We continue talking, in our Maternity and Paternity Course, about learned helplessness. Today we will talk about situations in which our children may be exposed to it if they are not offered a suitable environment for their experimentation and a sense of control over the results in the tasks.
Exploration is the natural activity of children, and an appropriate environment is the one that provides them with greater domain and control experiences, to link their actions with results.
Therefore, what they really need to continue developing would be exploration spaces that he himself controls and can expand as it progresses, without comparisons or excessive uniformity and always consider as a priority the self-motivated game as an element of basic learning.
Case studies in school life
However, it is not necessary to go to extremes as terrible as those presented in the previous topic. Nor can we stay in positive baby care. The learned helplessness also occurs in practical cases of daily life. The video of the previous topic, especially valid for the school environment, It's a good example.
I remember well the school experience of my son, where he ended up affecting the learned helplessness. If something did not go well, let's say something as silly as coloring without going out or trimming, I received a message: I did it wrong and the others well. The impression he received, reinforced by comments, possibly innocent, from the teacher or the other children, is that it was slow. It ended up being obvious that he lost confidence in himself and in his ability to keep up.
The "sad faces", the corners of thinking, the negative comments, all that, instead of producing the reinforcement effect that should be sought with it, is a clear method to instill learned helplessness: They won't get it, it's not worth the effort. In my opinion, all these practices, so common in some nursery schools, should be completely avoided.
And that impression, later, was reinforced by the grades, the differentiation between the students and the attitudes of a teacher who was not prepared to meet the emotional needs of the children.
And it is that pointing to the best demotivates others does not encourage them, and, clearly, when they stop being labeled and pressured, children can recover the pleasure to learn and the confidence in which they can learn everything they want.
A student who, although studying or doing his best, repeatedly suspends, what he learns is that he is not able to learn that subject. That is silly, come on. And surely you have met children who leave this class, convinced that they are not as smart as others.
People who fail in their studies, even in the first years of Primary, may end believing they are not worth studying. Given this, we parents have the responsibility to reinforce our children and provide them with a respectful educational environment that offers them an advance at their own pace without labels or negative grades, and, of course, the necessary support so that they can face the challenges facing them. more difficult.
Practical cases in family life
The studies that have been carried out for decades on the mechanisms of learned helplessness they have shown that when we are subjected to unpredictable misfortunes we learn not to defend ourselves against them, believing that they are inevitable and unpredictable.
About the education and upbringing of our children we can learn a lot from this concept: if we are not consistent in our responses, if we react unpredictably with unjustified shouts or anger, if we point to our children as bad, dumb, capricious or inconsiderateAnd, whatever they do, our answer is to continue considering them that way, they will learn that it is not worth the effort, that they will always fail us.
I am also thinking of those children who, for whatever reason, do not stand out in sports, for example. His parents, to make him "react", compare him negatively with his classmates or siblings. "Run more, you are useless," they shout from the stands. As much as he runs it is never enough, he never gets to the ball on time, he never does it well enough. And the message, again, is that it's useless and never, no matter how much you run, you will get it. It will never be good for your parents, it will never be good. It is not worth the effort.
With the kids, let's be consistent. Do not apply punishments according to our mood (in fact, I advise never to punish but to use other educational methods). Let's not label or qualify. Let us value the effort and subjective achievement, and encourage for the effort to achieve the desired results.
Because, let's be clear, things need effort and everyone, also our children, will face frustrations and challenges that we should not avoid.
Safe environments for children to reinforce themselves
Children are naturally gifted to self-reinforce in the accomplishment of their tasks. The role of parents is to provide safe environments for them to experience from a young age.
Facing gradual challenges The child will face frustration healthily and learn to deal with it with optimism. They need to feel that they can master things and approach them from different options and, of course, they need us to convey positivity to their tasks or challenges.
It is essential to offer children an environment of love, respect and good humor, supporting them, but without pressing on excessive praise or constant criticism. They need, as I have explained, to feel that there is a link between what they do and their outcome, always in reasonable terms. But, in spite of all this, we find traits of learned helplessness and pessimism, we can help them overcome it, as I will tell you in a next point of our Maternity and Paternity Course.
