Slowing down enhances learning. What does that mean?
When we learn something well, we take our time.
How we learn is something not many people understand. First it is a process.
We’d all love to have our child learn faster, progress faster, and be better at what she already knows.
There is so much knowledge for a child to gain. And we as adults can forget how much there is to learn or even how we learned all that stuff. It can seem daunting to know how much our child has to take in and understand.
When we had a teacher who really took the time to show us how something works (for example, math or even cooking) and then answered our questions during the learning process, we retained it better.
Maybe that teacher had a great sense of humor and they made it a fun, enjoyable experience. Or they made making mistakes all part of the fun of learning. Maybe our teacher even intentionally made mistakes for fun. Did you ever have a teacher like that?
Well, that teacher was doing a number of things.
One of the things she was doing was taking her time showing you different aspects of the activity or action. She wasn’t in a hurry.
Nor did you feel any pressure to “get it” by a certain time frame. Instead you were interested. Maybe you even felt creative and playful.
Your teacher was taking time. She was letting the process be what it was. She was interested in YOU and how you were interacting with the activity or information.
Whether she was aware of it or not, she was having the time she spent with you go SLOWLY.
If you were thinking, she would even stop talking and just let you think. She would wait for you to either ask a question or make eye contact or give her your attention again so she would know you were ready for the next piece of information.
This is crucial to how we learn best, to optimizing our learning process.
How can you slow down with your child?
Be really present to him.
One way to potentially make this available to your child is to slow down what you are saying, and even how you are saying it, while presenting an activity or idea to your child.
Remember it is their learning that is important, not the content that is presented. It is what your child understands and makes out of the experience.
Slow is one of Nine Essentials Anat Baniel outlines in her book “Kids Beyond Limits”.
And the amazing thing is once you or your child has learned something, then slowly they will learn to go faster and faster on their own.
When it comes to learning: slow is the new and enhanced. Click To Tweet
Now think of a teacher where he felt pressured for time to get in and present their material in a certain time frame. He was like in a whirl-wind. And you weren’t able to keep up.
How did you feel? Frustrated? Like it was about you and you weren’t smart enough to grasp it or keep up (rather than it being about how the material was being presented)?
What are some ways you can incorporate Anat Baniel Method®’s Slow Essential in your interactions with your child? And for yourself?
We take your privacy seriously. We will never spam you.