I strongly value relationship building and the belief that when you really see and take time to notice a child, you can then get to know them and their unique personality traits and character strengths. Once an understanding of the whole child is in place, you’ll then be able to teach them and they will learn in a way that works for them.
Children reflect after each Confidence Coaching session in the See Me, Know Me, Teach Me space.
What made you happy today?
What did you learn today?
What are you grateful for today?
What will you do tomorrow?
The first week of school had a new perspective for me this year as I have been able to spend the week supporting my niece as she started at a new school (my school)! It’s the very first time I haven’t had my own class as of Day 1.
Between school drop-off and pick-up (and until way into the night to be honest) I have been engaging in online professional development to gain some insights and strategies to support children’s social and emotional development and wellbeing.
The Motivated Child Summit has been jammed packed with video talks featuring child experts across a range of fields, all focusing on cultivating motivation and working towards goals. I am loving it and, if you asked my family, I’m definitely addicted to watching and learning as much as I can. Keep an eye out as this summit happens every year and is a great free resource for families and educators.
Here’s a list of who and what I have listened to…
Angela Duckworth – Raising Kids with Grit and Resilience
Caroline Miller – Cultivating Authentic Grit and Setting Better Goals
Shefali Tsabary – Conscious Parenting to Unleash Motivation
Julie Lythcott-Haims – Parenting Styles to Raise Motivated Adults
Adam Price – He’s not Lazy: Empowering your Son
Lea Waters – The Science of Strengths to Motivate Kids
Caren Baruch – A School Psychologists Motivation Toolkit
Ellen Braaten – How Processing Speed Affects Motivation
Peg Dawson – Helping Kids Improve Executive Function
Tim Pychyl – Tools to Tackle Procrastination
Paula Davis-Laack – Rejuvenating Kids from Burnout
Diana Caramanico – Training for Resilience and Mental Toughness
Senia Maymin – Exploring the Four Tendancies
Sharon Selby – Motivating Anxious Kids and Teens
Sherri Fisher – Empowering Families to Improve Motivation
Sharon Saline – Motivating Kids with ADHD
I think one of my character strengths may be love of learning – what do you think? My brain and notebook is now full of great ideas to share with you! It also confirms that I am on the right path and that there is a whole network of people out there doing this great work in supporting children and their families.
A big hello coming to you from our Mighty Me coaching space, that has since become our learning and working at home area.
Regular features of our little space include an unfinished coffee, a laptop propped up by a shoe box, cords everywhere and SEVEN THOUSAND questions!!
We may be lucky that we already have a dedicated working and learning space, but my goodness it’s still a challenge.
During the holidays we moved furniture around and turned it into our happy place. We made sure that learning was going to happen in a dedicated space so that we could create a new routine. We got excited!
We then got to work making our routine visible. A lot needs to happen in this space. I need to run my own business, develop online content for teaching a year 3 class and scaffold year 6 learning from home. Miss 11 needs to do her school work while asking me the SEVEN THOUSAND questions. The chocolate puppy needs to sleep at our feet and snore all day.
I have developed some organisational posters and templates to help you with your learning and working at home routines. These worked a treat for us.
We started by brainstorming some fun projects with the Mighty Me Learning and Wellbeing Activity Ideas resource so that Miss 11 was engaged while I completed my work for the day. I filled in one of these too…because everyone has to dream!
We collaboratively came up with some guidelines for our learning and working time using the Learning at Home Rules resource. I was able to minimise the eye rolling to just once when I explained that knowing what to expect would mean that we wouldn’t get annoyed at each other. Win!!
Finally, we had to get all serious and plan our learning day out to suit our family routine using the Mighty Me Learning at Home Schedule. Miss 11 chose to start in the morning so that we could check-in with school and ‘get it over and done with’. Seriously Katie, there are horses to ride and games to play. It works best if we get our energy out first up so we planned to do P.E. from 9-9:30am each day and go from there. Miss 11 put this up on the wall near her learning space so that she could see which subjects she had planned and track her time. Starting with a subject area that is a little more flexible in it’s content also gave us a buffer if our morning didn’t go to plan as P.E. could definitely be in the form of our afternoon horse ride. There’s no way I’d like to start the day off feeling as though I was already behind, so imagine what it would feel like for a child whose world is already inside-out, upside-down and completely topsy turvy.
In our household we have 3 days at home and the rest of the week at school because I am a part-time primary school teacher so we also added a few fun plans to each learning at home day.
Favourite Character day, Silly Sock day, Crazy Hair day and PJ day made our days something to remember.
I am actually loving the chance to connect with Miss 11 more and to take this opportunity to engage in some real-life experiences. We’ve made a menu and she is cooking me breakfast of her choice and I am preparing some more interesting lunches (ie. force feeding her vegetables). It’s all about our wellbeing in this household and even though I’m the only one that gets super excited about it, they play along which is all that counts.
I have these documents and more available in a blank PDF so that your family can use them. To receive these, all you need to do is part with your email address – it just means that you’ll be stuck receiving more FUN and FAB stuff from Mighty Me about our kids, our families and our wellbeing.
Email me at katie@mighty-me.com for your copy
I have put together a two-part Survey Monkey so that I can continue to support everyone through SmKmTm and the Mighty Me Program. I would really appreciate your feedback as I strive to expand my services and cater for the needs of our children and families.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and ideas with me.
It’s not about what it is, it’s about what it can become
Dr. Seuss