Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #51 Setting Up Success in Education

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#51 Setting Up Success in Education · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: This is the Happy Families podcast with doctor Justin Coilson,
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  Speaker 1: where Luke and Suzie and this is the podcast for
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  Speaker 1: the time poor parent who just wants answers.
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  Speaker 2: Now, I'm very excited suits for the very first time
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  Speaker 2: in our show's history, we're going to get feng shui studies. Studies.
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  Speaker 2: This is maybe not BEng shwei, but it is a
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  Speaker 2: concept of how we actually physically set up our home.
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  Speaker 2: But we're talking about our children's success when it comes
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  Speaker 2: to school and learning, and how our furniture choices and
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  Speaker 2: the shape of her home could actually have the part
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  Speaker 2: to play in.
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  Speaker 3: That, Doctor Justin in that.
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  Speaker 1: Doctor Justin Coilson from Heavy Families dot com tot.
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  Speaker 3: Au this is this is an important thing when we
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  Speaker 3: want our children to do as well as they can
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  Speaker 3: at school, obviously, how do we set up our home
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  Speaker 3: to encourage and foster a good learning environment.
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  Speaker 4: Well, the first thing that I've got to say is
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  Speaker 4: I have no idea about interior decorating, choosing paint colors.
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  Speaker 4: Apparently there is some psychology around color. I don't know
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  Speaker 4: what it is. I'm not colorblind, my dad is. I'm not.
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  Speaker 4: I can see colours properly, but that doesn't mean that,
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  Speaker 4: but in terms of the psychology of helping our children
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  Speaker 4: to do well, what we can do to set up
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  Speaker 4: our home environment. A really interesting study was published just
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  Speaker 4: in the last couple of months that has followed some
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  Speaker 4: kids two two hundred families from low socioeconomic backgrounds across
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  Speaker 4: a ten year period, and what these researchers found was
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  Speaker 4: pretty interesting. They said, if parents will do three things consistently,
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  Speaker 4: they can predict that those children will do significantly better
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  Speaker 4: at school than if parents don't do those three things.
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  Speaker 3: I'm going to guess, I reckon, I can guess one
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  Speaker 3: of them. Reading with your children.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, Well it's not precise, but it's part of a
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  Speaker 4: bigger thing. And then the first thing was we need
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  Speaker 4: to have books at home, books for our children to access.
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  Speaker 4: We need to be readers ourselves. Leaders are readers, and
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  Speaker 4: kids who do well at school come from homes usually
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  Speaker 4: where there's a lot of books. What the research has
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  Speaker 4: found was that from the age of twelve months, parents
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  Speaker 4: have got picture books, no words, just pictures, and I'd
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  Speaker 4: sit down with their kids and they would read the
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  Speaker 4: picture books. In other words, rather than worrying about words,
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  Speaker 4: they just sort of talk about the story. They talk
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  Speaker 4: about the things that the person was wearing. They'd label
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  Speaker 4: the color of their shirt, or the smile on the dog,
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  Speaker 4: and the funny way that the birdie was flapping its wings,
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  Speaker 4: and they would bring the child into this picture book story.
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  Speaker 4: And as the kids got older, more and more books
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  Speaker 4: needed to appear and the parents would read to them. Now,
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  Speaker 4: there's a really interesting side note to this from other research.
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  Speaker 4: As parents, most of us love to read to our kids,
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  Speaker 4: but we often don't do it very well. The best
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  Speaker 4: thing that we can do, especially for young children we're
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  Speaker 4: reading to them, is to slow our reading down. We
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  Speaker 4: read too fast. We sort of lay down on the
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  Speaker 4: carpet next to their bed, or we lay down on
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  Speaker 4: the bed beside them, and we say, ok, spend time.
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  Speaker 4: Once upon a time, there was oh, look at that
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  Speaker 4: the end. Good night.
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  Speaker 2: It's like when it comes to that time when your exhausted,
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  Speaker 2: you go, bring us, which books do you want? They
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  Speaker 2: bring you three books and you go, that's big, that's big.
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  Speaker 2: I'm going to go for the smallest one.
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  Speaker 4: My kids will bring me eight or nine books and
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  Speaker 4: they're like read and they're all the doctors of these books.
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  Speaker 4: Our family is crazy about doctors and those poems. You
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  Speaker 4: know how long those books are. We love them, but
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  Speaker 4: they want to read eight of them at a time,
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  Speaker 4: and I'm like, okay, we'll pick three, and they're like five.
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  Speaker 4: We have this little negotiation. Usually they fall asleep in
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  Speaker 4: about the third one because they take fifteen minutes of each.
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  Speaker 4: But what the research shows is we should read slowly,
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  Speaker 4: and we should pause, and we should ask the kids
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  Speaker 4: what you do if that happened to you, or how
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  Speaker 4: would that make you feel? You know, by doing that,
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  Speaker 4: we engage them. We get their brain going, we get
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  Speaker 4: them being creative, and that's really really important. So books, books, books, books.
