Do you teach your kids or let them discover things for themselves?

[FHOJfinf18]

Had yet another fight with DH over our different parenting styles - we have a four-year-old. I clearly take the approach that one of my jobs as a parent is to teach my kid stuff. So I do try to check for milestones - see what we should be teaching our kid etc etc - this could be from learning numbers to riding a bike, doing zips etc etc etc.

DH on the other hand, just thinks that kids need to learn about the world by themselves and follow their interests. So in practice, he really doesnt go for any formal teaching, but he also wont think about teaching DC how to ride a bike (or even get them one), swimming, using knife and fork, or any other life skills.

This has always been a bone of contention between us. I find it really hard to have to keep up with where DC should roughly be at and trying to teach them stuff. I also dont want to be the boring one who always tries to push DC to doing new things or do school when the time comes. But i feel like if i don't then DH certainly wont bother.
But what do you do at home?

AIBU - kids just learn stuff themselves
AINBU - you are your child's teacher.

I've given it some thought, and I think that certainly in our house, we make the following distinctions when it comes to teaching vs waiting:

• skills that are genuinely essential vs optional extras (either always classed that way, or just at their age - not essential for my 3yo to know the alphabet, obviously essential for a child being taught reading at school!)
• skills we want them to master because it will improve our lives right now vs skills that won't make any difference to us at the moment (love that he can take his own shoes off now, not fussed if he can count to twenty)
• skills that we think are a natural next step from his existing skillset vs skills that it will be a long effort to teach him (DH taught him to put his own pants on in a week, I was gobsmacked because I really thought it would take months)
• skills that are on a tickbox for children his age vs skills we think he as an individual is capable of (he's very verbally capable, but a bit physically behind so he's memorised all the prayers of the rosary but I cannot for the life of me teach him to operate a bubble wand effectively even though I have seen younger children doing it in the playground)
• skills he's interested in vs skills we are telling him he just has to learn now

All of these factors contribute to deciding whether we actively teach him something or just let him come to it himself. DH and I often disagree on which categories a skill falls into, and I tend to be the one aware of official milestones. But we both fundamentally agree on the principle that some skills need to be taught actively by the parent at a moment the parent decides.

I think the question of who instigates it tends to depend on who's responsible for that bit of the daily routine. I offered DS a table knife to practice chopping soft foods because I was doing all the meal prep at that time. DH taught DS to wash his own face because he was doing bathtimes. And we definitely differ on what we think DC will pick up easily and what we think is a hassle. I let DD at a fork wayyyy earlier than DH would have done because he thinks the extra mess (on top of the usual mess!) is a huge hassle, whereas I think it's already a minefield of discarded banana, what's a few more bits? I think it's fun to recite poems or songs that DS will ask me to repeat a million times and pick up and memorise, DH can't stand repeating things more than two or three times in a row.

So I think it's perfectly OK to disagree on the specifics and to take a relaxed approach in general, but not to just leave everything to the child to spontaneously pick up.

OP do you provide pens, paints, paper, colouring books etc for your DC to use? In our household DCs wouldn't necessarily see us writing a lot but if they were playing and drawing I might suggest how to start to form the letters to write their name or make a birthday card for DGPs. It wouldn't be because I had planned on it that day just a natural progression of a situation. I assume that if he goes to preschool there is also the opportunity there to practice.

The nursery DD is at is looking for the kids to be learning to be independent.
Taking on and off shoes, coats etc
Going to the loo, wiping and washing hands.
Having the ability to pick up a pen and draw a line, then a circle.
Eating lunch and clearing up
They get help obviously but these are the skills they learn.
My DS (first born) struggled with this as we did everything for him. It was just easier to dress him when we had to rush out of the door. Dinner time was quicker if we fed him etc etc.
DD is super independent and does more at 3 than DS did at 5.
We also believe in eating as a family or at least one adult with the kids. Talking together and eating together is a great learning opportunity for a little one.

