Read Teaching Kids to Think Online
Authors: Darlene Sweetland
Teaching Kids to Think (12 page)
This list can go on and on. We are thankful for the ways technology makes getting lost safer and offers unlimited information when we want to learn about something new. But if you look at the countless ways this generation is missing opportunities to develop cognitive skills (problem solving, planning, organization, and communication) that people in past generations had every day, you can see that children and teens are entering the adult world substantially unprepared. This chapter focuses on the cognitive development that is negatively impacted by the lack of practice of invaluable skills.
As things become easier and easier for the Instant Gratification Generation, the primary neurological development that is essential in preparing children for self-reliance and decision making is deprived. This can be observed in their reactions to problems: they feel hopeless, rather than take the initiative to solve problems.
Theories on Cognitive Development
There is a reason educators and child psychologists learn and continue to use developmental theories that were derived in the 1920s and 1950s.
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As discussed in
chapter 4
, theorists have identified stages of development that are consistent across generations and cultures. This is also true for theories that address brain development and how children solve problems.
As is typically the case, new research and theories continue to develop. However, the premise for each of these theories remains the same. They all agree that brain development is a relatively stable processâit occurs in a predictable order that is consistent across the majority of children. More specifically, they agree that development cannot be rushed and children are limited in how they think about things depending on their age, maturity, and developmental stage.
Let's use the example of sharing. This is an important lesson that parents teach to their young children. When older children and adults think about sharing, they consider it in relation to how it makes the other person feel. They may think about whether it makes the other person feel happy and accepted if something is shared or left out and angry if it is not. On the other hand, when preschool children begin to share, they do it because they learn that they are praised for sharing or because they are told to share. They don't inherently want to share; they just know other people smile and say, “Good job!” when they do, and they like the positive attention. Parents can try to force them to understand the true meaning of sharing, but young children are not neurologically, socially, or morally ready to learn it yet. Rest assured, there comes a time when all these messages have meaning, but it will be in the appropriate developmental stage.
Reinforce Your Child's Skills with Praise
Young children may not understand why their parents are asking them to behave in a certain way, but they learn very quickly that they are praised when they do. For example, a young child will not understand that sharing, saying “please” and “thank you,” and taking turns makes the other person feel good. But they will quickly learn that they receive a lot of positive praise when they do. So they do those things for the praise. That is great! It encourages them to continue to do those things, which continues to lead to a positive outcome. When they are developmentally ready to understand the interpersonal meaning of those actions, they will experience it with pride and confidence.
Brain Development
The increase of convenience and instant gratification in this generation not only impacts the ability of children and teens to develop skills through practice but also affects brain development. Without exposure to experiences for them to practice considering other people's feelings, thinking about the consequences of behavior before acting, and independently solving problems, their brains are not strengthening the connections needed for learning and using these skills. Let's demonstrate this through learning how the brain develops and grows.
While there are some parts of brain development that are stable and only develop with physical maturation, there are other parts of brain function that can be advanced with practice. This is not unlike learning to play a musical instrument, or learning to speak a language, body building, or developing any other skill that we can master through regular practice. There is a critical time in a child's life when skills and abilities are more easily developed if he is exposed to experiences that promote that type of learning. The
critical period
is a “specific stage in human development during which certain types of behavior normally are shaped and molded.”
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In other words, it is the time in maturation when experiences have their peak effect on learning.
During the critical period, synapses are developing at an accelerated rateâmore quickly than any other time in a person's lifeâwhich is called
synaptic overproduction
. This is the peak learning time when the brain is ready to take in all manner of stimuli. During the period of synaptic overproduction, the connections between synapses are enhanced by experience. The more a skill is practiced, the more the brain develops in that area.
On the one hand, while practice and experience strengthen connections, on the other hand synapses that are not used are “pruned” away. This means that if children are not exposed to the experience that is critical to that time in learning, those synapses wither. Put simply, synapses follow the “use it or lose it” philosophy. While it is possible to learn the skill later, it is much more difficult.
The best way to show this is through the well-documented critical period for language acquisition.
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Infants and toddlers rapidly develop connections to process sounds because that is what is happening in that critical period.
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They go from nonverbal to fluently verbal in just a couple of years. The more infants and toddlers are exposed to language, the stronger the synapses that process the sounds of language become. The connections for sounds a child doesn't hear are decreased (pruned). Along the same lines, a child who is exposed to more than one language early on will develop stronger connections to more sounds and maintain those connections than a child who is only exposed to a single language.
People can still learn additional languages outside the critical period; it is just a more arduous process. Think about how easy it is for a bilingual person to learn a third language. Building a foundation for multiple languages allows a person to learn similar skills more naturally later on. The same also holds true for other neurological processes, such as problem solving.
Parents of this generation tend to get very caught up in trying to push their children ahead and protect them from making mistakes or being unhappy. In doing so, parents prevent their children from being exposed to the experiences that are critical to the developmental stage they are in at that time. If children aren't exposed during the optimal times, it is much more difficult to master the skills when they are older. Parents who push their kids too fast or insulate them do just that. On the other hand, parents who allow their children to fix their own mistakes, be active in decision making, take on responsibilities, and work for things they have are actively exposing them to the needed experiences for stronger executive functioning.
