Learning Styles Help Teenagers - Part 2

Teenagers - particularly those in Western societies - often face the following problems:
· Low self-esteem
· Lack of confidence
· Depression
· Burnout
· Insomnia
· Hyperactivity
· Apathy
· Feeling misunderstood
· Stress
· Underperformance in sports
· Academic underperformance
· Relationship issues
· Insubordinate behaviour.

Many of those can be solved almost overnight by analysing the teenager’s Learning Style and ensuring important communication takes place on their terms using their preferred Communication Style.

[Do you know your child’s communication style? It’s part of their Learning Style, available through the Learning Style Analysis (LSA) tool.]

Another great tool to solve feelings of low self-belief is the book “I Love Myself” by Angela Smith. It can be used to boost children’s morale from as early as 5 years of age. Read more about “I Love Myself” here.

If you are forced to learn in a way that’s contra-recommended in your Learning Style Report, you can experience stress, burnout, health problems and depression. What is your Learning Style?

Learning Styles Helping Teenagers

· What are the warning signs that your teenager needs help?
· Is your teenager in trouble?
· Are you overreacting?

Teenage years are tricky. They are filled with hormone swings and misunderstandings, with fear and with awe, with too much responsibility and too little freedom. (Or is that “too much freedom and too little responsibility”?)

What teenagers desperately need is:
· acceptance
· a sense of belonging
· communication channels
· being understood
· independence within the framework of loving guidance and support.

When talking to a teenager, make sure you use their individual communication style.
· If they are word-oriented, write them a message and if they are auditory, then talk.
· If they are right-brained, use anecdotes. If they are left-brained, use facts.
· If they are right-brained, start with an overview and the objective. If they are left-brained, start at the beginning.

[Do you know your teenager’s communication style? It’s part of their Learning Style, available through the Learning Style Analysis (LSA) tool.]

Most teenagers can be moody, rude, impossible to talk to and difficult to live with. Experts agree that if your teen grunts good-morning, leaves the house without breakfast and dirty laundry on the floor, bangs the door on the way back in and slouches in silence through dinner... then he or she is a normal teenager who “will grow out of it”.

So when do you start worrying that your “normal teen” is a “troubled teen”?
· When a sociable teen stops socialising and spends a lot of time alone.
· When a teenager who’s usually happy with hos or her company starts socialising excessively, particularly with friends you consider scary.
· When a quiet teen listens to loud music.
· When a loud teen is too quiet.
· In short, when the teen’s behaviour does not reflect their Learning Style.

Living in violation of your Learning Style can lead to stress, burnout, health problems and depression. Do you know your teen’s Learning Style?

Learning Styles and Home Education

Home education, home schooling, home-based learning - whatever you choose to call it, the definition is the same: a parent opting to teach his or her children at home instead of sending them to school. Such a situation is an ideal opportunity to showcase the full benefits of applying learning systems and of respecting children’s learning diversity, because home schooling provides a naturally nurturing environment.

(To find out more about learning styles, please click here.)

The reasons for home schooling may include:
· Parents wanting to be actively involved in educating their children;
· Parents believing the school system not suitable for their particular situation (health, special needs, values);
· No appropriate school available nearby.

While the advantages of home-based education are many, not everybody’s learning style is suitable to learning at home, just like not every student’s learning style is suitable to the classroom environment.
Learning Style elements that you should consider before you embark on home-based education include the following:
· Your child’s need for variety;
· Your child’s social preferences in a learning situation;
· Your child’s need for teacher authority;
· Your child’s attitude towards parent authority;
· Your child’s need for mobility;
· Your child’s environment needs.
· Your child’s sensory input preferences.

To discover your child’s learning style, please start here.

For example, let’s assume that your child has kinesthetic preferences and non-preferences for visual input. Showing a TV documentary on refining sugar to such a child is pointless. The child’s learning style calls for a field trip to a sugar refinery instead, so that the child can learn by doing.

Is your child tactile? If not, asking him or her to create models of geographic landscapes or water molecules is counter-productive.

Does your child prefer a set framework and guidelines from you, or does he/she need to explore the topic on their own, without an imposed structure?

Do you know your child’s learning style?

Learning Styles and Integrated Learning Therapy

Learning Styles are often a solution in themselves:
1. You do the LSA (Learning Style Analysis) assessment.
2. You discover that your child needs a silent environment, a brightly lit room and lots of hands-on projects in order to understand new things.
3. You provide those learning conditions to your child.
4. Your child thrives and their learning achievement surpasses all expectations.

(To find out more about learning styles, please click here.)
Learning Style elements that may influence your child’s academic success at school may include the following:
· a need for mobility
· a need for background noise
· a need to talk to others in order to understand complex things
· a tactile learning style
· a kinesthetic learning style
· a non-preference for teacher authority,
· a non-preference for auditory input
· a non-preference for visual input (particularly text)
· a non-preference for structure and guidance
· and many others.

To discover your child’s learning style, please start here.

There are times, however, when Learning Styles are only the beginning of the journey. Integrated Learning Therapy is an integrated approach to help children with learning challenges such as dyslexia, dyspraxia, ADHD, Aspergers Syndrome and Autism to reach their potential. It brings together knowledge and practice from various fields, such as include neurophysiology, cognitive psychology, sensory integration and nutrition.

Because their approach considers everything within the child and his/her environment that may be a factor causing learning or behaviour difficulties, the therapist will usually begin with the child’s Learning Style Assessment.