Research-based ideas
to help kids thrive
Helping to support your child's intrinsic love of learning -
the preschool years and beyond!
Suitable for children old enough to ask questions through the end of elementary school. Perfect for parents, caregivers, teachers and pandemic pod leaders - whether you are homeschooling, thinking about homeschooling, doing Zoom-School or attending school in person.
Hello 2021 & Welcome to Our New Members!
(Enrollment Re-Opening Late Spring/ Early Summer 2021)
Helping to support your child's intrinsic love of learning -
the preschool years and beyond!
Suitable for children old enough to ask questions through the end of elementary school. Perfect for parents, caregivers, teachers and pandemic pod leaders - whether you are homeschooling, thinking about homeschooling, doing Zoom-School or attending school in person.
Hello 2021 & Welcome to Our New Members!
(Enrollment Re-Opening Late Spring/ Early Summer 2021)
Do you want your child to have a life-long love of learning?
Most parents do.
So we buy them books (so many books!); special toys to teach them critical skills like coding;
monthly subscription kits to teach them about STEM topics, travel, cooking…
We used to take them to museums, music classes, gymnastics...if those are now closed, we
search in vain for activities that will keep them occupied for longer than it took to set up the
activity in the first place, in a vain attempt to keep them off screens.
And we teach them what we know.
But what if the way we've been interacting with our children was not only not supporting their love of learning, but was actually working against it?
More than 80 years ago, renowned philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer John Dewey observed:
"The most important attitude that can be formed is that of desire to go on learning."
Yet two psychologists, Mark Lepper and Melinda Hodell wrote in 1989:
"The young child, outside of school seems blessed with a seemingly limitless curiosity, a thirst for knowledge, a will to learn...
Observe these same children a few years later, however, as they sit in elementary-school classrooms, and one sees a different picture. For many of these children, motivation is now a problem.
Attention strays; minds wander. Extrinsic sanctions are now required to motivate children to learn their assigned lessons...
So What Happened
?
If we know that intrinsic motivation to learn – learning simply for the love of learning – is so important, why are so many of our students unmotivated to learn in school?
Well it turns out that parents may be at the start of this process, when we do two things:
1) We tell them to stop asking us questions so we can have a moment's peace
2) We continually direct their attention to things WE think they should find interesting
It continues in school, where children quickly learn that it’s the teacher’s job to ask questions, and students are rewarded for supplying the (correct) answer as quickly as possible.
Research has shown that by about second grade, most children have stopped asking questions about what interests them and instead just want to know whether they need to complete an activity and if so, how to do it.
This has led to what researchers Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman have called:
The Creativity Crisis
While IQ scores are consistently inching up, we are becoming less and less creative.
While many of the careers our children will enjoy haven’t been invented yet, Drs. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and Roberta Golinkoff say we do know what kinds of skills they will need to succeed
Communication
Collaboration
Content
(this is where school focuses)
Critical Thinking
Creative Innovation
Confidence
For the most part, while teachers try their very best, these are not skills that are taught or valued in school.
How can we help our children to develop these skills?
We need to start early (when they start asking questions).
We need to learn how to truly listen to our children - not just to what they say, but to the unspoken questions that really drive their interests.
We need to engage them in the dance of learning: offering encouragement and resources to propel them forward, while making sure they still ‘own’ the process.
How can we help our children to develop these skills?
We need to start early (when they start asking questions).
We need to learn how to truly listen to our children - not just to what they say, but to the unspoken questions that really drive their interests.
We need to engage them in the dance of learning: offering encouragement and resources to propel them forward, while making sure they still ‘own’ the process.
The Supporting Your Child's Learning
membership will help you to:
Identify your child’s true interests
(not just the random ones they will announce if you ask)
Identify the theories that your child is building about their understanding of the world that underlie their surface-level questions and use these to scaffold their learning
Become a facilitator who connects your child with the resources they need to answer their own questions
Document your child’s learning so you can see both their and your growth over time (even when it might look to the casual observer like the child isn’t actually learning very much!)
