Nip it in the bud.
When it comes to stopping a bad habit, the earlier it is caught the easier. So, recognising a bad habit forming before it is embedded means never letting it become a habit in the first place. Similarly, recognising a potential good habit and reinforcing it through repetition facilitates embedding it into daily habits so that it can continue delivering benefits thoughtlessly.
Thoughtless is something we all are when it comes to our default behaviours, as they play out like a program, with an initial trigger condition firing off a sequence of actions that play to completion. Interrupting the process as early as possible helps to change the behaviour.
I have failed as a parent.
Not completely and not forever.
And the failure in some parent's eyes might not seem that large, or perhaps for some, they wish their children would behave similarly - at least that is what we have heard from other parents in regards to our daughter.
From birth, we have left her off screens and only introduced them at any level (other than chatting with Australia) when she was around five years old. Now, she has to do some homework on a screen, and on weekends she watches some kids programs in the morning. However, the problem we have created was that while we have actively read books and encouraged our daughter to read from birth, we introduced her to audiobooks about six months ago.
She listens to books too much.
In my opinion.
Listening to a book is better than watching a screen, as it activates the imagination, but the problem is that at her age, she needs to develop her reading ability in both Finnish and English. She reads well in Finnish, getting better in English, but there is a long way to go. Some will of course say that it is unnecessary for her future to be able to read , since there will be technology to close the gap, but that is not what I am worried about. As I see it, the act of learning the skill of reading as a child develops mental infrastructure that is leveraged and benefits the child as an adult.
I suspect a lot of the foundational skills aren't being learned today.
I have mentioned before and recently about the drop in problem-solving ability, which is often attributed to a lack of exposure to problems, but I think it is more than this, or at least, there is more to the "problems" needed. Because when we read a story, we have multiple problems to solve continuously. Firstly perhaps, it is understanding the words and then comprehending them in context. But especially for a child, it is coming across unknown words and trying to comprehend despite not knowing the definition, through the general context. Then there is of course the visualisation of what is being understood, which becomes a unique blueprint of understanding that is personal to the reader. And then there can be the application of the solution where understanding and images are imagined in a hypothetical scenario that is again individual to the reader.
When watching a film, the majority of this is already given to the viewer, so there is very little that the audience needs to problem solve, because they needn't imagine anything. And then, unlike reading, the flow of information doesn't speed up and slow down based on the viewer's comprehension, it just flows on, so there is also no space to stop and think about what is being shown or said. Sure, there is a pause button, but I don't know anyone who will pause a show every time they have a thought that should be explored more deeply. It would ruin the passive viewing experience.
Audiobooks are somewhere between of course, as they take out the skill of learning, but also don't give the visuals, so my daughter still has to do some problem solving. However, they also suffer from the speed of flow problem, where it is highly unlikely, and even more so for a child, to pause the audio to think deeply about what is being communicated. So, consuming the book becomes a less "skill rich" environment, making it far more entertainment-centric content.
My failure as a parent is that even though I know this, I haven't reduced the amount that my daughter listens to them, and instead enforced encouraged her to read more. And my wife doesn't see the harm in it in the same way I do, especially since she hears from other mothers how they wish their children would behave more like Smallsteps at times, as if Smallsteps herself is the only factor that counts, and not the parenting supporting her. There is nothing stopping most kids from having different behaviour, other than the repetitive facilitation of the behaviour they currently have.
So, in order to start to change the behaviour, there are a couple options I have available to me. One is to stop her listening to audiobooks altogether, since we as parents are the gatekeepers of the content. However, I think this isn't a viable solution and will cause more problems, since it is a punishment for her, when she hasn't done anything wrong. However, even though she doesn't listen for hours on end, and when she does she normally plays at the same time, it can be limited. Playing at the same time is not a bonus, since what it means is that focus is split, as humans are incredibly bad at multitasking.
So, then it comes down to encouragement, which has already started with her reading a couple paragraphs of the books (in English) that I read to her at night. She is already improving her problem solving ability when she comes across words she doesn't know or can't pronounce, and she is asking to read, without me asking her. Her fluency is increasing rapidly and I notice the change in her spoken language, where she is intentionally introducing words she has learned from the books.
The next thing is through role-modelling, where we all put aside time to read together, especially her and my wife. My wife "never has time" to read, although she loves it, so putting aside even 15 minutes at a time a few times a week, will make a dramatic difference in her life, and support my daughter to build her love.
