5 Common Mistakes In Our Children’s Education

It is common to hear a very typical phrase that says “nobody teaches us to be parents”. It couldn’t be truer, mainly because every child is different and there’s no one recipe for everyone. However, knowing some of the main mistakes in children’s education can prevent us from ending up doing the same thing with our children.

Sometimes it’s the fear of doing something wrong that will cause us to do it. The pressure in our surroundings can be very great in this same direction. Therefore, in this article, we are going to propose a change in perspective, to place it at a point between doing everything right and doing everything wrong, and which makes it possible to identify and correct the errors in education that we inevitably make in many moments.

The mistakes in education we make most often

1- Wanting to create a genius through education

The need to give our children tools for the future with the hope that it will be fantastic is a consequence of wanting to make them into geniuses, even if they have to pay a very high price for it. This leads many parents to overstimulate them from an early age, filling their days with activities or setting goals without rest.

Philosophers such as Epicurus, Heidegger and Byung-Chul have devoted books and analyzes to the possible consequences of boredom’s bad reputation in our society. Psychology and philosophy today emphasize the importance of this feeling for the development of creativity and problem solving.

Wanting geniuses can also make us impatient in the face of first difficulties, or in the face of our children’s first not-so-positive results. We forget that educating our children is a long-term process, that learning involves trial and error, and also a lot of patience. Furthermore, we cannot forget that self-esteem plays a fundamental role in school results.

A book written by Colin Rose and J. Nicholl describes a study that found that 82% of children who start school are highly confident in their abilities to learn. This percentage drops to 18% at age 16, and even more before entering university.

In addition, exaggerated demands on children directly affect their self-esteem. They feel they can’t live up to all of our expectations, and this carries on through the process of growing up into adulthood, causing problems in the future when they may become unmotivated adults.

2- Put all the focus on the study

When we make education the center of our family life, the message we give our children is not very good. They come to believe that we see them with that focus, they don’t believe that we take them as people and that we take into account their personal or emotional life. The questions we ask at dinner revolve around how was school that day? The notes? The lessons? The rest of the circumstances don’t seem to matter, and that’s a danger.

We may not ask for help from the children or home, or not give other responsibilities, because we understand that your only responsibility is to study. We focus everything on this issue but neglect other areas, such as relating, acquiring skills and responsibilities, your wishes and dreams.

3- Reward or punish grades

Now comes the topic of notes. We tend to reward high notes and punish low ones. On the one hand, we leave out internal and external factors that influence our concentration, performance and attention. On the other hand, when we constantly give external reinforcement, the internal motivation ends up being lost.

As Joan Domenech, a teacher at a school in Barcelona, ​​Spain, said, “The best stimulus is to discover new things and develop your interest; if the child needs a material stimulus, something is not working”. Even Marx draws our attention to the dangers of materialism, of doing everything just to achieve a goal and turn our children into small capitalists.

The best we can do is reward your good results with phrases like “I’m very proud of you” or “You should be very proud of your efforts and your results”. On the other hand, when the grades weren’t very good, trying to analyze what happened together with them is ideal.

For example, if it’s difficult for your child to concentrate, if you don’t organize yourself or if you don’t understand your homework, you may need additional reinforcement, such as tutoring. In that case, the message should be “what can I do to help you perform better?”

4- Study and do the lesson with them or for them

Also in this aspect of studies, many parents study and do their homework with their children. This action can have many consequences, present and future. Because of the way we do this, we can generate dependency and make children unable to tackle any schoolwork without our help.

In addition, not very efficient help with lessons can lead to conflicts and fights because parents, despite being the main educators, do not always have the best tools to help in all subjects.

We must let them make mistakes and let teachers be responsible for correcting them. The lesson can be an excellent way to foster autonomy. As Piaget said, autonomy is the ability to govern oneself and make one’s own decisions.

5- Not respecting school guidelines and requirements

Another aspect, not least important, is that many parents constantly question the line that the school follows. They criticize the amount of homework, their content, the work they send, etc. It is assumed that when we choose a school, we are in agreement with its ideology, and if we criticize it, we are sending a confusing message and making one of the biggest mistakes in our children’s education.

It’s true that teachers often send a lot of homework, and this can make our children dizzy. But that depends on each teaching method, the characteristics of the children, among other aspects. It is important that we accept, because we chose that school and, in that way, we will be setting a good example for our children. Let us let them, from a certain age, be responsible for taking the initiative to solve school difficulties.

There are no recipes to help, but there is a horizon that can guide us. For example, a Canadian plan called 24-Hour Movement recommends between 9 and 11 hours of sleep a day, at least an hour of daily exercise, and fewer hours of idleness in front of screens.

This movement, in turn, also concludes: “We found that more than two hours of recreational leisure with screens is associated with worse cognitive development in children.” Therefore, the leisure hours should be focused on different games, without screens and chosen by them.

As for studies, it is important that we be flexible, patient, listen to our children and put ourselves in their shoes. Also that we don’t focus exclusively on studies and neglect other aspects of their lives. Let us not damage our relationship by becoming teachers or homework supervisors.

We must let them fail. Let them get bored. Getting low grades is normal, and they can always learn from their mistakes. Being self-employed is important because it strengthens and gives references for the future, and this is the best education we can give them.