K-12 Education: Untangled — Trends, Issues, and Parental Actions for Public Schools
Raising kids can be tough! I know because I’ve been a single mom who raised two kids on my own. And when they get in the K-12 public education system, learning the ins and outs of that system can get you all tangled up, especially when you’re a parent of color. You need to know about the current trends and issues as well as resources necessary to navigate within the system. That’s what the K-12 Education: Untangled podcast is all about — providing you with tools, information and practical actions to help you and your children succeed within the complexities of K-12 public education.
K-12 Education: Untangled — Trends, Issues, and Parental Actions for Public Schools
Episode 123: Guiding Children Towards Success and Fulfillment
Unlock the secrets to nurturing successful, independent, and compassionate children. My latest episode promises to guide you through the maze of parenting with expert-recommended strategies that truly work. Discover how authoritative parenting, family travel adventures, and even regular card game nights can enrich your child's cognitive and social abilities. I spotlight the hidden benefits of family exercise routines and the simple yet powerful practice of sharing meals. Plus, learn why allowing your kids to fail might be the stepping stone they need toward future triumphs.
Dive into engaging discussions on guiding children towards practical career paths, the importance of delayed gratification, and more. Join our vibrant community, share your experiences, and let's inspire each other to foster learning and growth in our children's lives every day.
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Welcome to another episode of K-12 Education Untangled. My name is Dr Kim J Fields, former corporate manager turned education researcher and advocate, and I'm the host of this podcast. I got into this space after dealing with some frustrating interactions with school educators and administrators, as well as experiencing the microaggressions that I faced as an African American mom raising my two kids, who were in the public school system. I really wanted to understand how teachers were trained and what the research provided about the challenges of the public education system. Once I gained the information and the insights that I needed, I was then equipped to be able to successfully support my children in their education and progress. This battle-tested experience is what I provide as action steps for you to take. It's like enjoying a bowl of educational research with a sprinkling of mother wisdom on top. If you're looking to find out more about current information and issues in public education that could affect you and your children, and the action steps that you can take to give your children the advantages they need, then you're in the right place. Thanks for tuning in today. I know that staying informed about K-12 public education trends and topics is important to you, so keep listening. This is my regular end-of-month personal insightful episode that addresses issues like personal development, parenting and other thought-inducing topics. These once-a-month episodes are geared toward helping you as you navigate being a person, a parent, a friend and a career professional.
Speaker 1:In this episode, I'll be sharing my thoughts about the traits that are necessary to raise a successful child. We all want our children to be successful. We all want our children to be successful, but are we really doing those things that are necessary for them to succeed in life as independent, kind, contributing members of society? In this episode, I'll be discussing those traits or characteristics that are recommended by experts to raise successful children. Maybe you're utilizing all of these things and maybe there are a couple that you're missing. Take a listen and evaluate for yourself. Let's untangle this what determines success differs from person to person. You have an idea of what you'd like to instill in your children as successful traits that will be the foundation for their adult life. The process of instilling these traits takes work and intention. You can make a mental list of those traits. Intention you can make a mental list of those traits. Would a list generated by experts be the same as yours? Research indicates that to raise successful children, you should do these five things every day.
Speaker 1:One use an authoritative parenting style. This parenting style, as I described in detail in episode 109, involves not only having rules, but enforcing them. It's also about being approachable and explaining the rationale behind expectations. Two travel with your children. Exposing children to new cultures and new locations exercises parts of their brain that can be underutilized in their normal environment. Learning about different cultures and new locations help your children develop cognitive functioning, social intelligence, attention, motivation and memory. Three play card games with your children. Playing card games can improve memory skills, math skills and strategic thinking, as well as promote conversation and strengthen family relationships. It can also build social skills, since there can be a fair amount of joking and bluffing involved in card games.
Speaker 1:Four exercise regularly. It's no mystery that when you are in better health, you have the physical and emotional energy to do what it takes to raise children. If your children see you exercising, more than likely they will start exercising as well. Even better, you can exercise with your children. And five eat meals with your children. Researchers have found that when families regularly eat meals together, children are less likely to engage in negative, high-risk behaviors. Eating meals together provides a sense of security and structure for the day, and it helps you assess how your children are doing emotionally, behaviorally and socially, especially when there's thoughtful conversation happening around mealtimes. Your observation of your children is important, but your children are also observing you and how you interact with your spouse, solve problems or share feelings, as you all share meals together as a family.