Teaching them to ride a bike, learn to swim, get dressed, wash themselves etc is absolutely the parents' responsibility. It would be negligant not to teach this stuff.

In terms of academic stuff, I didn't sit down and formally teach anything but just made sure we had lots of books around, answered questions as they came and probably just naturally encouraged them to understand numbers by counting things out etc without really thinking about it.

It’s a bit of both. Eating with a knife and fork I never taught, just gave them one and they sorted it. Same with zips, they’d been watching me so I told them to try.
Riding bikes and swimming then of course they need teaching. They’re not going to learn these things without the opportunity and need to be told how.
Independence skills such as washing I never taught, they just learn from opportunity.

Had another chat with DH tonight and he basically thinks that his brain just doesn't work that way and he never thinks of it i.e. that he should be teaching them stuff and feels like he has enough on his plate without having to think about it. I just feel like much of the mental load is then on me having to think about all this stuff. It's not helped by the fact that DH often dismisses me trying to do the academics as too young and unnecessary. Just very frustrating...and would be great to find a way of DH suddenly switching his brain to this stuff especially as he does spend lots of time with DC and is totally hands on in other ways

What does he think parenting is??

I agree with most - there is a balance to be had.
Yes, of course some of parenting is to teach basic skills, but then, over the years, your dc won't do well with you 'looking up when they are supposed to do things' and pushing them through 'checklists'. Nor is it good for dc to be 'hovered over' by helicopter parents who never let them make mistakes or never let them be bored or never let them work things out for themselves.

@Fixitup2 honestly not sure he thought much about it - just had a kid. He always complained that his parents mainly saw parenting as providing food and shelter....but I think that this is also how he sees it. He does all the practical chores around looking after DC - will do picks ups and drop off, bedtimes, cooking etc so it's not like he doesnt look after DC.

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink.

My 3 yo is very stubborn so formal efforts at teaching are rarely successful in our house (though apparently he is a little pet at nursery ). So we provide the materials and leave him be. Often he wants to follow the example of those around him. So we take his balance bike to the playground and he sees other children on their bikes and wants to have a go. Same for football. We have some coloured chalks in our garden and he'll see me idly chalking on the patio and will come and join in. We have foam letters and bath crayons in the bath so he'll identify the letters and make some squiggles on the tiles. He has some plastic scissors and glue sticks in a box, together with some bits of coloured paper, and sometimes he likes doing 'cutting and sticking'. After many wet pants and accidents, he potty-trained because he wanted to be like the big boys at nursery who have pants not nappies. But I tend to leave him be at home. Apart from reading together every day, which he enjoys, he plays and I (sometimes reluctantly) follow his lead. So he'll decide he wants to be a doctor and insist on injecting me and putting imaginary medicine in my mouth. Or he'll ask to play trains or do playdoh. Quite often, I have work to catch up on so I chuck him out into our small yard where I can see him with a bucket of water and some containers or some cars and pieces of wood to make car ramps. He watches lots of TV too while I work... he learnt his alphabet from watching endless silly kids videos on YouTube while we were self-isolating and I was working from home.

My DH never tries to teach him but he works long hours and isn't terribly involved. His idea of "teaching" is to take DC to the playground at the weekend and try to egg him on to go down the big kids' slide or ride his trike down the steep hill . He thinks I wrap him too much in cotton wool.

OFGS. It’s both. Do it both ways and stop stressing. Children learn, it’s what they are biologically programmed to do.

But plenty of children don't learn if not provided with opportunities. There are many older primary school children who can't use a knife (most master a fork pretty easily) to cut up their food, or tie their shoelaces, or tell the time because their parents haven't spent the time showing them how. (I know there are some children who can't do these things because of various SN which is obviously different.)

Children learn by copying their parents. If you want a child to be able to sit and eat at a table and learn table manners, you sit around a table together as a family and eat together. Even if it’s only once a week.

