The next few posts will be full of tips to assist you in guiding your child through the beginning of the school year. These tips are not just for children. These are lifelong skills that as adults we should already have.
The beginning of the school year is all about social skills. If you want children to love to learn, they need to love to come to school. The best way to create an environment in which kids love to come to school is to teach kids good social skills. This begins with manners.
Our Kindergarten classrooms became teams. They took care of each other and learned all of the manners vital to a caring environment. They loved coming to school and as a result, their academic performance was outstanding.
I highly recommend Have you filled a bucket today by Carol McCloud. The premise is if you want to be treated well, treat others well. (Do unto others…). Putting others first is the bedrock of manners. The Tigers (my class) learned to say, “Would you like to go first?”, instead of pushing to the head of the line. Do your children see you model this behavior? How about when that person takes the parking spot you’ve been waiting for? Do you explode in front of your children or do you simply say, “I guess she didn’t’ see me “ and move on. Children do what you do.
It takes a village to educate a child. We are all part of that village. Just Be Kind