic achievement and improved memory. As an adult, learning a new language can open you up to improved brain health and career opportunities amongst other things. As such, this is a great thing to do together.
Luckily, there are plenty of ways to learn once you’ve all agreed on your language of choice. Nowadays, there are even mobile apps that can provide spoken guidance and daily activities the whole family can engage with. There’s even a family plan on language tools like Duolingo that allows you all to stay connected with each other’s progress between sessions.
Alternatively, fun ways to learn as a family might include playing certain language games using flashcards, or even just looking through picture books in your language of choice. As your skills develop, even simply watching a film together in that language counts as learning!
# 3 – Learning a Craft
Crafts are a great option for learning together, and there are plenty of crafting skills to choose from. You may find that kids become particularly engaged with options like crochet, knitting, or cross stitch, as these are accessible skills that can quickly result in a finished project. What’s more, once you’ve all perfected basic parts of the process, like essential knitting or crochet stitches for beginners, you should find that you can largely complete crafts while talking amongst yourselves. This is a benefit you don’t get from more dedicated learning focuses like languages, and is sure to help you all feel closer.
When choosing which crafts to learn together, it’s worth thinking about things like any supplies you’ll need and also the ages of your children. Typically, a tactile task like crochet will keep younger kids engaged for longer, while you may want to wait until your child is 10+ before trying options that need more concentration, like cross stitch.
While you might want to get ahead by researching a few stitches before getting stuck in with your kids, it’s generally best that you all embark on the same project, to begin with. This ensures you can more easily help each other along the way. Great beginner options for crafts like crochet might include scarves, hats, and washcloths. Simply keep each project unique by making sure everyone uses a different type of yarn.
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# Joining a Class
Joining a class as a family can be a great way to learn together without the pressure or stress you might face when learning at home. Committing to classes of any kind also makes it more likely that you’ll all stick with your chosen activity.
You can book family classes in practically any skill, including languages and crafting. However, you may prefer to pick a class in something you’d struggle to master at home, such as –
- Dance
- Swimming
- Art
- And so on
If possible, try to find an instructor who can offer dedicated family lessons. If you can’t find someone, larger group sessions can still be beneficial, and may also see you all meeting new friends you wouldn’t otherwise.
Unfortunately, lessons do tend to come at a pretty steep cost as a whole-family undertaking. However, even just a term or two of lessons could prove beneficial. What’s more, once you understand the basics, these are tasks you could continue pursuing either at home or at a leisurely pace by visiting local swimming pools, etc.
Takeaway
Taking a step back and learning with your kids, rather than constantly playing teacher, can have benefits that you might not even realize. As well as giving you access to a brand new skill, this pursuit could bring you closer as a family unit, and see you communicating in entirely new ways. Not to mention that it’ll give you all something in common at last!
Whether you need to reconnect with distant teens or are keen to make the most of your time with younger children, these skills and many others like them could be the best way to achieve it.
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