Teaching Children Independent Skills: A Modeling Technique

Sometimes as parents we tend to make the jump too quickly when teaching our children new skills. It’s easy to go from “I’ll do it for her” to “She’s old enough to do it herself!” without remembering to spend time on the kind of effective skill modeling that will help our kids achieve independence and responsibility. But with some dedication on our part, we can teach our children to complete tasks independently or acquire competence in new skills in a way that gives them pride in their accomplishments.

photo credit: K. Sawyer

I personally have found the pre-teen years especially challenging. I find it eye-opening just how much I suddenly expect of my son because he seems so much more like a little adult. Before I know it I’m nitpicking over every little mistake without having truly given him the opportunity to learn his new skills.

This can be true whenever our child makes a transition — into school, out of kindergarten, independent reading, middle school, etc. We suddenly see all the new things that our child could be doing now that they’re “so big”. And it’s easy for us and our kids to get lost in that!

As a result, I’ve made it one of my goals to get back to the drawing board a bit and examine just how I go about helping my son accomplish his responsibilities, hoping to increase his ratio of successes to failures, and decrease my own negative expressions of frustration.

Reading about Motivation and Learning: The Motivation Breakthrough

Our daily poolside trips accompanying my son to swim lessons have yielded some excellent reading time to explore a new approach to teaching independent skills. I recently discovered Richard Lavoie’s The Motivation Breakthrough: 6 Secrets to Turning On the Tuned-Out Child (aff). In a sea of books on how to discipline your children on what not to do, I’m finding it an excellent resource on how to actually motivate your child toward positive accomplishments. The book includes tips on how motivation works for kids, how it doesn’t work, and, importantly, guides you to:

• Understand the unique character of your child, and
• Effectively motivate their behavior and independence in a way that speaks to their individual motivation style.

Achieving Task Independence: The “Learning-Teaching Cycle”

One of the first techniques I discovered in Lavoie’s book is the “Learning-Teaching Cycle”, a strategy that can be applied toward teaching children how to do just about anything, and helping them slowly move toward completing tasks independently with success. The four steps are quite simple:

1. Do It For Them. While doing so, you speak about what you’re doing and then ask them to explain it to you.
2. Do It With Them. In the beginning of this step, your child is your assisstant, at then end, you are theirs!
3. Watch Them Do It. Allow them to complete the task independently while observing and offering positive feedback and constructive suggestions.
4. Have Them Do It. Only after the first three steps do you move forward to asking your child to complete their task independently.

Suggestions for Teaching Your Kids Skill Mastery with the Four “Learning-Teaching” Steps

I have to admit I really love it when I get a little help to break things down into digestible bits. The steps above should be reinforced over a period of several days to each step.

Although the book does a more thorough job explaining how and why to use this technique, here are the pointers that really spoke to me:

The strategy will not be effective if steps are skipped or abbreviated. Although the process can be time consuming, it should be viewed as an effective investment in the child’s growth, progress, and attitude.

Well-meaning parents unintentionally feed the learned helplessness by continually doing things for the child that she may be capable of doing independently. I often advice parents to conduct a monthly review — just as they pay their monthly bills — of tasks that they complete daily for their child that she should be completing by herself.

I have to admit I’ve been guilty of teaching a bit of “learned helplessness” to my son!

I’m thinking of a time when he really wanted to help paint the wall and I stood there calling out instructions to go with his every move. “Now lift up! No, over to the right! Can you see that spot! You missed it! Don’t press too hard! Here, can I have the roller a sec?” I’m sure that if I would have followed a step-by-step process like the one Lavoie suggested it could have resulted in more confidence for my poor boy! If only I had read this years ago!

Go Gadget Go!

Mama Hope