The Parent as Mediator

The Parent as Mediator

The Parent as Mediator PAM Overheads

Culture • Culture includes the ideas, norms, values, skills, mores, outlooks and arts that a group of people share in common and pass on to future generations • Culture makes groups of people unique

Goals of Mediation • To induct a child into his or her own culture — to establish identity, belonging, continuity, predictability and meaning • To equip a child with particular knowledge construction functions and to develop needs, affect and a disposition for learning

Building the Ability to Think and Learn • Cognitive Functions • Motivation • Attitudes • Emotional Factors

Principles of Mediation • Intentionality - Reciprocity

Principles of Mediation • Transcendence

Principles of Mediation • Mediation of Meaning

Principles of Mediation • Mediated Regulation of Behavior

Principles of Mediation • Mediated Feeling of Competence

Principles of Mediation: Summary • Intentionality – Reciprocity • Transcendence • Meaning • Mediated Regulation of Behavior • Mediated Feeling of Competence

Adopting the Right Distance from the Child “If some is good, more is not necessarily better”

Two Types of InteractionsSuitable for Mediation • Parent initiated interactions — When the parent sets aside a special time to be with the child, or takes advantage of a situation that occurs, in order to mediate something specific that the parent wants the child to learn. • Child initiated interactions — When the child initiates an interaction with the parent seeking assistance or asking a question providing a parent with an opportunity to facilitate understanding of something of interest to the child.

When to Mediate • When both you and the child are relaxed and not overtired • When you have sufficient time and are not likely to be interrupted • When both you and your child are willing to engage in an interaction

Three Factors that Influence Modeling • Reliability — When your child can depend on you and trust you • Consistency — When you say what you mean and do what you say • Flexibility — Think through the particulars of every situation; avoid rigidity

Language and Your Child's Development The language we use as parents always either promotes or impedes the development of our children

Language That Promotes Growth Develops initiative Curiosity Independence Efficacy High self-esteem Internal locus of control Persistence Cooperative behavior Thoughtfulness Motivation Goal directedness Need for challenges Language That Impedes Growth Develops passivity Reticence and withdrawal Dependency Helplessness Poor self-esteem External locus of control Giving-up Oppositional behavior Impulsivity Poor motivation Aimlessness Fear of failure Language and Your Child's Development

Language That Promotes Growth is facilitative is responsive is flexible is encouraging is authoritative(uses knowledge) supports exploration and experimentation values considerateness and self-control seeks learning from mistakes allows questioning & disagreement Language That Impedes Growth is regulatory is non-responsive is rigid is punitive is authoritarian(uses power) supports drill and practice values obedience and perfection chastises for mistakes disallows questioning & disagreement Language and Your Child's Development

Creating a Powerful Environment • Structure the environment to enable you to reach out to different goals • Create situations that enable active learning to occur — engage the child in meaningful activities that allow her to construct knowledge • Provide an atmosphere of love of learning — a stable, non-threatening, trustful and challenging environment

Structuring Change When you mediate: • Expect change — be on the lookout for change. • Register and interpret change for the child when it occurs — share the meaning of the change and amplify it as necessary to make it stand out for the child. • Create meaningful opportunities for the child to use the newly learned ways of functioning.

Mental Act Reception (INPUT) R Gathering Information What goes in Transformation (PROCESSING) T Relating to other information stored in the brain What is put together Communication (OUTPUT) C Expressing the result of thinking What comes out

Closure • Follows the collection of information needed to deal with task • Premature closure • Rejects tasks out of hand • Associates past failure and expects to fail • Reduces opportunities to learn

Attention • Ability to maintain cognitive focus • Impaired attention • Is easily distracted • Unable to focus long enough to collect information Types • 1. Focus - on a specific stimulus • 2. Sustain - maintain attention • 3. Selective - attend to one thing while ignoring another • 4. Alternating - switching back and forth from one task to another • 5. Divided - two or more tasks at the same time

Attention (Continued) Sensitive to 1. Developmental factors 2. Emotional factors - anxious, preoccupied 3. Motivational factors - task may be boring

Spatial Orientation • Ability to establish relationships of direction, distance, size and shape • Impaired spatial orientation • Left - Right confusion • Gets lost in neighborhood or school • Has problems giving or following directions • Confuses words such as in, on, back, front, under and over • Related to learning math, reading and geography

Temporal Orientation • Ability to order objects or events along a parameter of time • Impaired temporal orientation • Difficulty ordering, first, second, third • Affects goal seeking and planning • Related to learning math and reading • May appear unorganized • May speak as if everything is in the present — doesn't relate to past and future

Verbal Tools and Concepts (reception) • Understanding and ability to use words and concepts • Impaired verbal tools and concepts • Lacks understanding of words • Uses imprecise words • Affects quality of information gathered • Affects discrimination • Confused with lack of attention • Affects memory • May not appear to follow directions

Systematic Exploratory Behavior • Methodical and organized approach to task • Unsystematic exploratory behavior • Disorganized approach towards the collection of information • Has limited strategies • May appear to have perceptual problems • Confused with impulsivity or attention problems