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  Speaker 4: What the research has found was that the more the
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  Speaker 4: books are part of children's lives from the earliest beginnings,
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  Speaker 4: the better it is that they'll do at school in
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  Speaker 4: grade five, which is where this study has stopped at
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  Speaker 4: this point. Any guesses for the second and third Minimal
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  Speaker 4: screen time didn't come into the study at all, but
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  Speaker 4: plenty of research suggests that screen time is a distraction,
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  Speaker 4: and we helped to We need to help our kids
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  Speaker 4: to minimize that screen time. Second one was educational toys
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  Speaker 4: and games. Okay, noted didn't say educational apps, because in
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  Speaker 4: the app Store at the moment, I think that there's
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  Speaker 4: a little over ninety thousand educational apps, and what research
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  Speaker 4: would suggest is that less than one percent of them
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  Speaker 4: are actually educational. They're just mind numbing. So these are
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  Speaker 4: these are the kinds of games that encourage children to
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  Speaker 4: be counting or to be reading, or they're open ended
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  Speaker 4: kind of toys and games where they get to explore
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  Speaker 4: and be creative. So you know, things like snakes and ladders.
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  Speaker 4: That's an educational game for a four year old because
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  Speaker 4: they're learning how to count along the board and roll
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  Speaker 4: of dice and do that. And if you're throwing two dice, wow,
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  Speaker 4: now we're really getting some serious maths. And so those
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  Speaker 4: kinds of things, whether it's Chinese checkers or drafts or
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  Speaker 4: chess or you know, I guess I'm saying old school
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  Speaker 4: sort of educational toys and games.
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  Speaker 5: It's interesting because we've mentioned before about how our six
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  Speaker 5: year old is wonderful of these six timestables that he's
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  Speaker 5: never been taught at school because he loves afl and
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  Speaker 5: so the fun that's involved with doing the simple math
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  Speaker 5: has given him skills that school couldn't possibly get him
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  Speaker 5: to learn so.
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  Speaker 4: Quickly, perfect example, great example of that. And the third
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  Speaker 4: thing that we need to do to set our children
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  Speaker 4: up to do well actually has less to do with
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  Speaker 4: the way we set up our home and more to
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  Speaker 4: do with our availability. The researchers have found again and
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  Speaker 4: this has been shown so many times now and this
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  Speaker 4: was only looking at but the more emotionally available, the
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  Speaker 4: more responsive mums are to their children, the better the
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  Speaker 4: kids do. They feel safe, they feel secure, they're open
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  Speaker 4: to learning, they do better.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Wow, so good. I was thinking when we were talking
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  Speaker 3: about how to set up your home for children's success,
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  Speaker 3: I'm like, well, put the desk in the corner and
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  Speaker 3: make sure the lighting's good, and make sure they've got
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  Speaker 3: plenty of you know, sharpened pencils.
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  Speaker 4: But you know, Susie, that's important. It's just that it's
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  Speaker 4: not important in those first five, six, seven, eight years
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  Speaker 4: of life because the kids aren't doing study at home
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  Speaker 4: at that point. Once they get into high school, yeah,
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  Speaker 4: you know, we need to be having conversations around screen time,
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  Speaker 4: access to screens in bedrooms, having appropriate lighting, getting rid
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  Speaker 4: of distractions, keeping things nice and quiet. All of that
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  Speaker 4: comes into it, and there's plenty of research around what
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  Speaker 4: we need to do. But it still seems that the
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  Speaker 4: best predictors are engagement with books, engagement with parents, and
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  Speaker 4: having that downtime where we get to play and explore
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  Speaker 4: and be creative. Those seem seem to be three of
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  Speaker 4: the critical things to help our kids do well at school.
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  Speaker 2: So good, beautiful, very simple, very I like it when
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  Speaker 2: when we hear the expert in the research that says,
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  Speaker 2: you know what I can do that, I can actually
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  Speaker 2: apply that and I can make some adjustments. And I
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  Speaker 2: always told you, sus we had this fight because I
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  Speaker 2: always wanted our bookshelves with books on it, and you said,
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  Speaker 2: but you've never read any of them. I go, but
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  Speaker 2: it's good. It makes me look smart, se justin not
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  Speaker 2: only doesn't make me look smart, justin saying you need
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  Speaker 2: to have books in the house. It's good for our
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  Speaker 2: kids as well.
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  Speaker 4: The kids can look at them, and just as yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 4: oh my gosh, dad must be so smart look at
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  Speaker 4: all the books.
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  Speaker 2: So he hasn't read.
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  Speaker 3: We underestimate those, most.
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  Speaker 2: Doctor Justin Gilson from Happy Families dot com dot are you.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
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  Speaker 1: Thanks guys, and there are loads of resources to help
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  Speaker 1: along with your parenting at the website happy families dot
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  Speaker 1: com dot au. Or if you're interested in having doctor
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  Speaker 1: Justin Colson speak at your school, community group, or organization,
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  Speaker 1: you can find out more at Justincoilson dot com