Ultimately, the skill of reading (and writing) will degrade in general as kids and adults spend so much time on screens consuming mostly shortform information. Very little thought is required and the speed of flow of information pushed through the feeds means that there is extremely low likelihood that people will slow down enough to dive deeply into any of the topics, and the topics are varied, unfocused, and largely presented in ways that will not encourage any activity or skill development. And there is skill loss from not doing an activity and as I see it, a lot of the lost skills are fundamental human skills that help us understand our world, and communicate with clarity as we interact with people.
This skill gap is an opportunity for those who have developed the skills, especially when it comes to face to face communication with people. Problem-solving is a large part of communication, but people are becoming far worse at it as they transmit what they want the way they want it, but only receive information when it comes in the form they want. Perhaps due to a lack of problem-solving ability, they do not see that when they communicate, they aren't being listened to either, just like they aren't listening well to others.
So in the interest of Smallsteps' development for the future, I have to stop failing as a parent and start changing my behaviours so that she will be exposed to the conditions required to develop her own skillset. Consuming information isn't enough, there has to be practice. And the thing with reading is that it is an active process that forces the practice of a cluster of skills that compound to make a better critical thinker, and communicator.
Should write more about my many parenting fails?
Taraz
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I agree about reinforcing reading early. We started our boys early and it helped them a great deal throughout school with reading comprehension as they progressed. HOnestly, I have not taken up with audiobooks or podcasts even. Not sure if my imagination could be as engaged with an audiobook. Also, it may go too quick for me to kkeep up with. I have tried podcasts beefore, and some of them go to quick for me to keep up with.
We used to read with our kids at a minimum every evening before they started school. I do feel this was a big reason they did so well at reading as they progressed. However, I can see my youngest communication skills lacking as he did more online work in his later years of school.
So yeah, I think parents have a tremendous impact on their children's ability to read and think critically at an early age.
I don't think so, but for me, it is more engaging because reading is so hard. But definitely not as engaging as it was earlier, when I could read easily.
Yep. Another challenge. For fast speakers, I slow them down in the app.
It is interesting to see the differences even though similar childhood, isn't it?
It is interesting, but when you peel back the layers on my two boys, their childhoods were a little different. I was more strict with the older one than the younger one. I had more energy and was healthy. As my youngest got older is when i started getting sick and just didn't have the energy it took to beat ass and argue with him. :)
This is something that weighs on me. I am not at my best by far, and I think my daughter deserves much better than I can offer.
It seems to me you are doing a fine job. The team work will make the difference. The wife and I weren't always on the same sheet with my youngest like we were with my oldest. She coddled the youngest more.
I wrote a post a while ago too about kids and adults not being able to critically think these days. I think the biggest issue for me with audiobooks is it becomes too easy to split your focus. Unless you are in a certain place, the words can too easily just become noise in the background and as I have said before, my mind tends to wander. That doesn't happen so much with reading an actually book. At the very least it's easy to just go back and read the previous sentence again. Probably not as easy to do that with an audiobook.
Yes. This is the challenge and what my daughter does too. You can't do two things that require mental processing well. I listen at the gym, and pause when I am doing something that takes focus. But on mindless exercises, I can listen.
Yep! The very act forces focus. Mind can still wander, but it is also less distracted by the environment.
No. But I have been practicing. When I hear something good, I skip back a bit to listen again.
Seems we are on the same page! :) see what I did there...
There's an American president who read at least a book daily. While that seems impressive to me, I prefer taking much longer time to read a book, so I can properly understand and absolve the contents of the book and then apply it.
People usually mistake being able to recall most things they've read in a book as having understood the book, but the two are different. Someone can recall an idea they've not properly understood. So yes, I'm the time that pauses a movie or audio to engage in deep thought. And I prefer reading a book over and over to get deep insights from it and a broad understanding of it.
I think this is important to note also. Too much these days, it is about quantity over depth. A book a day, but not being able to use anything within.
I never listen to audio book. But in my opinion, reading physical book or content is far more better, as it allows our mind to conceptualise the words and their spelling. I sometime tried listening to content in hive but it does not worked. May be I am yet to familiarize with new device.
Spelling is another thing. You start to build an image of how words are formed. Good point!
