by Erica Johns | Apr 28, 2015 | Teach Me Tuesday
The other day my 12 year old son invited me to go out to play Around the World.  It was kind of a big deal for me, because I’ve been suffering with a condition called Frozen Shoulder for about six months now, and up until recently, I would not have been able to use my one arm at all for basketball.  Thanks to some work over the last month with an gifted sports therapist, I’ve regained quite a bit of my range of motion, so I felt like I could say yes and give it a try.
Strangely, though I have four boys at home that all enjoy playing basketball, I guess I’ve always been cheering them on, and never joining them in play. Â (how did that happen?!) Â Around the world is a game where you basically have stations that form an arch around the key/3 point line area on the court, and you make a shot from each spot. Â Once you make the first shot you advance to the next spot and try to make a basket from that one, and continue all the way around to the other side. Â If you miss on your turn, you wait and the other players all take a turn, those who make a basket advancing to the next spots until they finally miss. Â The goal: Â to be the first person “around the world.” Â (or in my case, the goal was to simply get all the way around the world!)
My first shot was a basket!  You should have seen the looks on my boys’ faces.  They were like, “woa!  Mom can shoot baskets!”  Street cred with my kids, yo!  🙂 We had a fun time, and yes, I made it all the way around the world, and I didn’t even come in last.
As usual, joining my kids in an opportunity to do something they enjoy and know well, and letting them teach me, was so fun and rewarding. Â It’s great on a relationship level, and it’s also a great opportunity for my kids to take a leadership and teaching role, and for them to organize information in order to present it to someone else. Â It’s also good for me to be reminded how it is to be the learner. Â I encourage you to try it! Â Invite your kids to teach you about something that they enjoy. Â They will love it, and you will get to experience the benefits too!
Have your kids taught you anything recently?  What’s one thing you’d like to have them teach you?  Leave  a comment!
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by Erica Johns | Feb 10, 2015 | Teach Me Tuesday
I think I first heard about the benefits of letting your kids teach you stuff from one of my most favorite resources of all time, BraveWriter.com. Â Kids love it if we enter in to their activities and interests, and we get to have the experience of being the student for a change! Â What’s more, when your kids articulate the instructions required to play a game or create something, they are using those organizational skills that are so important in public speaking, writing, and more!
I have let them teach me things before, but today we decided to make it official with Teach Me Tuesdays! Â We are going to try out having a special opportunity for the kids to teach me something they would like me to know. Â So first off I was invited to learn to play their new favorite video game, Destiny.
Now, I’m not a gamer, failed miserably when they tried to teach me Mario Cart last year (it’s true! Â LOL), but I’m crazy about my boys, and you should have seen their faces light up when I agreed to learn their game. Â As my 16 year old son said, “Mom, if you can learn to play Destiny, you will be, like 10 times cooler than you already are!!
And honestly, who doesn’t want to be *ten times cooler* in the eyes of their teenagers?!
COUNT ME IN, YO!
All day they looked forward to it.  I was peppered with questions like, “Mom, do you want to be a warlock, a titan, or a hunter?”  “Do you want to be a human, or a blue person, or a robot-looking person?”  They were each trying to give me tips and warnings and encouragement so I could be the best 43-year old lady Destiny warrior in town.  😉
I picked a human female titan for my character.  The boys were so sweet, teaching me how to use the controls, making sure I had a comfy chair, and listening to my explanation of difficulties in maneuvers.  When they caught on that I was instinctively feeling like the right knob should be moving me, instead of the left, they had a fix:  They switched me to “southpaw” mode and then things felt much more intuitive for me.  They encouraged me with instructions and assistance when I needed it.  “Take aim!”  “Take cover!”  “Shoot!  Shoot!  Shoot!”  “Melee him!  Melee that guy!”  (that means to punch him!  I was good at that.)  They hooted and cheered when I finally got the hang of it and started shooting and running and meleeing with some semblance of skill.  When I leveled up to Level 2 they all clapped and cheered for me, and I admit I was pretty excited about it too.  🙂
It was fun! Â And I was amazed once again at the amount of skill, detail, and dexterity that goes into playing a game like this. Â I will definitely play Destiny with them again, and I know they will love it that now they can talk to me about their game and I will know something about what they are excited about.
What will you let your kiddos teach you this week?