Executive Functioning
Executive functioning
may be one of the most important things for children and teens to practice in preparation for adulthood. Executive functioning is the ability to use higher order reasoning to manage and utilize multiple pieces of information to solve problems and make decisions. This includes the ability to plan, organize, multitask, and distinguish important from unimportant information.
When we interviewed parents about what skills they really want to teach their children before they launch into adulthood, they listed things such as good social skills, independent thinking, being considerate, and having a strong work ethic as the primary characteristics. These skills are all related to executive functioning. Think about what adults are required to do every day. In any given day, you may need to manage not only your schedule but the schedule of your family members; complete all the daily living skills for yourself (e.g., shower, dress, eat); find time for errands; take care of children; work (which includes a whole list of additional executive-functioning requirements); remember to return phone calls and reply to email and text messages; and manage appointments (yours, hers, his, theirs). Executive functioning is at the core of independent, considerate, and self-sufficient functioning.
At a more complex level, executive functioning allows a person to be flexible and adaptive in his thinking. It is great to have a plan, but often things don't go according to plan. Executive functioning is what enables a person to adapt to unexpected outcomes, change plans, and make new ones, all while considering the other people who may be involved. When considering that the ultimate goal for parents is to raise children who are prepared for college and adult life, you can see how important these skills are.
Let's take the typical week of many college students. First, they are required to maintain their structured schedule of classes, mealtimes, appointments, and so on. This is often the easy part because they are used to following a schedule of activities. The bigger challenge is the requirement to also independently plan for their other responsibilities.
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Professors typically give a tentative schedule for the entire semester that needs to be integrated into daily activity. For example, a professor may say that on a specific date two months away, there will be a midterm on the first ten chapters of a textbook. That means reading one to two chapters per week and then leaving time to learn what was read. And that is just one class.
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Students also need to plan time to complete assignments, read, write papers, and study for all four or five classes in which they are enrolled.
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If there are difficulties in a class, the professor most likely will not approach them. It is left to the students to ask for help.
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Students need to fit in personal responsibilities, such as laundry, personal hygiene, and grocery shopping.
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They need to independently manage their money. For many students this is the first time they will do this on their own, and for most students it is the first time they need to account for all their personal expenses as well as extracurricular expenses.
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Social pressures are prominent for many college students, including sharing a room (often for the first time), meeting many new people, and learning how to balance the freedom of social life with other responsibilities.
It is not just one skill the student is required to use; it is all of them at the same time. They won't have anyone asking if they finished their homework or telling them to come home early because they have class the next morning. They also won't have anyone there to help them recover from a meltdown when they are overwhelmed. In high school, parents often emphasize the importance of their child's SAT scores and GPA, which of course play a role in getting accepted to a good college. But once they are college students, it will not be their SAT scores or GPA that will help them. It will be executive functioning.
Parents who allow their children to figure out a problem before jumping in to rescue them are helping them develop executive functioning. So are parents who are encouraging extra responsibility in childhood by expecting their children to work for things they want. In
chapter 6
, you'll find a list of characteristics that teachers believe are the most important predictors of college success. The most common characteristics include resilience, critical thinking, and a willingness to take responsibility. Notice that these are all related to executive functioning.
Optimal Learning for Executive Functioning
A couple came in with their seventeen-year-old daughter and wanted to discuss laundry responsibilities in the house. The girl was getting frustrated with her mother because her mom did not wash and hang her clothes the way she liked. The couple then told her that she could do her own laundry, which was just fine with the girl because she was trying to establish as much independence from her parents as she could (very developmentally typical as she was preparing to leave for college the next year). The problem came when, despite the agreement, Mom washed her school uniform every time the girl forgot. She was angry that her mom was going into her stuff and Mom was frustrated she was not thankful that she helped her. Mom told me, “What if she goes to school with dirty clothes or gets in trouble for not wearing her uniform?” My answer was, “Wouldn't you rather this happen now while she can learn from the natural consequences and develop better planning skills, rather than when she is in college dealing with a whole bunch of other new skills to learn?” This is a perfect example of a missed opportunity to learn from experience and develop the executive-functioning skills during the critical time of adolescence.
âDr. Darlene
Research has shown that the optimal learning period for executive functioning occurs between middle school and into the early twenties. The frontal lobe region is the primary area of the brain that controls executive functioning. This region interfaces and interacts with multiple other areas of the brain. While many areas of the brain develop throughout childhood, the frontal lobe develops rapidly in early adolescence and continues into young adulthood. Early adolescents and young adults, therefore, are capable of being more independent in managing their work at school, caring for their personal items, and balancing other responsibilities such as chores or a part-time job.
In their article, “Development of the Adolescent Brain: Implications for Executive Function and Social Cognition,” Sarah-Jayne Blakemore and Suparna Choudhury provide a very nice summary of the neurological development of children and adolescents, including the changes that occur throughout childhood.
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They provide a comprehensive review of research that clearly documents the consistency of findings by using neuro-imaging and neurological tests. They also include research that looks at brain development over time.
