Mistakes are the natural elements of our life, which makes us earn the most important chapters, but over repeating it can waste our time and harm the learning process. Our children often do mistakes, because their mind is still in the process of development. They are learning and need an environment which can make them understand the new things better.
The major cause of silly mistakes is a lack of motivation in the child, whether it’s about his schoolwork or homework. By simply lambasting a child’s mistakes is not a permanent solution. As a parent, you should observe a child’s interest and motive them to learn more efficiently. It is unlikely that a child will do well in the subjects which he dislikes. Mistakes cannot be removed permanently, because they are the part of human nature, but we can practice to reduce it.
There are too many variables which we are going to cover in this article. If you want your children to do lesser mistakes and learn more efficiently by saving time; You will have to understand a bit about your child’s psychology to have a solution for it.
Let’s know about the mistakes that your child often makes and the reason behind it.
WHAT TYPE OF SILLY MISTAKES YOUR CHILDREN OFTEN MAKES?
To find a solution to a problem, we must know what we are dealing with. Following is the list of top-5 common errors that your child does in the school:
- Reading errors: It happens when your child doesn’t understand the words and symbols of the question. This always prevents him from finding out the solution hinders the problem-solving process.
- Comprehension errors: It is the most common error, which every child makes, especially in exams. This implies that the child may have read the question and understood the words of it, but he couldn’t get the overall meaning of it, which is essential for writing an answer.
- Transformation errors: In this error, the child totally understands the questions, but he is unable to identify the exact pattern or sequence to write it.
- Process skills errors: This implies that the child is aware of what operation is required to solve the problem, but he doesn’t know the exact method of doing it.
- Encoding errors: In this error, the child correctly solves the problem but not in an acceptable or presentable format.
Why children do silly mistakes?
The above-listed errors are the most common among the children because they are still children and learning the discipline to do things. Reading and comprehension errors usually happen due to anxiety and time pressure. On the other hand, encoding errors happen due to his lack of knowledge about arranging the points into an answer. All the errors show a lack of understanding of the problems, which has nothing to do with carelessness. Parents should work on their child’s comprehension & reading skills, instead of simply dismissing it as a silly mistake. He can start thinking that he is stupid and can’t do anything. It will lead him to loss of self-confidence and make him dislike the subjects.
The studies have proven that smarter children are more prone to making silly mistakes because they make calculation or computations based on approximation according to their prior knowledge. So, it is not necessary that if your child is smart, he won’t do any mistake.
Only practicing hard is not a solution to prevent our children from making mistakes. Parents play a vital role to play in this.
Following is the complete guide for the parents to prevent their children from doing careless mistakes:
TIPS TO PREVENT YOUR CHILD TO DO SILLY MISTAKES
- PROOFREADING: Most of the mistakes are actually in the knowledge of your child, that’s why they are termed as silly mistakes. The habit of proofreading of the completed work is the most primary technique, which we should instil in our children. Child should develop the habit of double checking his work to correct any possible error. A teacher can encourage this habit by reviewing the assignments of students, before collecting them. By observing a teacher, your child will enhance his proofreading skills. It can also help them by instilling proof reading as an integral part of the problem-solving process. So, start instilling this habit in your child to overcome the silly mistakes.
- WORK ON CHILD’S MEMORY: Neurological studies have shown that the information first goes from working memory to short term memory and then to long term memory. Only a lot of practice and repetition can help your child in retaining something in his long-term memory.
On the other hand, if he finds something worth retaining, it goes straight from working memory to long term memory. Which means your child needs both practice and interest to understand something quickly and memorize it. - ENCOURAGE THEM TO PRODUCE HIGH-QUALITY WORK: You should motivate your child to take pride in his work. An unmotivated child takes less pride and therefore he is more likely to repeat his careless mistakes. The parents should inspire their children to enjoy the act of producing high-quality work. It can be done by illustrating them with good examples of high-quality work. You can start with a good school project and tell them how it attracts you towards it? How much you can learn from it? Inspiring your child by showing your quality work is the best way because children always learn from their parents.
- SPEED & TIME MANAGEMENT: We’ve discussed the very important point, proofreading, but we all know that the time which a child can have to re-check his problems is totally dependent upon his problem-solving speed in the exams. Careful children take more time to complete the paper and usually have less time to check it.
Parents should teach their child to manage both speed & accuracy according to the given time. It is because sometimes parents only focus on the accuracy of their child. They need to understand that accuracy doesn’t have any meaning until the problem solving gets completed on time. What if your child couldn’t complete all the question in the exams? Speed & accuracy both are interrelated to each other. Therefore, teach your child to do his work accurate in the given time. - IMPROVE YOUR CHILD’S CONCENTRATION: It is proven that after engaging in a physical activity, children perform better in the classroom tasks. The cardiovascular exercises increase the heart rate, which helps improve concentration due to excess supply of oxygen straight to the brain. Encourage your child to do exercise and meditation for 20 to 30 minutes on a regular basis. You can develop this habit at a very early stage in your child so that it will help them to avoid their silly mistake in future problems.