Have you ever seen pandas? It’s super interesting to see how these black-and-white furry creatures do parenting. There was once a video from a zoo or somewhere, where a panda mom pushed her son so hard onto a branch to teach him tree climbing, but the little one just hung at the foot of the branch and refused to move.
If you are a parent, you may quite relate to what the panda mom feels. Kids can turn from angels to brats overnight. But whatever they are, we love them, care about them, and want them to get educated while being good and happy.
So we send them to kindergartens or schools we trust and they like. And we spend so much time after work playing and learning with them, even though sometimes we are already burned out. And at night, we cannot sleep, and start wondering what these are all about—The kids made the house a total mess, but still they cannot even assemble their LEGOs.
If you are also puzzled about it, well, here’s the good news. Your time with kids is totally worth it. Studies have proved that parent-child interaction is really important in kids’ education, especially informal education, and plays a crucial role in child development.
What is informal education?
Informal education, or sometimes called “informal learning” or “informal practices”, refers to the education that kids have outside schools. Informal education includes many things, like a visit to a museum or a planetarium, after-school book clubs, or family education. Informal education significantly impacts child development by fostering cognitive growth through diverse and engaging experiences.
Why is parent-child interaction important in informal STEM education?
Among all types of informal education, family education stands out as an important one. As we are dedicated to STEM education, here we mainly focus on its importance in informal STEM education.
Many researchers have discussed the importance of parent-child interaction in STEM education. Priya Desai said in her 2021 essay that parent involvement helps kids strive for better performance in class and tests. Kids whose parents are more involved are more likely to be academically successful, and even have better development in brains. Julie Thomas and some other researchers also noted in their 2020 book that parent involvement benefits kids from the following aspects: social, emotional, and character development; increased attendance, reduced suspensions, and reduced high school dropouts; attitude toward school; academic motivation; pursuit of difficult tasks; self-efficacy; academic performance; quantitative skills; problem-solving skills.
These studies prove that the impact of parent-child interaction in integrated STEM education goes way beyond grades and test scores. It also sparks children’s curiosity, fosters a love for learning, and builds confidence that lasts a lifetime. When parents take part in STEM activities with kids, abstract math problem becomes a fun puzzle and the backyard turns into a living lab.
What challenges might parents face in STEM education interactions?
Despite the benefits of parent-child interaction, researchers also find some challenges for parents to get involved in kids’ STEM education.
The first is about confidence. Karen Ansberry and Emily Morgan found in their 2019 essay that some parents don’t think they are qualified enough to have STEM activities with their children. Parents who have no STEM background may worry about giving incorrect information or being unable to answer their children's questions. Also, the rapid technological development can make some parents feel that their knowledge is outdated. Breaking down these barriers of self-doubt is crucial for fostering a more inclusive and supportive environment for STEM education at home.
There’re also some other issues. Mei Yan found in a 2017 study that many parents don’t know how to start a scientific inquiry to guide their kids. Without a clear understanding, parents may be unsure of where to begin or how to structure meaningful learning experiences at home. Even if they do know how, they often find themselves having insufficient resources for this inquiry-based learning. To say that your curious scout wants to build a flashlight for himself, but what can he do if you have no circuits, bulbs, or even batteries at home? These challenges can lead to negative behaviors in children, such as frustration or disinterest in STEM activities.
How can parents without STEM backgrounds support kids’ STEM education?
If you have no STEM background, don’t panic. When it comes to parenting, sometimes soft skills are more important. Many educational experts have discussed the soft skills needed in parenting, and have summarized four parenting styles:
Authoritarian parenting: Strict rules, little explanation, high expectations. Children are obedient but lack self-esteem and may rebel later.
Authoritative parenting: Clear rules with explanations, supportive discipline, open communication. Children are confident, responsible, and good at self-regulation.
Permissive parenting: Few rules, limited discipline, focus on friendship with children. Children may lack self-control, be impulsive, and struggle with delayed gratification.
Uninvolved parenting: Detached parenting, minimal rules or expectations. Children can be self-sufficient but may have emotional problems, social difficulties, and academic challenges.
Yet, we are not here to declare that one style is better than others. Actually, some believe that an integrated approach, which means borrowing elements from different styles, can be more effective. Nonetheless, when it comes to STEM education, the key is to create an environment that encourages curiosity, perseverance, and critical thinking. Managing a child's behavior during these activities is crucial to maintaining a productive learning environment. With that in mind, let’s focus on five important strategies you can take, regardless of your STEM background:
Learn together with your child: One of the most powerful ways to support your child’s STEM learning is to act as a co-learner. Don’t be afraid to admit when you don’t know something. Instead, use it as an opportunity to learn together. Your enthusiasm and willingness to learn can be incredibly inspiring for your child.
