Every sustained action brings results.

It is so simple, yet so true. My mind could easily encompass this rule in application to fitness. As long as I do push-ups or any other exercise regularly, my body is getting stronger. Another glanceable application which easily came to my mind was studying.

Reading The Slight Edge, those two examples readily appeared when I pondered about my past and I was looking for confirmation of this philosophy in my life.

But it goes far, far ahead than just mind and body.

The keyword is “every”


Everything matters. Everything you do has some impact on your body, your mind, your soul, your environment, your society and on the universe. The impact may be miniscule, but it compounds over time.

In October 2012, I started home schooling my son. He had trouble in the 4th grade at school—new subjects, new teachers and a lousy attitude toward studying.

His grades were a mess and he was lying to us that everything was all right. When I discovered his true situation at the parent-teacher meeting, I decided to do something about it.

Mundane tasks

I did nothing fancy. I didn’t have much time to devote it to his teaching. I marked his homework, I taught him new English words, I made him read, I explained to him the exercises he didn’t understand.

I’ve been doing it every day, consistently. I failed several times, but got back on track immediately. Our teaching program had its ups and downs, but we stuck to it for more than a year.

Brilliant results

You also have an impact on other people.

I’ve realized it fully quite recently.

Yesterday, in fact, when my son wanted to go outside to play with his mates. I asked him about his lessons. He did everything in the morning, when I slept—his math homework, daily portion of reading and adding one more English word to his vocabulary.

The sudden realization struck me! He has transformed from a layabout into a diligent student.

He used to hate reading. To say that he enjoys it now would be an exaggeration, but he likes it moderately. He even made a reading contest against his mom, to see who will finish reading the book first.

He has improved his English drastically and he is more confident regarding his English skills. Yesterday we watched Japanese anime. He made sure that we had the English subtitles and stated, “Good, now I can comprehend something”.

His self-confidence is justified. He has yet another English teacher (6th or 7th during 5 years, I suppose) and she is a demanding lady. But he gets good grades; he is at the top of his class.

Change of mindset

But I see the biggest progress in his philosophy.

He got a lot of math homework for the holidays. I drilled into him that the best way to operate is to work consistently on small chunks of the job. He adopted this attitude.

He divided the number of pages to do by the number of days vacation and he does a part of the homework every day. “I’m 3 pages ahead of schedule,”  he announced happily yesterday.

Seeing his transformation is a blessing for me as a parent. It’s priceless.

Miniscule efforts compounded into massive happiness 😉

A shameless plug

I share our story in my book – “Release Your Kid’s Dormant Genius”.

Release Your Kid's Dormant Genius
It will be free on Amazon from 23rd to 26th of February.

Parenting School-Age Children. Tiny Steps and Great Results.

3 thoughts on “Parenting School-Age Children. Tiny Steps and Great Results.

  • December 30, 2013 at 1:49 am
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    Children are interesting. They learn so quickly.
    I recently read a biography about Stalin and it said that when he was a baby he loved flowers, so his mother would hold out beautiful flowers before him as incentive to help him walk/run.
    Imagine that. Stalin the flower-chaser.

    Reply
    • December 30, 2013 at 9:20 am
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      I can easily imagine. There is no evil child.
      I read a lot about Stalin. I consider him a great man. Complicated one. And ruthlessly mercisless. Inhumane.
      He is an example of personal development put to the wrong use.

      Reply
  • January 2, 2014 at 7:50 am
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    “Ruthlessly mercisless. ”

    – I concur. Incredibly so. I wonder if he did any killings himself though, or if it was always the henchmen.

    I was very impressed by how well-read Stalin was. He had read Darwin’s “On the Origin of the Species” when he was only thirteen years old, and seemingly grasped it quite well.

    I will read more about him. Probably the next book will be “Stalin, the Red Tsar”

    Reply

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