Self-Discipline: How To Help Your Child Practise It (Part 1)

Today, I will be sharing on self-discipline. If your child has self-discipline, he will be able to make many good decisions. In addition, this trait of self-discipline is beneficial to him even after he grows up.

During my stint as a teacher a year ago, the children who did very well (top 3 positions in the level) were the ones who had a very high level of self-discipline. 

Self-discipline is directly proportional to achievement.

If this is the case, we need to understand what is self-discipline and how we can help our children cultivate it.


What is Self-Discipline

Truthfully, I read many books/blogs on self-discipline. Many did not define self-discipline properly and offers very hazy tips on how to build self-discipline.

In this blog post, I am going to define it very clearly to you and suggest 3 things you can do today to help your child instil self-discipline immediately.

Self-discipline starts with self-awareness. Then, it blossoms into self-control. From self-control, you will have self-management.

To be self-aware, you can try asking your child
- What are you doing?
- How much time have you spent on it?
- Why are you spending so much time on it?

To practise self-control, you can ask your child
- Is this the right thing to do now?
- What should we be doing now?
- How can I help you to start doing the right thing?

To practise self-management, ask your child
- How should we plan the revision for your exam?
- How much time should be spent on playing and studying?
- What are the results you are aiming for?

You have to ask yourself which stage your child is in now and then help him progress from there.

Before we move on, I need to clarify. Self-discipline is not obedience. To obey parents' instructions is an act of obedience and it is not self-discipline. Self-discipline is a higher level than that. The child does the right thing without being instructed to.



Biggest enemy today

The biggest enemy to self-discipline in today's world is instant gratification.

We are too used to having what we want immediately. This short term thinking is very permeated in our society that many people have forgotten long term planning.

This is very dangerous. It is always easy for the child to choose the path of least resistance. Without guidance, the child will continuously choose the easy way. And this will become a habit. Then, it will be very difficult to unlearn this habit.

Short-term gain can cause long-term pain.

To help your child face this enemy, I suggest 3 things you can do today.


3 things you can do now

1. Visual feedback
- take two empty jars
- ask your child to put one red bean in one jar for each minute spent on playing and one green bean in another jar for each minute spent on working
- you can count the beans before giving them to your child
- compare the jars everyday and ask your child what his thoughts are on the number of red beans and green beans

2. Plan and commit
- plan your child's revision/work with him (not for him)
- offer constructive advice (like a consultant)
- revisit the plan weekly to give feedback on what is working and what is not
- short bursts of work here is more advisable than long periods of studying

3. Tell a story
- tell a story on choosing the right thing to do, even when you did not like it
- Grasshopper and The Ant
- The one-legged football player
(http://elitedaily.com/sports/this-one-legged-soccer-players-story-proves-hard-work-and-perseverance-make-anything-possible-video/)
- The little red hen 
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smspKuKqt5c)
- Ask questions like
      - What was the right thing to do
      - Was it easy to do the right thing?
      - What will you do if you are him?
      - How can we apply this to our life right now?

Instilling self-discipline is not easy and it is a very long-term thing. However, it will help your child a lot in his life next time if he has this self-discipline in him.

I talk about self-discipline whenever I can with my tuition students. I share stories and hope they will be inspired to strive for excellence.

I believe all children want to seek out the best in himself. It is how we nurture and guide them to do it that is most lacking these days.



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Secret Art: Deliberate Practice

Sample Spreadsheet. Analysis deleted to protect privacy.

"It's 2 am. Please go to bed," my wife chided me.

"Soon, let me finish this analysis first," I replied.

"You have doing that since 10.30 pm just now. You can do it tomorrow," she threatened whispered.

"Five more minutes, please?" I requested as I went back to my spreadsheet.

My wife is often puzzled by the amount of analysis I do for my students. She often asked me if other tuition centres are doing the same thing. I am not very sure about other tuition centres, but I am very sure about what I want for my own students. To become experts (not only improve), they must have deliberate practice.


What is deliberate practice?

From Wikipedia:
"People believe that because expert performance is qualitatively different from normal performance the expert performer must be endowed with characteristics qualitatively different from those of normal adults. [...] We agree that expert performance is qualitatively different from normal performance and even that expert performers have characteristics and abilities that are qualitatively different from or at least outside the range of those of normal adults. However, we deny that these differences are immutable, that is, due to innate talent. Only a few exceptions, most notably height, are genetically prescribed. Instead, we argue that the differences between expert performers and normal adults reflect a life-long period of deliberate effort to improve performance in a specific domain."

My definition:
1. Break the practice down into different levels of difficulties and various skills.
2. Always practice at one level higher than current ability.
3. Immediate coaching feedback.
4. Practice everyday.