Ask questions
Curiosity is the cornerstone of scientific inquiry. Encourage your child to ask questions about the world around them, and don’t shy away from asking questions yourself. When your child shares something they’ve learned, ask follow-up questions to deepen their understanding. Questions like “Why do you think that happens?” or “How could we test that idea?” can stimulate critical thinking and scientific reasoning.
Celebrate failures
In STEM fields, failure is often a stepping stone to success. Help your child understand that mistakes and failed experiments are valuable learning opportunities. When an experiment doesn’t work out as expected or a coding project has bugs, celebrate the effort and encourage problem-solving. Discuss what might have gone wrong and brainstorm ways to improve or try again. This resilience is a crucial skill in STEM and life in general.
Seek resources
You don’t have to be the sole source of STEM knowledge for your child. Instead, try to find as many resources as you can. Visit local libraries, science centers, or museums. Explore online platforms that provide STEM activities or courses. Look for after-school programs or summer camps about STEM subjects. Don’t hesitate to reach out to teachers or other parents for recommendations. Remember, your role is to facilitate and encourage learning, not to have all the answers.
What are some creative ways to learn STEM literacy in daily life?
Learning STEM in daily life with your kids doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive. Here are some creative and accessible ways for you to choose:
Cook together
The kitchen is a natural laboratory for STEM learning and math education. Cooking involves measurement, ratios, chemical reactions, and even physics. When you bake cookies with your child, you're also exploring concepts like volume, temperature, and the transformation of matter. Discuss why certain ingredients react the way they do, or challenge your child to halve or double a recipe. Even simple tasks like observing how water boils or how bread rises can spark scientific curiosity.
Garden together
Gardening is a hands-on way to learn about biology, ecology, and earth science. Whether you have a backyard plot or a few pots on a windowsill, growing plants helps you and your children learn about life cycles, photosynthesis, and the impact of environmental factors on growth. Encourage your child to keep a garden journal. Track plant growth and weather conditions. This activity encourages scientific observation and data collection, and also helps your kids become more patient and responsible.
Build and fix things: Household repairs or construction helps learn engineering knowledge. Whether it's assembling furniture, fixing a leaky faucet, or building a birdhouse, these activities teach problem-solving, spatial reasoning, and basic physics. Encourage your child to read instructions, measure materials, and use tools safely. Then, your children will know how things work and become young makers.
Play board games
Many board games help practice STEM skills in an interesting way. These games often involve strategy, probability, or resource management, and therefore helps with mathematical thinking and logical reasoning. Chess, for example, develops strategic thinking and spatial awareness. There’re also hundreds of other board games. BoardGameGeek, an online forum for board games, provides a ranked list of all kinds of board games. You can also go to Amazon to see best sellers in board games.
Use STEM toys
According to Filiz Gülhan’s 2023 essay, apart from board games, you can also use STEM toys like building toys, lego, and robotics toys in your STEM interaction with kids. These toys make abstract STEM concepts tangible and accessible. When you play them with your kids, all of you can learn physics, engineering, and problem-solving in a hands-on and intuitive way.
What are some age-appropriate STEM toys for parent-child interaction?
As a solution provider of STEM education, we WhalesBot design and produce a variety of STEM toys for kids to play and learn with parents. We analyze kids’ cognitive development at different ages and offer educational toys that best suit their needs. Here’s a brief introduction. If you are interested in the whole set of our products, you can go to our product page. These toys contribute significantly to STEM literacy, fostering innovative and critical thinking among students and preparing them for higher education and better employment opportunities in a knowledge-based economy.
Kids of 3-6: A1, A3, A7, and B3 Pro
If your children are total beginners in STEM, we recommend A1, A3, and A7. These kits provide large and rounded-edge blocks that are easy to assemble. There’re also actuators and sensors integrated into some magnet coding blocks, so the robots your children build can sense and react to the surroundings after you build them piece by piece. And we have to say that among these three, A7 provides the most types of sensors. So if you and your kids prefer robots with more functions, A7 might be your choice.
As for B3 Pro, we think it’s more suitable for children who already have some sense of coding. The coding tools for this kit are more complicated, which are some coding cards and a coding pen. This allows your kids to give more instructions for the robots to move around. One thing to note is that this kit doesn’t include a sensor. So if your kids want their robots to see, hear, or feel the surroundings, it would be better to choose other kits. These toys can positively influence child behavior by encouraging problem-solving and interactive play.
Kids of 7, 8, and more: D3 Pro, E7 Pro, and Eagle
As your kids grow, they can already handle basic building. This is when they can turn to D3 Pro. This kit provides some delicate transmission parts like gears, so your kids can learn the basics of engineering, like gear mechanisms. There’re also some innovations about the coding tool. The kit provides a coding pad with buttons of different colors. Each color represents a type of function, like motion control, timing, or calculation. These toys prepare children for the STEM workforce by equipping them with essential engineering and coding skills.
