I spent my career switching on brains. Of course, it took way more effort than flipping a chemical switch. In a class of 25 students, 25 brains have their own on/off mechanism.

What happens if we delay learning something? Answer: We delay learning it, or we don’t learn it at all.

Teaching and learning is what we humans do. We are always learning. That chocolate cake recipe that you’ve made over and over? You know it so well that you don’t need the cookbook. Your brain has encoded the instructions, and you can recall them easily. You’ve learned them.

As a teacher, I often heard the phrase, ‘teaching and learning.’ As parents, teaching and learning happens, although we may not have articulated the phrase. We knew that by teaching our children, we were developing gifts for their future use.

You'll find some interesting stats about our brains if you flick over to the kid’s blog. I won’t go into the figures here (because they’re in the other post), but let’s just say that the human brain can process things quickly.

Last time, I shared my wife’s experience with snow skiing. During the recent school vacation, we went water skiing. Well, I should qualify that. She went water skiing. I watched. 

Here we are–Easter. Your kids have made it through another term at school. (And so have you!) Well done. Let’s have a quick look at what we covered this term:

We create feedback loops for ourselves. Those loops encourage our brains to produce the feel-good chemical called dopamine. But aren’t we leaving our comfort zone? Doesn’t that cause us to feel uncomfortable? Stay with me:

Our emotions are linked to the quality of our memories. We remember events better when emotions have played a part in encoding them. 

It’s 7.30 am. Two of your children are eating breakfast and dressed for a school day. The third one is still in bed. You’ve called three times; they haven’t stirred. 

It’s not easy to leave our comfort zone. Our comfort zone is comfortable, right? Don’t mess with it if it works. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. 

Some things need to stay in the comfort zone. A school day routine that gets the kids out of bed and ready to go is something to leave alone. Treasure it! Build on it!

Learning is about making changes. Do the changes happen before, during or after the learning? I’d argue they happen throughout the entire process. During our attempts to learn something new, we go back and forth. We take forward steps, sideways steps, backward steps. 

Every Tuesday, I get together with a couple of mates and play music in my garage. I play piano, one guy plays bass, the other acoustic guitar. We’re all around the same age–we’re retired. 

Your child’s learning journey, indeed everyone’s, follows a similar pathway.  We all gain mobility, acquire language, and become independent by travelling the same track. Some arrive earlier, some later.

We talked about trains arriving at stations last time. Another label is milestones. A familiar term as you watch your child grow and learn.

Change keeps us on our toes. If you’ve been involved in changes at your workplace, you’ll know it can be stressful, filled with both anxious and rewarding moments. People naturally try to resist. Why wear new shoes when the old ones still have life in them? Besides, my feet are okay. I’m blister-free, and these shoes are comfortable

Tell me, I forget. Show me, I remember. Involve me, I learn.

When we left off, your child was watching TV, right? Despite repeated requests to tidy their bedroom, nothing worked. Well, that’s not entirely true. If nothing worked, it meant we’d tried everything.

Picture this: It’s the weekend, and your (insert age of your own child here) year-old is stretched out on the floor watching TV. You ask them to tidy their room. Ten minutes later, they haven’t moved.