You want your kid to be able to pick up a pencil and learn fine motor skills use some paper and pencils at home. They will copy you.

Things like getting dressed, shoes, riding bikes. I spent maybe 2-3 times showing them what to do and then let them get on with it.

Get a balance bike it really helps with them independently learning how to ride a bike. Nothing quite like watching a kid figure out how to ride a bike for themselves, and they get that amazing sense of achievement and shows them how practice and really wanting to learn something by yourself is very fulfilling. Every time they fell off the bike, and they’d fake cry for attention I’d shout out the kitchen window, “don’t stop now, you can do it, get back on that bike!” Mostly though they’d practice when no one was watching so they couldn’t get embarrassed and could concentrate.

I do make sure my 5yo brushes her teeth properly, she can’t be trusted to do it right. When she’s super tired I might assist her getting dressed for bed etc.

Your DH sounds a wee bit lazy mind.

I used to teach my Son and Daughter all kinds of things when they were young, firstly they could both read and write well when they were about three years of age, We spent a lot of time together, looking at books, not really childish books, but learning about things in the countryside,and the names of birds and trees etc.

My son used to like going in the garage,and watching my late Husband ,working on his car, or doing some woodwork etc, and he liked to know the names of car parts in the engine etc.

Basically it was both teaching,and learning things by themselves.
We lived in a small village, and Son and daughter used to go with their little friends,into the woods nearby, and make little dens or tents to play in, and take our dog with them. So all these things were a kind of learning curve for them, either from me or my late Husband.

Not read whole thread but I was a bit like your DH and assumed school would teach lots. I’ve changed my view on that.
My DH is very hands on and taught the DC to ride bikes, cooking and lots of other things.
I’ve recently had to teach my 11 yo how to cut with scissors again as I noticed he wasn’t very good at it and now I think he has a problem with fine motor skills that I wouldn’t have noticed if it hadn’t been for lockdown.
Also had to re teach them their table manners after a year of not much social contact
And my DS doing 11+ - have had to teach him loads for that.
As mine are tweens I’m trying to teach them basic chores and life skills now. School doesn’t teach all that.

I do hear that some kids will literally ask their parents to show them letters/numbers etc but we live in quite a techy house i.e. we have nothing written down nor do we have numbers anymore. We just use laptops and phones - and DH would never ot think to point stuff out like that when we are out.

we used to move around all the time and not having paper was convenient and now live in a tiny place so it keeps everything tidy. but it's not like we have pens or paper lying around. we read all the time - both write for a living but dont have any physical artifacts

I hear you on not wanting lots of clutter (!) but I do think your house sounds a little bit sterile in terms of things for your DC to 'discover'. Kids develop their fine motor skills and understanding of cause and effect by fiddling about with physical objects. Tech isn't really any good for them.

Do you have physical books for your DC? What do they play with when you're hanging out at home? Children don't need lots of toys but do you let them play with household stuff like containers and pots and pans? My DC loves just counting pieces of pasta and transferring them between two bowls using a spoon. If you're worried about them learning letters and numbers, what about some coloured magnets for the fridge? Those don't take up a lot of room and kids love to fiddle with them. I give my DC the junk mail and let him cut it up with his scissors before it goes in the recycling - he loves that!

He sounds lazy.

Did he learn swimming on his own? V unusual. I would say swimming is important for safety reasons - and hard to learn on your own.

My mum was v involved with my education and activities. I’m v grateful - don’t feel bad about not being the fun one. My dad found it harder because of his background (English not his first language, grew up with lots of stuff unavailable), but definitely pulled his weight at home with chores.

People like your husband are probably the reason so many kids arrive at school being unable to go to the toilet, use cutlery or even talk properly.

Yes they’ll discover somethings themselves. But they also need to be taught and guided.

Good luck.

