The Learning Parent Blog

4 Motivational Types of Learners

Marilyn — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 02:37:40 +0000

REPOST from the series “Successful, Enjoyable, Doable Homeschooling”- August 2010

Have you ever been frustrated with trying to teach one of your kids? That’s normal. Every child is different and yet in the teaching of my 14, there are some things I noticed that might help you in your experience. I found apart from learning styles, such as visual, auditory, etc, there are also distinct motivational differences in kids. I boiled it down to basically four different motivational categories my kids seemed to fall into, although each brought their own distinctive traits into play as well.

# 1 The Self-Directed Learner

This child likes to set his own goals and thinks in terms of challenging himself. He loves to pick a target and shoot at it (often a first born). He is bored with too much guidance and needs to work at this own pace. He is not easily discouraged by setbacks, he seems to do his best when allowed as much freedom as possible to design his own plan, set his own pace, and set his own objectives on his way to his ultimate goal. Be careful not to discourage him by making him stick to the plan in the book. He may have thought of a better way to do it!

# 2 The Sensitive Learner

This child has a tender heart that won’t take a lot of adversity before growing melancholy and discouraged. You need to stay close to him, supplying him with achievable goals and lots of verbal praise and encouragement to keep him from bogging down in the tough spots. Again, don’t make him stick to the book’s plan if it overwhelms him. The sensitive student usually does a good job in the end because he tends to think in terms of perfection, but it can also discourage him as he sometimes feels he just doesn’t measure up to his own expectations. It also can cause him to work slowly and painstakingly. He should not be rushed unnecessarily, as he may tend to feel that he has been pushed into finisihing the work to meet a deadline at the expense of satisfying his heart that it was done right. Frequent hugs are good medicine.

# 3 The Slothful Learner

This student is easily distracted from a mundane task because because he’s not overly excited about sustained effort to begin with. He doesn’t like to push himself but can stand some pushing from without to go beyond doing the minimum required. He needs plenty of attention and some accountability (I don’t test all my kids, but this type of learner I do) as he is more likely to skim through an assignment just to be able to report it done than to stop and think what the reason for the assignment might be. He needs to be shown the rewards of persistent effort because his automatic tendency is to reason that it is unwise to put off anything until tomorrow that can be put off until next year. Sticks and carrots are most useful with this child, but don’t forget to love him even though he tweaks your patience at times.

#4 The Steady Learner

The steady learner is a consistent fellow who generally learns fairly easily in most subjects, although like anyone else, he finds some subjects more interesting than others. He tends to move through material steadily, without spurts or splutters of motivation. He tends to get a lot done because he is not easily distracted, discouraged, or defeated. He’s an overall good student, and little trouble to teach.

You may find some of your kids are combinations of these, but hopefully that will give you some guidelines to help deal with your school day. Remember God has specially designed your child and made you to be exactly the right parent to deal with each of your unique kids. What is really fun is when they grow older and you begin to see, OH- that’s why God him that way!”

~Marilyn

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Do you know Uncle Rick?

Marilyn — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 03:08:21 +0000

First let me explain who Uncle Rick is: He’s me. Rick Boyer, father of fourteen, granddad of twelve. I love young people (fortunately) and I enjoy being around them and talking to them. I always get a charge out of addressing them in a workshop talk or commencement speech, or hanging out with them at a home schooling conference. Young people are fun, and they’re important too. Your sons and daughters are the future leaders of America.

And I have always enjoyed reading to kids and telling them stories.

That’s why the Uncle Rick line came about. Now we have quite a collection of Uncle Rick audio products and we’re working on more, in addition to some digital things that are quite different from anything we’ve seen in the Christian family market. our Un

Uncle Rick’s main focus is character building. To raise young people to be godly adults is, after all the Christian parent’s main job. To do this, I provide high quality content in my audio recordings, beginning with the Bible itself. So far, I have as Uncle Rick, recorded the Book of Proverbs, 50 of my favorite chapters of Psalms and the Gospel of Matthew, Book of James and the Book of I Peter. (click here to see these titles) And I don’t “just read” the Scriptures. I explain the meanings of unfamiliar words and illustrate main points by telling “example stories.” For instance, one of my children asked for an illustration of Proverbs 6 where it talks about the wicked man who winks with his eyes, signals with his feet, points with his fingers. So I made up a story about two burglars who wanted to rob a wealthy lady’s home. The plan was for one man to get a job doing her lawn work, find out her schedule and let the other man know when she would be away for a few hours so he could sneak in the back way and rob the place. The “yard man” would be out working in plain sight of all the neighbors so it would appear that he couldn’t have had anything to do with it. He couldn’t be seen talking to the other robber of course, so they agreed that the second man would just walk up and down the sidewalk in front of the house a few times a day and the guy in the yard would let him know what to do by a system of signals: A wink meant one thing, pointing the finger something else and certain movements of the feet something else again. Moral of the story, I told the kids: When you see two people communicating in ways so that others can’t understand, beware of evil motives. And that’s why Uncle Rick takes 5 hours to read the Proverbs when a straight reading only takes 2 hours.

