My daughter has returned from a seven-day and six-night English summer camp. She has gained a lot and has grown a lot. I have also had many feelings, so I will review and summarize the year before the camp and record my daughter’s growth. The journey of taking a big step forward also hopes to provide some reference for parents of children who are about to attend summer camp.
1. Understand the format of summer camp, stimulate expectations for summer camp, establish a small dream of summer camp, and prepare mentally in advance.
During the summer vacation for my daughter’s fifth birthday, the whole family went to Guangzhou together, including the summer camp base of Huangpu Military Academy. In front of the child, I talked with the teachers there about the summer camp.
At that time, I deliberately described the summer camp as fun and exciting, and emphasized that only independent children could participate in the summer camp. It was an honor and pride to be able to participate in the summer camp. I also let my daughter see some photos and videos of other people’s summer camps, and share where my friends’ children went to summer camps. It was fun.
At the age of five, my daughter began to look forward to summer camp. I said that during the summer vacation when you are waiting for your sixth birthday, you can also come to Huangpu Military Academy to participate in this fun summer camp. My daughter is particularly looking forward to the arrival of her sixth birthday, and she has always been thinking about attending summer camp at the age of six. And keep working hard for it.
2. Improve self-care ability. I told my daughter that in order to participate in summer camp, her ability to take care of herself needs to be improved. You must be able to sleep in a room independently, dress and pack your own bags, brush your teeth, wash your face, take a shower, shampoo your own hair, use a hair dryer to dry and tie your hair independently and safely, wash clothes, dry clothes, fold clothes, eat independently, and know how to eat at the right time. Drink an appropriate amount of water and know how to use the toilet before leaving home and getting in the car to avoid having trouble finding a toilet along the way.
One year before camp, our whole family worked hard for summer camp. My daughter also works hard to learn independence. Sometimes she asks her parents for help, so I encourage her, "You must be able to do these self-care things independently before you can participate in the summer camp. If you can't do any of them, the teacher will not admit her." You go to the summer camp. Of course, the children who can be admitted to the summer camp are independent warriors." My daughter thought about it and just work hard on her own.
2. Improve environmental and interpersonal adaptability. You must be able to leave your mother and face a strange environment and meet strange people independently. So whenever there is an opportunity, let my daughter go to her classmate's house to play, attend classmate's party independently, and spend the night at classmate's house. Stay for a few days with some relatives you don’t see once a year. Go to Leba Town Workplace to experience independent play for 4 hours. Let her walk independently across the zebra crossing to go to kindergarten (I followed secretly from a distance), let her walk independently to her mother-in-law's house for dinner, and walk home after eating. Create some opportunities for the two children to take care of themselves at home independently, and let them arrange their own fun time and bathing time. When we come back at 9:30 in the evening, they have already washed and gone to bed... These allow her to adapt step by step and move towards independence. Progress bit by bit.
3. Improve language expression skills. Usually when my daughter does something independently, she will share with me what she played. Every time my daughter does language sharing with me, I usually only do one thing at this time, which is to listen and give symbolic praise. So my daughter likes to share some fun things between children with me. Letting children share more and talk more is the easiest way to improve their language expression ability.
I strive to read picture books every day. After the age of 5, my daughter knows a lot of words. When reading picture books, the mother reads one page and the daughter reads one page. This way, she can not only read but also develop her sense of language and store her vocabulary, which is close to The 6-year-old daughter of simpler picture books is already roughly able to read independently. Sometimes when she encounters a word she doesn’t know, she can ask her mother when she is not there, and she can skip the unknown word when her mother is not around. On "Home Alone Day" (when the two sisters are at home alone), encourage the daughter to take good care of her sister, help her sister wash up, and read picture books to her sister before going to bed. Reading picture books is the best way to store vocabulary for a long time and improve language expression skills.
My daughter has a Huohuo Rabbit story machine. When she drives long distances, she will read stories to her on the way. After listening, she will retell the stories to us or adapt and create her own stories. My daughter enjoys her talking. Absolutely, and we listened carefully and nodded in praise. Storytelling is a quick way to improve logical thinking, language expression and organizational skills.
4. Be confident, brave, and work hard to overcome difficulties when encountering them. If you cannot overcome them, take the initiative to seek help.
In daily life, I usually let my children complete some things independently. Whenever they complete something well, I will praise my daughter. Even if the results are not good, I will tell my daughter that making mistakes and failure are not terrible. Correction after making a mistake is progress, and coming back after failure is growth, so don't be afraid of making mistakes. Making mistakes is for progress. Every time a child makes progress, we need to help her discover it and point it out and praise it in a symbolic way. The improvement of self-confidence comes from doing it again and again and making progress again and again.
Courage develops on the basis of self-confidence, and a child who is allowed to make mistakes will be braver. So we need to let go and encourage the child to try more things she wants to try. When she fails to do something well, our attitude directly determines whether the child is brave. One time, my daughter broke a glass. She didn't know whether her mistake was serious or what her parents would do to her. Her father said, "It's okay. It's okay as long as you weren't hurt. You are much more precious than this glass." This is not a serious matter, just be careful next time." My daughter breathed a sigh of relief and said I will be careful next time.
There are several lessons in Smart Emotional Intelligence for children to experience. When encountering difficulties, you should work hard to overcome them. Don't be afraid of difficulties. Even if you encounter difficulties that cannot be solved, actively seek help.
5. Make an appointment with a good friend to attend summer camp. It would be nice to have a good friend to attend summer camp with for the first time. Children will also be more willing. I won't feel too scared or lonely. I couldn’t find any friends to attend my daughter’s summer camp with her. At first, I was a little worried that she didn’t know any of her friends. Obviously, many times our worries are unnecessary. My daughter didn’t know the teacher or her classmates, so she signed up for the summer camp on her own.
After making these preparations, encourage your children to attend summer camps, allowing them to go to different places with different groups of people and experience different lives. Our children’s gains will far exceed our expectations.