Observation Skills are Powerful

Are Your Observation Skills Powerful Enough to be a Good Parent?

Observation skills are a powerful part of the Suzuki Early Childhood Education (SECE) Baby Class program. Parents learn to become “keen observers” of their children and learn to more fully engage with their child. They also learn how to document the skills they see them learning.

There is an Observation Triangle similar to The Suzuki Triangle. The parents observe their child’s learning and mastering skills. The child learns the skills by observing the parent, teacher, and others in the class.

Parents need good, powerful observation skills to really get to know their children well and develop strong relationships with them.

Teachers need excellent observation skills to be able to point out what the child is learning in Baby Class and help parents learn to notice those skills.

Babies use their observation skills to learn from parents.

What does “observe” really mean?

The Oxford Dictionary defines observe as “to notice or perceive something and register it as being significant”.

It further defines observation as “the action or process of observing something or someone carefully in order to gain information.

We are going to explore how you as a parent can learn to be really observant of your child’s activities and life skills they are learning.

The Power of Curious and Intentional Observation Skills

First, be truly curious and interested in what your child is doing and the skills they are acquiring. Show your child that you are open to learning from everyone and everything around you.

Know that there are life lessons to be observed and learned in every situation. In doing so, you will learn much about your child and yourself.

Second, be intentional about the learning opportunities for your baby. Slow down, look outward, and try new things. SECE Baby Class provides such possibilities for learning life skills through music and learning to be more observant of your baby.

Make Your Observational Skills Powerful

It is so easy to be distracted and go from task to task. We “see” people and things, but do they really register in our brains? Your observation skills can be so much more powerful if you are more focused. Here are some exercises to begin improving your own observational skills.

• On a daily basis, begin to pay attention to your surroundings. That means REALLY being aware of the people and things you encounter.

“We cannot create observers by saying ‘observe’, but by giving them (children) the power and the means for this observation and these means are procured through education of the senses.”

Maria Montessori

• “Educate” your senses to notice what people are doing and saying. How do they act in situations with you and others?
• Challenge yourself to a mental workout. Use your eyes, ears, and heart to find deeper understanding of the opportunities and experiences that you have.
• Then, try this: test your observation skills and memory. Look at a photo, then look away and try to describe the details in the photo. Or try to make a list of everything in a room you can remember without looking.

These few simple activities can be done on a daily basis. They can help improve your skills to better enable you to observe how your baby is learning and growing.

Just Be Still and Use Those Observational Skills!

There is one more incredibly important factor in improving your skills of observation: just be still! There isn’t much about the 21st Century that is quiet or still. TV, the news, stores are 24/7.

If they aren’t, then online activity keeps everything going. At any given time, most of us have our faces in our phones. You can become a prisoner in our own head. You run the risk of quite simply missing opportunities to see what your child is doing.

To tap into the true power of observation, you need to make yourself stop, listen, look, and give yourself fully to the experiences that you and your child encounter everyday.

Your baby deserves no less than for you to truly “notice or perceive something and register it as being significant” about them. Your observations will help them to learn about life and all that they are capable of doing.

And this leads us to your child and observational learning.

So What is Observational Learning?

Observational learning occurs by observing actions and consequences of other people’s behavior. It produces relatively lasting change in a person’s behavior as a result of an experience.

It has much to do with becoming a life long learner which is a worthy goal for your child and for yourself. All of us must never stop learning! If you would like to learn more about observational learning, read about the work of psychologist, Albert Bandura.

Observational learning is related to latent learning. Latent learning allows us to “learn as we go” to satisfy our curiosity about our world. It is important because it directly correlates with many higher-level mental abilities such as problem-solving and planning for the future.

Your baby absorbs information about people and the world around them through observational and latent learning. You are your child’s first teacher. They are observing you and what you do.

“Good or evil, beauty or ugliness, daily behavior itself becomes one’s flesh and blood before one realizes it. It becomes habit through repetition.”

Shinichi Suzuki

It is up to you to shape the kind of behaviors and things that you want your child to learn. You are the model. Let that sink in for a moment.

The SECE Observation Triangle

Now, let’s go back to the Observation Triangle mentioned earlier and find out how it works in the SECE Baby Class. The musical activities involve a whole lot of modeling and provide excellent opportunities for you and your baby to develop powerful observation skills.

The Baby Class teacher models the musical activities for parent and baby. They demonstrate the actions and/or sing the song.

Depending on the age of your baby, you may be taking the turn at the activity or assisting them for quite awhile. You have observed the teacher and modeled the action for your child. The other parents with older babies in the class are also models.

Finally, as the activities are repeated throughout the class via other parents and their babies taking turns, your baby is observing all this and learning.

Imitation=Gaining Information

It is also interesting to note that research has shown that babies as young as 21 days old will try to imitate the facial expressions of their parent or caregiver. When your baby imitates a behavior, they are gaining information. They are watching and learning all the time!

In Baby Class, children learn to imitate various activities when participating in “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush“. Typically, getting ready for the day activities, i.e. this is the way we get out of bed, get dressed, eat breakfast, etc. are observed and pantomimed.

One particularly useful imitation is the scarf folding song we sing after we have danced with scarves to the Boccherini “Minuet”. Your child will be helping to fold the laundry in no time and learning to take care of their things!

Babies and children are also more likely to imitate the behavior of an adult who is warm and nurturing. In SECE Baby Class, teachers strive to create calm and avoid pressure to perform.

If your child does not want to take a turn at an activity, they are invited to bring you to the teacher to take the turn. Baby has observed that you did not pressure them into taking a turn and observed you learning while you did the activity. It is a win-win opportunity for you and your baby.

At the conclusion of each Baby Class, parents are invited to document in a notebook what they just observed their child do in the class. Maybe they took a turn with the teacher by themselves for the first time. They may have imitated an action to a song.

Or they may have done nothing out of the ordinary. (My experience as a Baby Class teacher tells me that rarely happens, though.)

The fact that your child participated in the Baby Class activities is noteworthy. They are absorbing information all the same.

Or maybe you just enjoyed doing the activities with your baby. Write that down.

There is almost always something new going on in your baby’s learning process regardless of how small it is. Powerful observation skills will help you see it clearly.

A Few Final Thoughts…

You can become a “keen observer” of your child. It will require some effort on your part.

• Be curious and intentional about your learning experiences
• Educate your senses-learn to use them to learn more and understand the world around you
• Just be still!
• Document your observations!

There are many distractions and stresses in life. Becoming more observant means that some things that have occupied your time may need to be set aside temporarily. But, only temporarily.

Children are only little for a little while. You won’t regret the time spent learning to be more observant and, in turn, giving your child powerful observation skills of their own. They will be so vital for them to become fine human beings with beautiful hearts and make wise decisions.

I will leave you with some of Dr. Suzuki’s wisdom…

The fate of a child is in the hands of his parents.”

Shinichi Suzuki

On the “Beautiful Heart Musical Journey” with you,

Susan

P.S. I have a challenge for you!

Everyday this coming week, challenge yourself to do one of the observation exercises given in the post.

Then get yourself a notebook and document just ONE thing that you observed about your child each day. If you notice more things about your child, by all means, write them down.

Just start and start simple!

I would love to hear about your observations. REPLY in the Comments and tell me about what you saw your little one do this week.

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