Your consistent, caring connection with your children sets them up for healthy relationships and lifelong learning. Remember that attunement—recognizing and responding to your child’s emotions and needs—is your superpower! Observing what your child is experiencing, including what delights or frustrates them, can help you identify opportunities to connect, support, and offer developmentally appropriate challenge. Tuning in to your children as they play is a great place to start. 

Nurture Play & Curiosity 

Children are wired to play. Even at just a few months old, babies’ curiosity about the world around them is evident when they reach for objects, mimic facial expressions and sounds, and giggle and laugh. Their growing brains crave these playful connections, which help to build a sense of safety and trust.   

That play-based, curiosity-driven way of moving through the world continues as children get older. When you support, encourage, and model many ways to play, you give children opportunities to learn to regulate their feelings, adopt new perspectives, think flexibly, solve problems, and much more. 

Source: Erlanger Turner, PhD, an associate professor of psychology at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, and an expert on child and multicultural psychology.  

Self-confidence helps your child to be an explorer, to risk failing on the first, or second, or 10th attempt, but to try again and again to reach their goal. These ideas can help build confidence in your whole family, so that together, you can have a “We can do it!” approach to life. 

Take it step by step. 

Learning new things usually takes time. Emphasize to your child that maybe they can’t do it yet, but they’re on their way. 

• Break down the skill being learned into smaller steps. Make sure to notice and celebrate the mastery of each step along the way. 
• Pick a fun cooking project to do together, to illustrate that a cupcake, for example, doesn’t just spring up all at once. You must gather the ingredients, measure and mix, chop and pour, and finally, bake. One step at a time! 
• Talk about using positive “self-talk” when things seem difficult. You may even want to write some phrases on slips of paper and hang them up for your child to look at if frustration sets in. I can do it! Maybe not yet, but soon I bet! Keep at it! I’ll get there! I believe in myself! 

Look back on successes. 

Sometimes we’re so focused on what still needs to be learned—on what lies ahead—that we forget about all the things that have already been mastered. Remind your child (and yourself) that they absolutely can do it. They’ve done so much already! 

• Look through old photo albums together. Talk about the things they learned when they were younger and relive all their achievements so far. 
• Offer positive reinforcement: “I love to see you try… and try again!” 
• Ask: What do you like about yourself? What are you proud of learning to do? You might be surprised by your child’s answers. While you’re talking, you might also want to ask what frustrates your child—let their answers help you find areas to offer encouragement. 

Stick together. 

It’s important to remind your child that learning happens all through life. Emphasize that even grown-ups are always learning, and it isn’t always easy for them either. Share some of your own recent difficulties and successes. 

• Challenge the whole family to learn something new together: perhaps a new dance step, or how to hula hoop! Let your child see you working hard at it. After all, you are the best model for all the strategies you’re trying to foster in your child. 
• It’s a confidence boost to have your efforts recognized by others! From time to time, honor a specific member of the family. You can go around the dinner table, with each person adding one special thing about the honoree: “He stuck with it and learned to skip.” “She gave me a hug and cheered me up, the way she always cheers people up.” And so on. You can even make a special crown or decorate a special plate for the honoree to use.

Remember to celebrate! 

• With each new achievement, celebrate! Not with a vague “good job,” but with something specific: “Wow, you really kept trying until you could read that whole book by yourself.” Or try putting a note of congratulations in your child’s lunch box or under the pillow at night. 
• Make sure your child knows how proud you are—not just of finally succeeding, but also of all the effort and perseverance along the way, of sticking with it. (Hugs are always a good strategy.) Yay! 

Learning can happen every day, and in so many ways. Noticing—and embracing—opportunities for learning during daily routines can help your whole family flourish. Consider these ideas: 

In the morning 

• Choose a letter of the alphabet to focus on for the day. How many objects can you find that begin with the letter S, for instance? Sink, soap, shirt, strawberry, seesaw!
• Count with kids as they wash their hands or brush their teeth. 
• Begin the day with curiosity. Say, “I wonder how quickly we can get dressed today. Let’s set a stopwatch to find out!” 

At mealtimes 

• Give everyone at the table a few pieces of food, such as crackers and carrots. Ask each child to count the items in their pile. Did everyone get an equal, or the same amount?
• Take turns telling stories about something that happened during the day, using terms such as “first, then, and next.” 
• Invite children to do a food investigation. Ask them to close their eyes as you give them something to taste, such as a cracker or cucumber. Ask, “What do you think it is? How does it taste? Is it salty or sweet? Crunchy or smooth?” 

In-between times 

• When tidying up, group items by categories, such as color, shape, texture, size, or function. 
• Put on a favorite song to help get the wiggles out (and work on those gross-motor skills) before moving into a new activity. 
• Sing the alphabet song or other nursery rhymes as you walk to a different room or get ready to leave the house. 

On the go 

• At the store, go on a shape hunt: a triangle-shaped wedge of cheese, a cube-shaped tissue box, a circle-shaped hat. How many different shapes can you find? 
• At the park, ask, “What do you think happens to an ice cube if we leave it in the sun? What about if we leave it in the shade?” 
• In the car, introduce concepts like go, stop, near, far, forward, backward, right, and left. Talk about what you notice people and vehicles doing: “That red car is turning right. We are turning left.” 

In the evening 

• Look at—and read—books together. Spend time noticing the expressions of the characters. Talk about what they may be feeling. 
• As kids lay in bed, play “I Spy” together, describing where an object is. Use math language; you might say, “I spy something under the clock,” or “I spy something next to the bookshelf.” Take turns! 
• Help children to reflect on events that happened—and why they happened—during the day. As they reflect, their learning becomes more meaningful.