Help your child to ask more questions that deepen their learning on an initial topic (so we can bring the knowledge, questions, and insights we didn’t have the first time around)
Communicate what they have learned to communities who care
Support your child in solving problems that have real meaning to real people (not just assignments whose sole purpose is to grade the child’s performance)
The Supporting Your Child's Learning
membership will help you to:
Identify your child’s true interests
(not just the random ones they will announce if you ask)
Identify the theories that your child is building about their understanding of the world that underlie their surface-level questions and use these to scaffold their learning
Become a facilitator who connects your child with the resources they need to answer their own questions
Document your child’s learning so you can see both their and your growth over time (even when it might look to the casual observer like the child isn’t actually learning very much!)
Help your child to ask more questions that deepen their learning on an initial topic (so we can bring the knowledge, questions, and insights we didn’t have the first time around)
Communicate what they have learned to communities who care
Support your child in solving problems that have real meaning to real people (not just assignments whose sole purpose is to grade the child’s performance)
Sara's two children are making the most of school shutdowns
"My children's creativity and excitement over learning has been exploding. Until COVID hit our community, my only concern was that we would never get to all the projects we thought of based on their interests.
Now home from school, we have no shortage of meaningful activities to fill our days for weeks or even months to come. The membership has put me in a position where I can turn lemons into lemonade."
- Sara N.
Here's How It Works
In the first two modules we cover core topics so you can understand what’s going on in your child’s brain when they’re learning, and set the stage for your first successful Learning Exploration, before moving on to advanced topics.
You'll gain confidence that you're truly developing your child's love of learning - and having fun while you're doing it.
- 5 easy steps explained -
1
2
3
4
5
Sign Up to unlock membership benefits
Receive a new module of content each month (or pay for a year up-front to access 12 modules at once)
Begin engaging your child in new ways of learning, by offering support rather than by 'teaching'
Get support through our private community, video Q&As, small group peer coaching, and occasional 1:1 consults
Know that your child is developing critical skills: a love of learning, and knowledge about how to learn
1
Sign Up to unlock membership benefits
2
Receive a new module of content each month (or pay for a year up-front to access 12 modules at once)
3
Begin engaging your child in new ways of learning, by offering support rather than by 'teaching'
4
Get support through our private community, video Q&As, small group peer coaching, and ocassional 1:1 consults
5
Know that your child is developing critical skills: a love of learning, and knowledge about how to learn
What will I learn?
Module 1: Getting Started
Deep dive into how children learn, which will help you support them effectively (hint: the kinds of strewing and provocations that you may often see on Pinterest are only a tiny part of this process!)
The materials we'll need to engage children's creativity (with options for both budget and top-quality products, allowing you to spend or save where it makes the most sense for your budget)
How to start a Learning Journal, which will form the backbone of our work in coming months
Module 1: Getting Started
Deep dive into how children learn, which will help you support them effectively (hint: the kinds of strewing and provocations that you may often see on Pinterest are only a tiny part of this process!)
The materials we'll need to engage children's creativity (with options for both budget and top-quality products, allowing you to spend or save where it makes the most sense for your budget)
How to start a Learning Journal, which will form the backbone of our work in coming months
Module 2: Your First Learning Exploration
Recording first thoughts and hypotheses
Where to search for information, and document what was uncovered
How to extend (through both deepening and broadening) the topic of inquiry
Overcoming challenges
Demonstrating what the child has learned
Module 2: Your First Learning Exploration
Recording first thoughts and hypotheses
Where to search for information, and document what was uncovered
How to extend (through both deepening and broadening) the topic of inquiry
Overcoming challenges
Demonstrating what the child has learned
From there, we cover ten more topics:
Using Nature as a Muse
Scaffolding
Place-Based Learning
Documentation
Deschooling
Listening
Critical Thinking
Metacognition
Non-Cognitive Learning
From there, we cover ten more topics:
Using Nature as a Muse
Scaffolding
Place-Based Learning
Documentation
Deschooling
Listening
Critical Thinking
Metacognition
Non-Cognitive Learning
Need more support?
We know that sometimes you do just need to talk with someone about your unique situation so you can find a path forward. For Parents who want the opportunity to interact with Jen directly, we offer an option to add group calls to your membership.
We meet twice a month, during the morning (accommodates European/African time zones) or evening (accommodates Asian/Australian time zones) Pacific Time. Join live or submit your question in advance to listen to the recording later.
With over 100 hours of training I'm a Co-Active Coach, and will work with you to offer the help you need in the way you need it: from brainstorming potential solutions to a conversation where we uncover your true needs and desires in a difficult family interaction - and how to meet these while also meeting the needs and desires of your other family members.
