CMS Launch Points

Monday 4/14—French Toast Sticks

Tuesday 4/15 — Cheesesteak

Wednesday 4/16— Chicken Tenders

Thursday 4/17 — Domino’s Day - 1:10 PM Dismissal

Friday 4/18 — School Closed

The PTC sells Ice Cream Sandwiches every Wednesday during both lunches for $1.00 (options are available for those with milk allergies).

This week’s perspective comes from William Stixrud and Ned Johnson’s book The Self-Driven Child. The authors point out that often teachers and parents try to take the struggle out of learning experiences. We pressure kids to follow the easiest path so that learning comes easy. We make decisions for them, discourage them from considering complexity and eventually what happens is we have young adults whose parts of the brain associated with dealing with adversity are underdeveloped. These young adults struggle to make decisions, adequately weigh consequences for different actions and are unable to manage other stressors that are an inevitable part of life. To support resilient kids, the authors offer these tips:

• Help kids understand the different levels of competency that include unconscious ignorance, conscious ignorance, conscious competence and unconscious competence.

• With unconscious ignorance, kids don’t know what they don’t know. They’ll confidently attempt a task that they have no ability to complete. Learning in this situation can be painful and embarrassing. You don’t want kids to experience this kind of stress.

• With conscious ignorance, kids know what they have to do to succeed. Whether it is to memorize multiplication facts or study the causes of World War II, kids don’t need parents to tell them what to do. For whatever reasons, they decide not to put the work in and find themselves in situations where they can’t succeed.

• Conscious competence is achieved when a kid knows what they have to do, puts the work in and experiences the gratification of meeting or exceeding expectations. This is the goal of learning, but it is important to have kids recognize that it probably won’t be attainable in all areas and that’s okay.

• Unconscious competence happens when a kid can complete complex tasks without thought. This is the level of understanding most adults have and why it is sometimes difficult to explain how to complete complex tasks to kids with little experience. In these instances, sometimes an older sibling or peer can help a learner complete a task better than a parent because an adult is so far removed from the early stages of the learning process.

• Caregivers need to know that it is okay for learners to struggle, allow a kid the freedom to try to improve in the face of that struggle and provide support only when a child asks for help or reaches a frustration point that makes a learning experience unproductive.
  
  

Question of the Week: What are some areas where my child needs my support and the areas where I could give them more independence?

Parents, we’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic. Share your perspective by going to: https://forms.gle/vm1mWZnFse8gGXRZ7