Conservation of Identity • Perceiving characteristics beyond their immediate appearance • Impaired conservation of identity • Guided by how something looks rather than using logic • Difficulty with essential and incidental • Reversibility • Needed for math

Appraisal of Effort, Precision and Accuracy • Ability to determine the amount and type of effort that is required when collecting information • Deficient appraisal • Too much or too little • Lacks an awareness to be precise and accurate • Sensitive to motivational or emotional factors

Use of Multiple Sources of Information • Ability to collect, combine and use two or more pieces of information at the same time • Deficient use of multiple sources • Uses sources of information one at a time • Uses sources of information in isolation • Affects comparison, categorization, establish relationships, goal setting and decision making

Experiencing the Existence of a Problem • Ability to detect that a problem exists • Doesn't recognize the existence of problems • Role in activating thinking • Role of passivity • Sensitive to other functions • Use of two or more sources • Establishing relationships

Problem Analysis • Ability to define the nature of a problem • Inadequate problem analysis • Unable to define the problem • Misses cues • Affects the selection of approach to problems

Forming Mental Images and Ideas • Creating pictures and thoughts in the mind • Inadequate mental representation • Over reliance upon concrete experiences • Non-sensory — non-existent • Enables us to store, recall and project experiences • Restricts one to the present • Prerequisite for higher levels of functioning and forming abstract ideas

Evoking from Memory • Deliberate seeking of stored information • Impaired evoking from memory • Doesn't remember • Memory as passive and associative • “Forgetting” and “not remembering” • Memory is learned • Importance of meaning • Developmental process • Affected by emotional state

Comparative Behavior • To examine how things are alike and different • Deficient comparative behavior • Lack of spontaneous search for likenesses and differences • Prerequisite for higher order thinking • Necessary for establishing relationships

Seriation, Classification and Categorization • Ability to group or order objects or events • Seriation: order in a series such as time or size • Classification: group or order things because of certain likenesses (nominal scale) such as plants, animals • Categorization: division into sets within a class • Difficulty with ordering and grouping • Role of characteristics and attributes • Impact on memory, reading, math, writing and higher order thinking • Related to use of multiple sources

Hypothetical Thinking • Creating and considering alternative possibilities • Impaired hypothetical thinking • Lacks awareness of possibility or need for alternatives • Lack of `if—then' thinking

Need to Search for and Establish Relationships • Seeking to make connections from one event or experience to another • Lack of need to establish relationships • Role of needs • Impact on development of new knowledge • Role of passivity and attitude towards the self: Passive recipient vs. active producer of information

Goal Seeking and Goal Setting • Searching for and establishing goals • Inadequate use of goals to make behavior purposeful • Role of goal seeking and goal setting • Association with impulsivity and guessing • Relationship to independent functioning • Relationship to temporal orientation

Planning • Ability to determine, organize and sequence steps to reach a goal • Inadequate planning • Mental representation — ability to envision goal • Temporal orientation — projection into the future • Identification and evaluation of needed steps • Guide to behavior

Goal Achievement • Following through on plans — accomplishing goals • Inadequate goal achievement • Inability to follow through on, or revise, plans • Role of motivational factors and delay of gratification • Role of meaning

Cause-Effect, Summative and Rule-Seeking Behavior • Ability to sum one's experiences and search for stable connections and relationships between them • Summative behavior — Putting things together • Rule seeking — Search for commonality or regularity • Cause-effect — Why things happen • Inadequate summative behavior • Doesn't learn from experience — repeats ineffectual behavior • Events viewed as unrelated or isolated • Difficulty explaining familiar occurrences

Trial and Error Responses • Simplest response form using a cognitive strategy • Unsystematic use of trial and error • Guessing or random groping • Little or no use of elaborated relationships • Little or no search for best response • Role of other functions • Attention • Systematic exploratory behavior

Overcoming Egocentric Communication • Brings listeners along • Difficulty differentiating self and others • Unable to see things from others point of view • Unclear, imprecise communication • Common in young children • Impact on selection of verbal tools • Role of sharing

Verbal Tools and Concepts (communication) • Concepts and vocabulary for expressing one's thoughts • Inadequate verbal and conceptual tools • Can prevent properly developed answers from being communicated • Lack of versus retrieval of words and concepts • Word substitution or the use of gestures in place of words • Can result in anger or frustration with the self

Appraisal of Effort, Precision and Accuracy • Ability to determine and apply the energy needed to reach successful outcomes • Deficient appraisal • Too much or too little energetic support at the output level • Role of expectations of failure • Need to protect self-esteem: Didn't try - didn't fail • Lack of awareness of need for precision and accuracy

Use of Feedback for Self-Regulation • Ability to use information about one's performance to guide and regulate one's own behavior • Inadequate collection and use of feedback • Lack of attendance to results of own behavior • On-going monitoring • Developmental aspect • Prerequisite for independent and autonomous functioning

Self-Confidence A positive belief about one's self and one's ability to deal with challenge

How to Develop Self-Confidence • Provide experiences that develop competence • Assist with challenging tasks • Provide encouragement • Use descriptive feedback rather than general praise

The Parent as Mediator