Sustain and Support

Nurturing growing minds is among the most rewarding things we can do as parents. A bunch of other adjectives apply here as well. Frustrating is top of the list. I want to back that up with two verbs–sustain and support.

We sustain learning by ensuring it continues. Short-term gains in the form of rewards will produce learning but won’t sustain it. Actively sustaining learning means creating conditions where it will flourish.

And that brings us to support. We support learning by celebrating successes and, equally importantly, navigating setbacks. Every parent takes an active role in assisting their children in learning to walk. We clap and smile at those first unsteady steps. But we also pick up the fallen warrior after a stumble, showing them that setbacks are part of the learning process.

Similarly, with language acquisition, we feed the correct speech to the burbling child. Those two skills are pretty much mastered by the time any child reaches school age. Sustaining and supporting work with any learning or behaviour. Pick the learning you’d like to see, then create conditions for it to happen.

If that means changing your behaviour first, then do it. Actively engaging a child isn’t difficult. It comes down to entering their world, showing, demonstrating, responding positively, assisting, and celebrating with them. Notice the verbs there. All denote actions, which, of course, speak volumes over words.