Another main thrust of mine is to record biographies of great people in American history. This is the way history used to be taught: Combined with character instruction from the examples of admirable people and with historical events reported from their viewpoints as having lived through them. To name just a couple, I have recorded biographies of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin that were written in the 1890’s, before historical revisionism and political correctness corrupted our history education. That’s the key; reading books that were written before the modern teaching of our history was twisted by humanism. Uncle Rick hopes to teach your kids life-enriching character lessons while taking them deeper into American history than any textbook ever will.

I’ve also indulged my enjoyment of storytelling in CD (and downloadable) collections of true tales from American history. We have LOTS of new sets available. Our newest is Boys of Liberty Library which is hard to stop listening to! It ‘s a fantastic way to learn about the American Revolution as you follow the Boys of Liberty, patriots through their adventure packed lives. As I follow my fascination with olden times in recording more and more stories of heroes, patriots, Indians, mountain men, saddlebag preachers, Yankees and Rebels, cowboys, outlaws and lawmen. And of course, I’ll be recording great books about all these exciting characters and their times.

By the way, Uncle Rick is a very informal guy. I want your children to feel that they’re right in the room with me and being read to or told stories by their favorite “adopted” uncle. I do my recording in my little office on a friend’s farm where I keep my horses and cattle and where the kids, grandkids and I fish in the pond. That’s why I start all my Uncle Rick recordings with, “Hey, little buddies! It’s Uncle Rick, coming to you from the Little House in the Pasture–where you can hear the birds sing, the cows moo, the horses neigh and Uncle Rick talk to his little buddies!” And they really will hear all those things from time to time, along with crickets, dogs barking and tractors going by. Why build a soundproof studio when you can make the experience so real and memorable?

So now you know, if you didn’t before, what Uncle Rick is all about. Check out our website www.thelearningparent.com and look at my recordings. I hope that very soon Uncle Rick will be a favorite “adopted uncle” at your house too!

We met Rick Boyer about the time our first two boys were born. He has been an important influence ever since. Rick has that special grandfatherly voice that soothes and delights and teaches all at the same time. I couldn’t even count the nights our children have gone to sleep listening to his stories. Use Uncle Rick’s audio series to multi-task while your children are working on chores, traveling in the car, or just because it’s a great time for an audiobook, but make sure you include Uncle Rick in your day. —Beall Phillips, mother of 8 and author of Verses of Virtue, wife of Doug Phillips of Vision Forum

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Presidential Gingerbread Houses

Marilyn — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 13:17:23 +0000

This idea was so fabulous, I just had to share it with you. Some friends of ours, the Wises, another homeschooling family, makes gingerbread houses at Christmas time. Each year they all make houses to fit a certain theme. This year, each person chose a U.S. president, researched to find out where he lived during his lifetime, and thought of a way to make a gingerbread representation of his house! During the process they learned all kinds of interesting information about their chosen president. When I saw these pictures they took, I just HAD to share the idea with you!

Done by Lee.( Dad) President T. Roosevelt’s Maltese Cabin

Done by Kathy (Grandma). President Lincoln’s birth home.

Done by Maddy age 14. President Eisenhower’s birth home.

Done by Mary.( Mom) President Lincoln’s adult home.

Done by Alli age 16. President Millard Fillmore’s home.

Done by Cori age 17. President John Tyler’s Sherwood Forest Plantation

Done by Megan and Danny age 20&21. President Martin Van Buren’s home.

Small house done by Nathan age 5. President Hoover’s retreat.
Big house done by H.A. Nathans father. President T. Roosevelt’s retreat.

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Pilgrim Hat Cookies

Marilyn — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 02:08:34 +0000

Here is a fun Thanksgiving cookie that your kids can enjoy making with you!

1 cup vanilla frosting

7 drops yellow food coloring

32 miniature peanut butter cups

1 package fudge-striped cookies

32 pieces orange mini- Chiclets gum (we used colored M&M’s instead)

1. In a small bowl , combine frosting and food coloring. Remove paper liners from peanut butter cups.

2. Holding the bottom of a peanut butter cup, dip top of cup in yellow frosting. Position over center hole of a cookie, forming the hatband and crown. Add a buckle of gum or M&M. Repeat with remaining cups and cookies.