When the kids become more sophisticated in STEM, they can also try E7 Pro. The blocks in this kit are more small and delicate and have holes on more sides, so kids can build more complex models. As for coding, this kit also provides special software that supports both Scratch coding and text-based coding like C and Python. This opens the door for coding expertise.
If your kids get bored with gadgets running on the ground, well, we also provide Eagle, a series for programmable drones. Unlike drone brands like DJI, WhalesBot Eagle focuses more on educational functions. The drones can be connected to a coding software that supports Scratch, C, and Python, so your kids will be clear to see how their programs affects the drones’ flying, hovering, or landing. We also care about kids’ safety, so we give each a full-round propeller guard and make the drones light-weighted enough.
What real-life examples demonstrate successful parent-child STEM education?
In a recent case study, a parent shared their experience using our coding robot at home:
“We use the robot at home (WhalesBot D3 Pro Coding Robot Set) to help my daughter familiarize with robotics, mechanics, and programming. She's always amazed about being able to program the robot and finding out that she can code different programs that are different to what the guide says.”
This feedback shows how hands-on experience with our coding robot sparks a child’s curiosity and creativity while providing interdisciplinary knowledge. When talking about what they like most about this product, the parent goes on:
“The versatility, as in, how many robots can be built with the same set is great. Plus the fact that I can teach my daughter how to run different programs and how to, for example, use the timer for the robot to wait a certain amount of time. I’m a software engineer, so guiding her and seeing her enjoy the process is a lot of fun.”
This shows the joy of shared learning and how parents can use their own expertise in their child’s STEM education. It’s a perfect example of how parent-child interaction can turn STEM education into a fun, bonding experience. Structured STEM activities can be compared to the structured interactions in Parent-Child Interaction Therapy, both fostering healthy development and strong family dynamics.
How does parent-child interaction in STEM education impact a child's future?
As we mentioned above, parent-child interaction encourages attributes like curiosity, imagination, and creation that benefits children in the long run. It also affects the career they’ll choose in their later life.
In Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, the author unveils how parent-child interaction leads young Steve Jobs to the doorway of STEM. Paul Jobs, his adoptive father who loved building and fixing things, fueled Steve’s curiosity about electronics. “He showed me the rudiments of electronics, and I got very interested in that,” said Steve. When doing all these things, Paul also encouraged his son to join him. “If we needed a cabinet, he would build it. When he built our fence, he gave me a hammer so I could work with him.” The biography also mentions how young Steve became attached to his dad in this parent-child interaction: “He’s in the engine room, and he’s got his shirt off and looks like James Dean. It was one of those Oh wow moments for a kid.”
Paul Jobs may not have been a STEM professional, but his passion for craftsmanship, his willingness to spend time with his son, are really important in developing Steve’s skills and passion for technology. This real-life story shows how parent-child interactions in STEM can profoundly impact a child’s future in several key ways. The National Science Board emphasizes the importance of preparing children for future challenges in a knowledge-based economy through such interactions.
Skill development
When parents join in STEM activities with their children, they help develop critical thinking and analytical skills. In these interactions, children learn how to approach challenges methodically, break down complex problems, and think creatively about solutions. The hands-on nature of many STEM activities also helps in developing fine building skills and spatial reasoning abilities. Ensuring these skills develop within normal limits is crucial for the child's overall growth and success.
Sparking curiosity
Parent-child STEM interactions get children curious about what the world around them is like and how it works. When parents show interest in STEM learning, they are becoming a model for their children. This can lead to a lifelong love of learning and exploration. Children are more likely to ask questions, seek answers, and keep exploring things that interest them, contrasting with the emergence of aggressive behavior often seen with negative parenting approaches.
Career inspiration and STEM workforce
Exposure to STEM concepts and activities at a young age can significantly influence a child's career choices later in life. When parents have STEM discussions with their children, children may discover passions they never knew they had, or develop skills that lead them towards STEM-related professions. Even if a child doesn't pursue a STEM career directly, the analytical skills gained through these interactions are valuable in virtually any profession.
Strengthening family bonds
Taking STEM activities together helps deepen the bonds between parents and children. As families work together on projects, experiments, or tasks, they develop a shared language of curiosity and discovery. Parents and children often find themselves equal in learning and growing, which can be especially encouraging for children.
These interactions also provide valuable insights for parents into their child’s thought processes, interests, and strengths, making it possible for parents to help kids become better selves. When kids grow up and look back, these love and care in parent-child interactions become their treasured memories and give them courage to face difficulties in life. This is similar to the positive interactions emphasized in a treatment phase called child directed interaction, where parents engage with their children through play and positive reinforcement.
Conclusion
It has been proved that parent-child interaction plays an important part in informal STEM education. Whether you’re cooking together, gardening, building, or using STEM toys like our coding robots, these interactions help with children’s personal development and family relationships. Structured parent-child interactions are crucial for teaching and managing behavior effectively. Wish you a pleasant STEM journey with your kids!
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