I hear you:-)
I hear you! I’m also working (more than) full-time, cook all of our meals and do at least half of the work around the household, and I’m the parent primarily responsible for supporting my daughter’s learning.
It’ll take about an hour a day of working with our children to do about as much as they would be learning in a whole day of school - but if they’re currently not in school, you’d be doing that anyway. And it doesn’t have to be a separate hour with each child - you can spend an hour with one child mostly engaged by themselves while you focus on another, and then switch the next day - or you may find that multiple children are interested in the same topic. This doesn’t have to be a hard-and-fast rule; it can be more on some days and less on others. And it can definitely be less if you’re also using other methods of learning that are more curriculum-driven (although you may find yourself wanting to spend less and less time on those moving forward;-)).
And it will take you a couple of hours a month to read and digest the content of the written Guides; perhaps half that if you choose the video/audio route instead or you’re a fast reader. Add on 30 minutes each week if you join a support group to help you keep taking tiny steps forward on this journey, and you’re looking at 3-4 hours of work for you each month, plus the time you spend directly with your child (which you’d be doing on some aspect of learning anyway).
But if you’re using a curriculum-based approach right now, what you’re probably finding (or will find within the first couple of weeks of using it) is that your child is going to resist some aspect of that work. They won’t want to memorize the words, or they won’t be interested in building an earthquake-resistant structure out of toothpicks and marshmallows with arbitrary rules about how high the ‘building’ must be, but instead they want to invent their own experiment about what it might feel like to be in an earthquake. When this happens, learning gets frustrating - both for you, and for your child. They disengage from a topic that once interested them, and you find you spend most of your time cajoling (or bribing) them to do whatever activity you spent so long setting up. That just creates more stress for both of you.
And what this membership really frees you from is the worry. Worry that your child is ‘falling behind.’ Worry that they’re missing out on some critical opportunity or some critical window during which a certain skill must be learned or the chance to do it is gone forever. Worry that you aren’t doing enough, and that you should be researching gymnastics or judo or French classes right now.
And once these distractions aren’t sucking your mental time and energy, you’ll find you have so much more of those to spend with your child, and on things that are actually meaningful to you.
Well for starters, this isn’t a curriculum :-) What we need to be sure to understand is that curriculum isn’t written for the child’s benefit; it’s written for the parent’s benefit. The child will learn what interests them, whether or not a curriculum tells them to do it. The curriculum really only exists so the parent can point to activities the child has done and say ‘yep; we learned that.’
The same goes for the boxed learning subscription kits, which show up each month with a new project that is completely unrelated to the child’s interests, and teaches them how to build something when all the parts are already pre-cut to the correct length and when precise step-by-step instructions are provided - a skill that’s of limited use in the real world, where we must navigate the limitations of the materials we’re working with and our own individual needs for the project’s outcome.
Other products take an approach that relies heavily on ‘provocations’ or ‘strewing,’ which usually involves setting up Pinterest-worthy activities in the hope that we somehow spark an idea. But as you’ll learn, this approach is highly unlikely to result in much meaningful learning, simply because the provocations aren’t connected to something that already interests the child. (Imagine waking up to a provocation completely unconnected to your own interests that your spouse had set up for you after you went to bed!)
Our child doesn’t need that process. When we can listen sensitively and help the child to form connections across ideas we’ve considered in the past, and help them to evaluate the quality of resources they’re learning from, and know how to consider multiple perspectives, and see how failure is actually a good thing, they will learn the important “6 Cs” skills from your joint explorations of their own interests.
Simply put, there is no other resource available that’s based on such a deep knowledge and vision of children’s learning, and translates that into practical tools that real parents just like you are using to support their own children’s learning.
There’s actually very little high quality information available online on how children learn, and on what your role as a parent should be in that process if you’re not explicitly trying to teach them something.
Yes, you can learn how to do ‘strewing’ and set up ‘provocations’ in many places - they are pretty and Instagramable and most bloggers don’t know (or care) that when used in this way they don’t actually help a child to learn very much.
It would be extremely difficult and time-consuming to try to replicate the resources I’ve found here, and potentially impossible if you don’t have access to peer-reviewed journal articles.
Your time is already so precious - why waste it searching for the ingredients to make the triple chocolate double fudge layer cake when one that’s been made just how you like it is right here?