Here are 2 more links to cute Thanksgiving Cookies that you may like:

Handprint Turkey Cookies

Turkey Cookies Treats

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Thanksgiving In Our Home

Marilyn — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 02:03:38 +0000

This year I am looking for more ways to incorporate the true meaning of each holiday into our family celebrations. It’s always a challenge when you have lots of little people to plan a celebration they can understand and engage in. I have looked high and low for a nice book that tells the true story of the first Thanksgiving. So many leave God totally out of the reason for Thanksgiving instead of giving Him his rightful place as the center of what we do. Thanksgiving, A Time to Remember is great for use throughout the month of November. It includes an abbreviated narrative for very young children. We have found, though, on the actual Thanksgiving day we need to keep it simple as we have 33 family members present at our celebration, 11 of those being 8 years and under! So, this year, Rick has written an “Uncle Rick Tells the Story of the First Thanksgiving” (FREE DOWNLOAD) to read during our family celebration. We would love to share that with you for use with your family. Hope you enjoy it. (We plan to make it into a nicely illustrated book for families within the next year.)

Another way we hope to direct our thinking toward thankfulness to God this Thanksgiving, is by making place cards (decorated with stickers) for each person present at our table . Instead of the person’s name, we will write a Scripture verse that deals with thankfulness, highlighting things for which the Scriptures tell us to acknowledge our thankfulness to God and others. At the completion of our meal, we’ll go around the table in order, having each person read the verse in front of them. We will then ask some simple questions to help everyone focus on the meaning and application of the Scriptures. Here are the verses I plan to use. (FREE DOWNLOAD) Hopefully you may find it useful as you plan your celebration, too.

We’ve redesigned our Thanksgiving Time Capsule this year. It’s a record of goals set and goals accomplished, and reflections on notable things that happened since the last Thanksgiving. After our Thanksgiving meal, we pass around the sheets that we have filled out in years past. Each person reads their own to see if they met their goals and be reminded of how God has blessed their life. Then, everyone takes some time to fill out the new time capsule form. We store everyone’s form in an old popcorn container in the attic until next year. Older siblings or parents can help the little ones fill out one, too. It’s neat to see how your young ones will answer questions like “What is a lesson God has taught you this year”. Please feel free to use it with your family or use it as a springboard to personalize one for your family’s needs.

Our family wishes you a blessed day of gratefulness to our Lord and Savior!

Be sure to check out our Thanksgiving blog postings from years past.

We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done. Psalm 78:4

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SELF-ESTEEM: What Does It Really Mean?

Marilyn — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 02:44:30 +0000

Everybody’s talking about self esteem these days. I expect we’ve all struggled with it; I know I had a horrible self-image when I was young. A lot of parents are concerned that their children grow up with good self esteem. After all, how can you love your neighbor as yourself if you hate yourself?

So some parents praise their children a lot, even when they haven’t really earned it. Some follow the advice of a psychologist and never punish or say anything negative to their children. Some remind their kids often, “You are SOMEBODY!”
Wrong approach.

According to Scripture, it’s a mixed picture. We’re utterly depraved by nature, without any capacity to do anything good. All our thoughts and motives are selfish and evil. Nobody among us is worthy of the slightest respect in our natural state. Yet God is the one who sets value and we’re told that He loved us so much that He sent His only begotten son to die for our salvation. That makes us pretty important, doesn’t it? In addition, Psalm 139 talks about the infinite care God put into our design. He was intimately involved with each of us in our formative season. Obviously, God cares.

Teach the truth of Scripture to your children. Let them know how corrupt we all are by birth, how lost we are and how much we need a Savior. But teach them also that grace has provided that sacrifice and that love has made them the apple of God’s eye. He knows them exactly as they are and He cares so very much.

But still they will not respect themselves if they don’t also learn a sense of responsibility for things beyond themselves. Once their relationship with God is settled, He expects them to live as servants of God who are for others’ needs even above their own. After all, what right do we have to self esteem if we’re selfish people? If you want your child to have a good attitude toward self, you’ll have to teach him the right attitudes toward others. Jesus demanded a servant’s heart and even forgiveness for enemies. It doesn’t come naturally, but grace makes it possible.

You want your child to respect himself. Teach him what God has done for him and teach him to lay down his life for others in God’s name. He’ll have self respect. And he’ll be respected by others, too.

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