by Thomas Howard Elliot

Created on: March 24, 2008   Last Updated: April 24, 2008

The early and most impressionable years of childhood are also the years that we start to let professionals take over (for most of us) the job of educating our little tykes. There are many tools that can aide this education and help ensure that they are getting the most from the education they are receiving, be it public, private or home schooling. The best tools, however, are not books, software, toys or anything physical. The best tools you can give your child are habits, ethics and skills.

1. The first, and most important tool a child can have is not the ability to learn, but the desire to learn. This is instilled in a child during the first years that your child is away from you. At daycare, preschool, and then into kindergarten and elementary school. The easiest way to achieve this is to ask them questions. What did you do today? What did you play with? What color was the truck? Talk with your child everyday, in this same vein. Make it a habit to make them think about things after a long day of play. When they enter school, ask them what they learned. Ask them to explain it to you, probing further with each question, to make sure they really understand the concept, while making them feel like they are teaching you something new, which will make them feel smart and equal to you, for all the times you taught them. This habit can and should eventually form into an excitement to learn something new each day, so that they can explain it to you, if nothing else. This will take them where ever they want to go in life, and be a basis for a successful educational experience.
2. Next, setting the habit of finishing one task before moving on to the next can be essential in helping them to complete not only simple tasks, such as cleaning up the toys on the floor, etc, but later on it will help them to finish homework before doing other things, to finish projects before they are due, and will lead to better work ethics later on in life. This ability to follow through will be difficult to instill, especially in such a young age. A simple way to do this, in theory, is to assign the child a chore. Let them clean up their toys and simple messes, before moving on to new activities. When they are old enough, let them take out the trash, or set the table. Something simple yet needed, and readily visible in its completion. Make sure to give a proper reward for completing the chore as assigned, and a proper punishment for passing it off. Holding firm on these rules will be the

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