Why is it important?

Let me give you a very simple example.

Student A already mastered the addition "1 + 1 = 2". The teacher still gives 10 worksheets to Student A to practice on "1 + 1 = 2". Is this going to increase the level of expertise for this particular addition?

No, it will only bore Student A and Student A will slowly become unmotivated.

You will turn off the heat once the water is boiling. Any additional heat given will only be wasted. The water cannot be more boiled once it is boiling.

In the same way, if a student has already mastered the skill, he should move on to other skills or go on to the next level for the same skill.

Deliberate practice is the secret to improve the grades of a student. However, it does more than that. It motivates the student and gives the student a sense of accomplishment/satisfaction.


The 'How' in the practice is very important

If the child is practicing Math problem sums, there should be an escalation of difficulty.

Level 1: Simple problem sums from school workbook.
Level 2: Problem sums from past year papers from top 10 schools.
Level 3: Challenging problem sums from some assessment books.

Now, this is a very simple strategy to escalate the difficulty. For me, I further break the questions down into different skills/methods/topics and in each of these, I further break them down into different difficulties.

This is the planning. Next, you need to coach the child as well. Informative and positive feedback need to be given to the child immediately. This will motivate and guide the child in the correct direction.


Record the progress

The progress of the child should be recorded so that the same skill will not be deliberately practiced again. For me, I keep a spreadsheet and a journal.

It is good to read the spreadsheet and journal weekly and discuss the progress with the child.


As with my story in the beginning of this blog post, conducting deliberate practice is extremely tiring. However, I believe very strongly that this is the method to increase the level of expertise in each child because this is how I level up myself too.

(Please don't get me wrong. Past topics needs to be revisited regularly to reinforce the learning, but it should not be taught and drilled again. Back to the '1 + 1 = 2' example, this question can be slotted into a practice worksheet as a single question to test for reinforcement, but a single worksheet should not be crafted entirely on this skill.)

Coaching a kid in his/her work is more effective but it is a lot harder because a lot of analysis/planning need to be done. It is also a longer term process with a longer term goal.


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A Systematic Approach To Answer Science Open-Ended Questions: The KITKAT Method

If your child remembers a lot of Science facts and yet cannot score for his/her Science paper, this blog post is for you.

Good tutors are hard to find. Good Science tutors are even harder to find.

Science is an easy topic to read up and gain knowledge but it is an extremely difficult subject to teach. Teaching Science is slowly becoming a lost art.

Knowledge is easy to 'upload' into the students. Some examples include:

"All living things need air, food and water."
"Like poles repel."
"Light travels in straight lines."

Skills are harder to teach and it appears in Booklet B of the Science Paper. Many teachers do not have a method in helping the children understand and answer the questions. Some examples are:

- Which basin has more heat in the water. Explain your answer.
- Explain how the method described above works.
- Based on the table given, predict the length of shadow at Position 'A'.

There is a need to teach your child the answering techniques in tackling the Science questions in PSLE. 

There is a need for a systematic approach in teaching how to answer Science open-ended questions. Today I am going to share with you how I teach my students to tackle Science Open-Ended Questions: The KITKAT Method.


------------------------------------------------
K - Keywords in the question
I - Identify the skill/process involved
T - Topic tested for the question
K - Keywords in the answer
A - Answer the question according to the marks allocated
T - Test out the answer
------------------------------------------------


Let's take a look at the following example:

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K - Keywords in the question are heat, applied, observed, dropped a little, slowly rose.

I - Skills tested is 'Explain why'.

T - Topic tested is Heat. Subtopic is Expansion and Contraction.

K - Keywords to use in the answer are gains heat, conical flask expands, air expands, dropped a little, rose slowly. 

A - 2 marks are allocated and most probably need 2 causes and effects to answer the question

T - Read the answer back to yourself to see if it is complete.

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After working through the KITKAT, the answer to the question can be formulated as:

The conical flask gains heat first, causing the flask to expand. The expanded flask has more space for the air and hence the ink dropped a little first. Then, the air in the conical flask gains heat, causing the air to expand. The expanded air needs more space and hence pushes the ink up.

----------------------------------------------------------

From this question, you will know that it is not so easy to answer a Science open-ended question. If your child is weak in Booklet B, your child needs to learn how to answer the question, not what knowledge to read up. Reading the textbook or revision guide will not help your child much.

The KITKAT method is a structure to help the child organise the information needed to answer the question. It is not random and is more systematic in answering the open-ended questions.

I hope this post has been helpful to you. Please click on SHARE on Facebook to share this post with your friends.

(Sign up for my newsletter at http://eepurl.com/WDj6j for monthly tips on how to motivate your child to study. A free ebook on writing is included in the newsletter.)