“When we become parents, we often see ourselves as our children’s teachers, but we soon discover that our children are our teachers as well”
(Dan Siegel and Mary Hartzel, author: “Parenting from the Inside Out”)
الحمد لله الذي بنعمته تتم الصالحات
Alhamdulillah this week our Little Man, Muawiyah bin Faisal, turns 3 years old. Reflecting back this past year of raising him – mostly in lockdown – since he was 2, I found that one of the most fulfilling and exciting roles of parenting is that of a teacher.
There is just something immensely satisfying, wholesome and flat-out awesome about guiding our little ones learn and grow, and to be with them in those victorious Level-Up moments.
Throughout helping Muawiyah develop his motor skills, speech abilities, reading proficiency, and social interactions, it has been a very educational experience for me personally too, to develop a very valuable life lesson which I can apply in so many other areas of my professional and personal life: coaching and mentoring.
I decided to map out and share a list of the principles that I have learnt throughout these past couple of years to get the best out of our students, in our role as teachers. It is interesting to note that many of these principles are also applicable to effective coaching in general, including professional coaching at the workplace or in teaching others skills such as tajwid in recitation of Qur’an, or even in working out.
Please do share if you have any thoughts, comments, feedbacks, or even disagreements!
Here are some of the guidelines of effective coaching, based on what I have learnt:
1. Progress, not Perfection – when teaching them, don’t focus too much on the endgame of being “expert” at something; it can be daunting and possibly demoralize them, especially when you compare with other children and fall victim to peer pressure. The worst thing you can do is get them to feel they demoralised that they “don’t have what it takes” or are not “talented”. After all, everyone has their own pace (just look up Albert Einstein’s progress in school!). Focus your efforts to get them to move one step forward. One task at a time. That momentum itself can motivate them to take another step forward.
2. “Yes, you can!”: Instilling confidence in them – upon multiple attempts, it is natural that they will feel like giving up, and repeatwslt claim “I can't do this”. Your job is to make them believe in themselves, just enough to get them into the progress momentum in point #1. This coach bond is important: when they feel that you genuinely believe in them, they will too.
3. Refrain from micromanaging or being a “helicopter”: As much as possible, let them do the work themselves and figure it out. Resist the temptation to “swoop in” every time they make mistakes. What they are capable of doing, try not to do it for them and spoil them, no matter how slow they are in getting it right, how sloppy they might be or how much they demand you to help them out. The mistakes are part of the learning process, and if we solve all of their problems, we rob them of the ability to figure it out by themselves. (Note: Sometimes, this also means you may have to standby to clean up the mess after them!)
4. Be patient in their mistakes – As parents/teachers, we need to train our emotional intelligence to suppress our frustrations or disappointment from their failed attempts or if they have been slacking. Showing our frustration will severely discourage them, as this will not only make them believe less in themselves (and subconsciously make them feel defective), but can might also make them feel that they let us down, which further demoralizes them as a reason for our grief. Remember: A student-teacher relationship works both ways.
5. Show, don’t tell (as much as practicable) – Try to minimize the amount of verbal instructions, wherever possible. Lectures tend to stress people out, especially toddlers or beginners who may be lacking the vocabulary capacity to fully grasp what you are trying to explain in the heat of their difficult attempts. Instead, show them, let them observe and try it out for themselves.
6. “See! I knew you could do it!”: Celebrate their little wins – Give them high fives. Paint a big fat smile on your face. Jump around like a bunny. Whatever gets them excited! When you express genuine happiness at their progress, not only does this reinforce their motivation to learn and improve, but it also has a subconscious empowering effect to make them feel that they have contributed to your happiness. Use this a means to communicate through your actions that “I believe in you”.
7. Respect – refrain from mocking their efforts or making fun of them, especially if their attempts look silly. This includes conversations you have with other family members or fellow parents, when you expose their “cute” antics as a laughing. This is a big no, no… especially for boys. This can make them feel that we betrayed their trust, that you exposed their vulnerabilities in secret, damage their self-esteem, and deter their motivation from the act again in the future. Even worse, if they get upset and we JUSTIFY our actions and invalidate their emotions. This also means that sometimes, they do prefer privacy to “test things out” and learn by themselves, so be mindful also of how they feel if you were to take a photo or video of them for you to upload or share with others #sharenting
8. Be present: chuck away the phones – The only way to be effective at ANY of these coaching techniques, is that we are totally present with them. Our children are a lot more perceptive than we tend to give them credit for: they can intuitively tell when we are not paying attention, and when they do, they will lose interest from engaging with us, much less trying to live up to what you are teaching them to do. This can also damage their self esteem – Busying ourselves with distractions such as mobile phones will, through our actions, subconsciously sends a message that our coachees don’t matter and are unimportant to us.
9. Communication: Tone of voice and emotion matters – a positive and negative tone can make all the difference in your coaching effectiveness: “How” you are saying it is sometimes more important than “what” you are saying. For example, there are many ways you can say “come on”: and how you say those two words can either convey encouragement, frustration, panic or optimistic anticipation. This is especially true for toddlers. They may not understand your words, but they can intuitively feel the emotions behind them: and how you pitch them can make all the difference between motivation and discouragement.
10. Lead by example, but at the same time be authentic: They mimic you more than you realize – children absorb like a sponge, and at the sensory perception of the toddler age, they take in everything: including the subtle nuances of our subconscious behavior. And this is when we have to be extra mindful. However, this shouldn’t be taken the wrong way that we should “pretend” to put an act in front of them. Children are a lot more efficient at spotting character inconsistencies than we realize (hence they sometimes learn to take advantage of that). Rather, this means, we have to clean up our act regardless of our presence, so we can authentically be ourselves. And yes, this DEFINITELY applies to leaders and seniors at the workplace – you never know what your subordinates pick up.
11. Stay true to your word: make good on your commitments – this is very important: do not issue out empty threats, or worse yet, empty promises. Children can quickly learn that “oh he’s just saying it”, and find methods to bypass the hurdles (e.g. tantrums, raise our voices even louder next time). Mean what you say and say what you mean. This applies for positive commitments too, such as a promised of a reward if they were to do something. They remember. Besides, how do we feel when promise us something but then “forget” about it? Same thing with your child. Honesty needs to be modelled through action.
12. Humility: Be their student, too, wherever you find the opportunity – Everyone has at least one thing that they are better than us. Sure, we may be their teacher in one or several aspects, but they may be better at us in other things. When the teaching relationships goes both ways, the student feels empowered to feel they have a positive effect on their teacher. Muawiyah loves making up his own games, and imaginary stories or tells stories of past adventures; and when he does, I play with his rules, listen and ask questions curiously, like a friend at school. It reinforces the two-way relationship, while simultaneously strengthening my observations by allowing me to gauge his thoughts and level of imagination/understanding.
And that’s my list for Part 1!
What do you think? Any of the above that you particularly disagree with or resonates with you most?
Share and let us know! 😁
رَبَّنَا هَبْ لَنَا مِنْ أَزْوَاجِنَا وَذُرِّيَّاتِنَا قُرَّةَ أَعْيُنٍ وَاجْعَلْنَا لِلْمُتَّقِينَ إِمَامًا
"Our Lord! Bestow on us from our wives and our offspring, those who will be the comfort of our eyes,
and make us leaders for the people of taqwa" (Surah Al-Furqan 25:74)
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