Simple Ways to Help Your Child Love Learning

I picked my 4-year-old up from preschool one day recently, and his eyes beamed with energy, his little legs bunny-hopping with excitement as he sprung into the car. I couldn’t quite make sense of the flow of chatter that accompanied his enthusiasm yet, but clearly something awesome had happened at school.

Slow down, little buddy.

I caught the words “goodest day ever” and then something about a machine. Then slowly, the details trickled out.

His class had worked together — using dominos, blocks, marbles and other materials — to create a series of chain reactions called a Rube Goldberg machine (I had to look that one up). My son was endlessly fascinated — and inspired. As he waited for his siblings to return from elementary school that afternoon, he flitted about, searching for items he could use to make his own machine.

When his 8-year-old sister trudged in from the bus stop a while later, she flung her backpack on the ground and collapsed into the couch. My inquiry about her day was met with some adjectives muttered deflatedly. The only one I heard clearly was “boring.”

How did my living room go from a zealous buzz over STEM to “meh about learning” in a matter of hours?

I would never have dreamed up a creative engineering project for my preschooler, and I realize that not every unit in elementary school will thrill every child. While our kids’ teachers work tirelessly to make learning enticing, it’s also up to us parents to cultivate a passion for learning in our children — and continue to fuel its flames as they grow.

Here are five easy ways parents can inspire curiosity and wonder in their children, to help instill a continuous desire to learn from a young age.

1. Bring on the books. Read to your child. Read with your child. Read in front of your child. Talk to your child about what you read. Rotate the books they can easily reach. Add in magazines, cartoons, graphic novels, or board or non-destructible paper books for the littlest ones. Get them their own library card, so they can check out their very own books. Is their favorite fictional story about a llama? Check out a non-fiction book about llamas and learn together. Pick a time to read together each day — before dinner, before bed, even during bath time.
2. Expand on their interests. Think about what interests or excites your child at the moment. Did they love that book about outer space? Are they into bugs? Building? My son went through a transportation phase, so my mother-in-law took him on a weekly outing to try out a new mode of getting around town. They rode the subway, the city bus, a neighborhood shuttle bus. With each new ride, his interest grew. If your child adores animals, visit a farm or nature center. Do they love art? Find a local exhibit. Field trips transform their interests into adventures — and our mundane can be their magical. My kids thought our local waste transfer station (which we call “the dump”) was one of the most interesting places ever.
3. Become a hands-on hero. “Can we mix all the paint colors together and see what happens?” My instinct is to avoid messes. But what if we said yes more to hands-on experiments? There are so many easy, tactile things we can do with our kids at home: planting seeds, conducting simple science experiments, baking together. Hands-on learning helps children process information in a new and fun way. My daughter told me that math at school is, you guessed it, boring. But when I let her cut up some old fabric and use it to “design” clothes for her dolls, measuring and calculating suddenly became cool.
4. Sneak learning in through fun and games. You know those recipes for green smoothies that call for a bunch of fruits and protein-rich dairy products — and taste good enough that your child doesn’t notice the hidden spinach or kale? Even those subjects our kids think are dull can be spiced up with songs, games, or other creative activities. When I tried to help my first grader with spelling on a recent Saturday, he told me that he refuses to learn on weekends. Then he saw me playing a word game and asked if he could try. He got so into it, he didn’t even notice that he was learning to spell.
5. Make learning rewarding. Make learning a conversation one that you have routinely with your child. When they ask rapid-fire questions, encourage their curiosity by sharing your thoughts with them or looking up answers together. Ask them open-ended questions about topics they’re interested in. Help them understand that the outcome matters less than the process — that a wrong answer is not a reason to give up. Your interest in your child’s learning — coupled with the confidence they gain from completing a puzzle, sounding out a word, or trying something new — makes for a tremendous reward.

No matter your child’s age or schooling situation, time spent in a classroom is only part of the picture. Opportunities abound at home to spark kids’ passion for learning and to help them become eager, life-long learners.