I have had a similar experience as a math teacher. The students, and their
parents, would say "he can just use a calculator." I found that the students who insisted on putting everything in their calculators had no estimation skills and, if they arrived at some preposterously incorrect answer, they could not recognize it as wrong. They'd actually say "but that's the answer the calculator got" as if that were case closed argument. Frustrating! I forbade those in math classes until precalculus, when the students had developed some freaking sense, and the devices could augment their understanding, not override it.
I've just discovered the value of listening to something while I do something else. For instance, I warm up before doing Tai Chi by listening to a video. Good for her.
OK so you have succeeded!
Boy do I ever wish you would stop saying this.
My kids hated reading as school children. It was like pulling teeth to get them to do it. My daughters visited me over this past Christmas for a week, just the three of us. We spontaneously spent the afternoons quietly reading together. We exchange books.
Maturing is a process. It takes a life time. Smallsteps is doing very very well.
Was talking with a client a couple days ago about young people using AI at work, but they don't have the experience to know if it is incorrect. And it is often incorrect.
The problem I have with my daughter is that she likes to read, but it is far easier to do something that is more effortless. I don't want her to set up a pattern where she continually takes the shortcut, which ends up leaving her nowhere she wants to be.
She is doing well, so I don't bring some of this up with her directly. Just gentle nudges to put in the effort :)
Speaking about multitasking, I think it was Matt Damon that recently said that movie studios are now modifying film scripts to simplify them and repeat key plot information several times in order to better serve the multitasking movie watchers who scroll on their phones...
This is where we are and you are talking about reading vs audio books 😀
Yeah, I read something about that too. They need something "very exciting" at the start, otherwise the viewer will tune out. Isn't it interesting that we can't even concentrate when being entertained?
Do you have a list o a play list of audio book for free or you paid for it?
In my opinion, the listening audiobook is a good habit, hay en imagine a lot of children in the world have been spending a lot of time in screen learning nothing, hurting their eyes.
You have building a good habit, of course, in our case we grew reading more and this was a good habit but with the next generation it would be hard, because always appears o e children with his screen and loses the other children around their.
Paid service. She listens in Finnish mostly, and uses my wife's account. We don't have a separate account for her. She has her own phone now, but other than audiobooks, talking to family and setting up to meet friends, it is used for nothing else.
I have an audio account too, since I can't read much anymore, as I don't build the pictures automatically. It is okay reading to my daughter, because I can just read through, without needing to understand much :)
Thanks a lot, guau sorry for do not read a lot.
I need to get one service because sometimes the travel in one our or two could help and get advance in the way.
This could be a form to lear something in the car.
Busqué tus post , no hay , así que solo quiero desearte que estés bien de salud , que DIOS te cuide y proteja siempre
Gracias mano estamos bien.
Solo un descanso.
I think they are good for car trips and I listen at the gym. :)
As a child, I loved listening to audiobooks and stories on records. But there weren't many records, and I adored reading. When I was 10 or 12, I'd bring books from the library and ask my mom to read them too :)
It's a good idea that you decided to read together at the same time. Write about the books you've read; I hope you'll have some good science fiction on your reading list. I'm currently reading Asimov's story "The 200-Year-Old Man" (about a robot), and I really like the beginning. I remember that in 1999 I really liked the film based on this story.
My dad read a lot of Isaac Asimov, as well as others. I haven't read any science fiction with my daughter yet, but a fair bit of fantasy.
I don't listen to audiobooks. I want to read more. Maybe once I will be done with remaining paint by numbers sets. I think that in a few months I will buy a book for my mother's birthday(right now I am thinking about 47 ronin. I hope that my mother will like it.) At the same time I want to buy at least a few Monster(thriller/detective) manga books for myself. I would love to buy all 9 volumes but that would be expensive.
Is your mother into that kind of book, or is it ore for you? :D
The summary of 47 ronin sounded like something she may like. But worst case scenario I guess I could read it as well. :D But for now I think that I would be happy with just Monster.
I don’t see this as failure at all, more like awareness catching up with reality.
Maybe, but I se it as a failure because I have known for a while, even before she started listening that it wouldn't be the best.
At least now you’re acting on it, which is what actually matters going forward.
My dad would always tell me that reading yourself gives you more comprehension than you hearing someone read.
Every spelling gives you a thought, every word you say triggers your conscience and every sentence gives you clarity.
Cheers.