I came on to say let them discover, because I am
not a fan of hothousing children. I think it is healthy for children to be allowed to discover things for themselves (things like learning how to negotiate social interaction with peers, learning how do the monkey bars, etc) without constant adult interference.

However, reading your post, I agree that there are indeed some things that do need to be taught, or at least facilitated, because they are not things that children will learn as a matter of course in everyday life. Things like riding a bike, swimming, ice skating, etc are not like walking where the child will eventually pick them up. They do need to be taught and they are lifelong skills to enjoy and use. In this case, I think it’s good to make sure they pick up these things at a younger age, because past a certain age it becomes really embarrassing if you can’t swim/ride a bike/etc, so you just avoid doing it instead of learning. I’ve known adults like this who refuse to go or take their kids to the ice rink at Christmas, for example, because they don’t want to look silly on the ice. What a shame to miss out on a fun experience!

It sounds, OP, like not only does your DH think children will just pick up skills by breathing them in through the air around them, but they will also spontaneously ask to be taught things that they might not even know exist.

Our eldest is only 3yo, and I'm quite relaxed about him learning to ride a bike and learn to swim. He's not very physical so I'm not in a big hurry to tick off a box just because some people think he's reached the magical correct age (cough, my parents, cough). But I wouldn't expect him to know that swimming lessons are an option for him at whatever age unless I offer, so I do think it's up to us as parents to being it up. Not to announce it's time to start our formal home ed drill on front crawl, but to ask if he'd like to learn to swim. Or use scissors. Or learn to read. Or any other skill it's not essential for him to learn right now but might be capable of.

You don't know what's out there until someone tells you.

Have you pointed out to your DH the similarity between his complaints about his childhood and how he is parenting now? I wonder if he'd be open to asking your son what he'd like Daddy to teach him today, and rolling with that. Or if it would help you to print out a list of milestone skills and discuss it with him. I'm not really sure what you want to change, as it sounds like what you really want is for your DH to spontaneously turn into you which is a bit unlikely. Do you want to chance his philosophy or his practice?

I tend to show them once or twice then leave them to it. I try not to be a helicopter parent, I think their sense of achievement is greater if they succeed independently.

Bit of both. I don’t remember teaching them to use a knife and fork but they can. Husband taught then both to ride a bike. They had swimming lessons. Some of these things they won’t learn by themselves. My friend taught them to tie shoelaces when visiting one day! I didn’t know where to start with that!

I’ve never potty trained any of mine, just waited until they asked.

I think your Dh is opting out a bit here. Kids learn all the time, from what they see, do, and see others doing. So for example, my Dh and I sit at the table when the kids are eating, and usually have dinner with them, so they see us using cutlery, eating nicely, sharing bowls of veggies etc. This way they learn good dinner skills from us, and from doing it themselves.

But some things need to be taught to them, otherwise they will never learn them. For example when it comes to things like potty training, DH and I recognised together that the time was about right, sat down together and talked about how we were going to teach him, what technique we thought would work best, what potty to buy, where to put it, when we would start etc, and did it together. Because we parent as a team. We have slightly different approaches sometimes, but we talk to each other and work together. Your DH seems to not be interested in being part of your active parenting team.

It’s both really.
And with you being a professional teacher, I think you might be over-stressing about milestones and thinking of things to teach your DS. Similarly, I think your DH is a bit too passive and uninvolved.

You need to relax a bit, and he needs to be less relaxed. Age 4 is about when children are old enough to have definite interests in things. Like animals or the seaside for example.

My DCs when that age went to a Montessori preschool. Have a look at their method. It is a teaching style that is directed by the child’s interests and goes at the pace the child sets. It’s a good mix of what both you and your DH have in terms of philosophy about raising children.

This is such an interesting thread! I feel I fall into the lazy category unfortunately. Can people recommend a good reference document in terms of expected skills by age? I know the early years assessment the nursery uses, thinking more in terms of skills like cycling, drawing, etc...