You’ll receive a new module of content at the beginning of each month (or join with an annual membership to receive immediate access to all content). Read, watch, or listen - the same content is available in multiple formats to support you in how you learn best.
When you have questions, submit them in our private community of parents who are walking this path alongside you. I’ll respond in one of three ways: with a quick clarification right on your post, with a video to explain something more in-depth, or with an offer to join a 1:1 consult to dig deeply into a multi-faceted issue (which is recorded to share with other members).
If you need more support and want regular direct interaction with me, you can choose to add the option of twice monthly calls for an additional fee.
I experimented with offering hardship discounts when I opened the group last year and the one thing that I have learned since then is that the people who pay a deeply discounted rate rarely participate in a way that allows them to really get the benefits that the group offers if you are fully engaged. I think you need some ‘skin in the game’ to see the value that doing this kind of work can bring.
That said, having studied inequality for a couple of years now, I would never want the group to be truly inaccessible to someone who feels it will really benefit them. If joining the group would strongly benefit you but the price would take meals out of your children’s mouths, then please email me at jen@yourparentingmojo.com to (briefly) explain your situation and I’ll do what I can to accommodate you.
The membership is geared toward parents of children who are old enough to ask questions, through the end of elementary school. If you like to be prepared (and want to be sure you won’t have to adjust your approach once your child is old enough to ask questions, feel free to join when they are a bit on the young side, but know that you’ll be preparing for the future rather than practicing today.
No! The monthly fee covers you and any other member of your family/caregiving team who regularly interacts with your child/ren. After you sign up, please send an email to support@yourparentingmojo.com with the names and email addresses of the additional individual(s) who will need access and I will set up user accounts for them, which will also get them access to the private community.
If you’ve read this far, it’s probably because something about this approach is calling to you, but you’re experiencing what psychologists call ‘cognitive dissonance,’ because of the difference between it and how you learned in school. Many current members did very well in school, and have a hard time reconciling their desire for their children to also do well in school with new ideas about this interest-led learning approach.
If you were my coaching client, I’d advise you to use the following ideas to help you make your decision: 1.Ask your logical left brain: What was my experience like in school? Why did I have the experience I had? What qualities did this experience instill in me that make my life easier/more difficult now? 2.Ask your intuitive right brain and your body: When I bring to mind the idea of using my child’s learning to guide my interests, what comes up? If you feel something like excited and maybe also nervous (because this approach is so different from what you know), those are good signs. We are taught to ignore our intuition in favor of rational arguments, but our physical sensations can tell us a lot about our experience if we know how to listen. 3.Ask both your logical left brain and intuitive right brain/body: What’s holding me back? Are you worried that you won’t fit into the community? Do you wonder if your child really needs this? Do you even have the time to spend on this? You might consider doing some journaling on the questions that come up for you to understand what’s really behind your concerns.
(And I will say that even the profound introverts have found a home here; your child doesn’t need this and will be fine without it, but their experience of life-long learning will be very different without it, and you do have the time - we have single parents and parents working full-time with several young children who make it happen. Your left brain’s job is to bring up objections to keep you on the tried-and-true path, so be sure to give equal weight to what your gut says about whether this is right for your family.) 4.Consider your long-term goals for your child’s learning. What about the way they’re learning now do you want to maintain/do more of? What (if anything) do you want to put less emphasis on? If your goal is to raise a child with an intrinsic love of learning, are the ways that your child is learning now likely to help you achieve this goal? If not, do you have the knowledge and support to make this shift by yourself?
I'm so sure that you'll fall in love with the intentional community of parents inside the Learning Membership, and that you'll learn what you need to start feeling confident about your role in supporting your child's learning in the first 90 days of your membership that I'll guarantee it.
Take a full THREE months to work through the first three modules of content. If after working through the content and getting your questions answered in the support groups in our private community you don't feel like you have the insight, clarity, or next steps you need to truly feel confident about the ways you can support your child's learning, then just email support@yourparentingmojo.com and we'll give you your money back.
It'It's that simple.
Why am I so confident doing this?
Because I've seen the results for myself, in my own family and families that I've coached.
Parents become less stressed about helping their child to 'keep up" and engage with learning that's boring and frustrating and doesn't engage the child's interests. And when they shift their own approach, their children's response is just incredible. I want this for your family too.
Great on their own, but also perfect together
Open enrollment is currently closed - please join the waiting list.