Changing the surroundings to help your child succeed
When our child is struggling with a particular assignment, our first thoughts are often to make changes to the assignment itself in order to make it easier on our child. If it’s a handwriting assignment and our child fatigues easily with handwriting, we might allow them to split the lesson over multiple days. Or if it’s a math lesson, we might allow them to dictate to us so that they can simply focus on the math instead of becoming bogged down by the writing components. In both situations, we are changing the assignment itself in order to assist our child in achieving a satisfactory level of completion.
But if we step back and view the school assignment from the perspective of an occupational therapist, we will notice that there are three components that come together to allow for the successful completion of the assignment: the child and their innate abilities, the homeschool assignment itself, and all of the surroundings. Education, practice, and the natural progression of development can all bring about changes in the child, and while another possible solution to an assignment that appears too challenging could be to simply delay the assignment until later, that option is not always realistic or desirable.
So what about the surroundings (as OTs we typically refer to this as the environment)? How might we change the surroundings in order to help our child succeed in a challenging assignment? First, we must identify what exactly is making the assignment difficult for our unique child. Are they perhaps becoming distracted and therefore unable to focus long enough to complete the assignment? Or are they fatiguing too quickly before all work is completed? Maybe they’re struggling to remember long enough and are having to flip back in their book repeatedly to reference a past lesson. Whatever the issue is, once we are able to clearly identify that issue (or issues) we are prepared to consider how the surroundings may be playing a role and make changes that will improve our child’s performance. For example, with the child who is easily distracted, it would likely be helpful if we limited the number of available distractions by teaching the lesson when siblings are playing elsewhere, turning off unnecessary background noises, or removing unnecessary visual clutter—such as pictures or posters on the walls—before we attempt to teach the lesson. For the child who easily fatigues, completing writing assignments in a proper chair with sufficient support and an appropriately sized table or desk to rest the arms upon would likely help maximize their endurance. And for the child who is constantly flipping back and forth in their book due to poor memory, making copies of frequently referenced pages or materials and mounting them on the wall like posters can help eliminate flipping and speed up the learning process.* In each of these examples, the child and the assignment remained the same, but the child performed better on the assignment (and subsequently learned the material better) simply by making changes to the surroundings.
So the next time you find your child struggling to learn something new, take a step back and consider all of the components that are working together in the learning process. You may not be able to delay the assignment until a later date, and you might not even be able to change the assignment, but perhaps you can make changes to the surroundings in order to set your child up for the success you know they are capable of achieving.
*Note how there truly is no one-size-fits-all answer to educating our children? In one example we removed posters to reduce visual distractions while in another example we added them to compensate for poor recall and retention. As always, the “why” matters more than the “what.”