Speaker 1:Additionally, successful children have parents who do these seven things. One they don't tell them they can be anything they want. It's better to steer them toward well-paying professions that are projected to be in high demand in the future. It's fine that your children pursue their talents like music or video games, but jobs in these areas comprise only about 1% of American occupations. Why not steer them towards something that will provide a comfortable living? Two they enforce no screen time. There's a plethora of research that indicates that the brains of young children can be permanently altered when they spend too much time using tablets and smartphones. Development of certain abilities can be impacted, especially focus and attention, vocabulary and social skills. The American Academy of Pediatrics says that parents should make the dinner table, the car and bedrooms media-free zones.
Speaker 1:Three they work outside the home. Research has found that when mothers work outside the home, their daughters are more likely to be employed themselves, hold supervisory roles and make more money than mothers who did not have careers. Or they make the children work. This is all about assigning chores for each child as age appropriate. Harvard Business School researchers found that when children had chores growing up, they tended to achieve greater professional success.
Speaker 1:Five they delay gratification. This skill is filled by training children to have habits that must be accomplished every day, even when they don't feel like doing them. This consistency means that your child shows up and delivers day after day, instead of getting bogged down with the urgencies of daily life. Consistency sets up successful habits. Six they read to their children. When babies are read to, they have better language literacy and early reading skills four years later, before starting early elementary school. Years later, before starting early elementary school, children who like books when they were young grow up to be people who read for fun later on, which has its own set of benefits, including greater intellectual progress and bigger vocabulary.
Speaker 1:And seven they let their children fail. This may be difficult for some of you, but letting your children fail is one of the best things you can do for them. It's good for your child to fail on several levels. One level is that failure helps your child learn to cope, and this is a skill that's needed in the real world. On another level, it provides your child with life experience needed to relate to peers in a genuine way. Also, being challenged instills the need for hard work and sustained effort In other words struggle, and sustained effort In other words struggle. And these traits are valuable even without earning the top prize or the gold star or the highest score. Over time, these lived experiences of failure will build resistance and your child will be more willing to attempt difficult tasks and activities because they won't be afraid to fail. Here's the other thing. Rescuing your child sends a message that you don't trust him or her. You have to be willing to see your child struggle, because this communicates that you believe they are capable and that they can handle any outcome, even a negative one.
Speaker 1:I'll add a couple more things to add to your list for raising successful children. One successful children. One teach them to be polite. Irrespective of what some current parenting is proposing, teaching your children to say please, thank you and you're welcome, just shows good manners. Teach your children to say please when they ask for something, because this reinforces the concept of being polite. Teaching them to say thank you visually encourages gratitude, which can stimulate happiness and make stress easier to deal with. And teaching them to say you're welcome reinforces confidence by emphasizing that the things they do for others are worthy of thanks. Two, work with them on their emotional intelligence by modeling good thinking and appropriate use of emotions. Ask them for their ideas and refrain from judging when you hear them. And three, encourage their creativity. This can be expressed through what they're passionate about, whether it's music, gardening, sewing, singing, drawing, writing, etc. You get the idea. Let them explore different things to determine the ones that they're passionate about, because it's important and it helps them to develop who they truly are.
Speaker 1:How many things were you able to check off this list that you are currently doing? I'd have to say that for me, I could check off a few things. These included playing cards with my children, traveling with my children they both love travel to this day. Instilling the value of exercise with my children, because they saw me play tennis on a regular basis and they both are very athletic. I insisted on sitting down to eat dinner with no distractions like TV.
Speaker 1:I was a working mom, so my children had chores that they had to complete on a daily or weekly basis. I think this was valuable in helping them understand the value of work. I read to my children on a regular basis and we had fun discussing some of the characters in their favorite books. I allowed my children to struggle in completing academic work or special projects and hopefully instilled the value of effort and struggle. Teaching them to be polite was just a given. Being from the South, like I am, it was just required as a part of good home training. I think that they had a fair amount of opportunities to express their creativity, although, I have to say, neither of them seemed to pursue hobbies at this stage of their lives.
Speaker 1:The bottom line is we do the best we can with raising our children, and the traits that I have provided can provide guidance on how to raise successful children. I consider mine to be successful adults who are healthy, living on their own, established in their careers and raising their own families. What more could I ask for? As is the usual case with these personal, thought-provoking episodes, I close with either relevant quotes or a clean joke. I leave you with this joke for your amusement.
Speaker 1:A wife asks her husband Could you please go shopping for me, buy a carton of milk and, if they have avocados, get six. A short time later, the husband comes back with six cartons of milk. The wife asked him why did you buy six cartons of milk? He replied they had avocados. Were there any steps about raising successful children that were identified in this episode that you're missing? Leave me a text message comment at k12educationuntangledbuzzsproutcom to let me know your thoughts. Do me a favor and remember to share my podcast with anyone that you think will find it valuable. That includes your friends, family and community. Thanks for listening today. I hope you'll come back for more K-12 educational discussions with even more exciting topics to untangle. Until next time, aim to learn something new every day.
