Focus on the Family Parenting Podcast

John Fuller: If you love Christian music, you'll enjoy Focus Live, a new station powered by Godcaster. Get the app today at focusonthefamily.com/podcast.

All month long in September, we're exploring the theme of mental health. One of the best ways you can help your child achieve a little better mental health is for them to be aware of how they process information. I'm John Fuller with Dr. Danny Huerta, who leads our parenting team. Cynthia Tobias is an expert on learning styles. She's written a timeless book called "The Way They Learn." We've got copies of it here at the ministry. Here's a part of a conversation that Focus President Jim Daly had with Cynthia Tobias.

Jim Daly: Let's talk about the learning styles then. In your book, what are they? Describe them for us.

Cynthia Tobias: Well, there's five different models that we talk about. One of my favorites that we start with right away that's pretty basic, and people usually think they know what it's all about, is the modalities: how you remember. Everybody has three puzzle pieces, because they really are puzzle pieces, not something you can just test. But the auditory learn by hearing, the visual learn by seeing, and the kinesthetic learn by doing. That's what most people think.

Even though that's partially true, when we really get into the research, there's more to it. If you have a child with a high auditory, a big auditory piece of the puzzle, they learn best by hearing, but not hearing you. They learn best by hearing themselves. Your auditory child tends to talk too much, tends to process things verbally.

Jim Daly: Why? Why that one?

Cynthia Tobias: That's right! Or they say, "You know what I read?" and "What else?" and they just talk and talk. They're the chatterbox. You never have to wonder what they're thinking; that's the upside. But the downside is you often want to say, "I think your dad would like to hear a little bit more of your day for a while."

For the auditory person, they aren't going to learn and remember things until they ask questions about it. One of the things we know about auditory kids is if you don't let them talk, they will keep interrupting you until they do, because it's not like there's anything else they can get in until they get this thought out.

My classic example is the third-grade teacher who says, "Boys and girls, today we're going to talk about animal cruelty." "Oh, my aunt, she has this dog!" and she says, "We don't have time for everybody's story, just hang on to your aunt's dog story." But that doesn't work. If I'm a highly auditory kid, my aunt's dog story is bubbling up to the top and I don't have room for anything else to go in until my aunt's dog story comes out.

If I can't tell the teacher, then I have to turn to the kid next to me and get it out there. Then I'm ready to hear more from the teacher, but by then I'm in trouble again for inappropriate socializing. As an auditory child, I'm just trying to process things. Sometimes it's a great compliment that I'm talking and asking questions. You're thinking I'm just interrupting to hear the sound of my own voice, but I'm trying to process it by saying, "So in other words..." and I'm repeating what you said because when I hear my own voice say it, I remember it. I don't remember it from your voice.

Jim Daly: Often as parents, we take that as just irritating. The child is just irritating us.

Cynthia Tobias: Let's face it, it kind of is irritating. But from the child's perspective, the child is doing what God has created in that child's heart: exploring. They're not annoying you on purpose most of the time. They don't even know; they're just figuring out how they're wired.

If you're not an auditory person, you like peace and quiet. Sometimes auditory teachers, for example, say "shh" more than anybody else because they need to talk. They want all the kids to stop talking. Here the auditory kids are just bubbling up needing to react or ask a question and it's very frustrating if they can't do it.

If you look at the visual kid, I'm very visual and highly kinesthetic. But a visual kid, we don't talk that much. We watch, we observe, and there are things for the visual child, even though we learn best by seeing, we're also greatly distracted by it. For example, if you don't show me something about what you're talking about right away, then I make up my own picture. It's almost never the same picture that you had in mind. My mind is creative; I look like I'm daydreaming. I'm thinking, "Those shoes don't actually match her skirt," and I'm automatically distracted from the teacher.

I just need to see something and I need to see it in my mind, even if you get me to imagine it. If I'm a visual kid and I've got an auditory parent, and my auditory parent says, "Come here. I need you to go down to the kitchen and take that blue mug by the side of the sink and take it out to the patio table," and I say, "Okay," I turn around and right away I'm not exactly sure what my parent just said.

I don't want to go back and ask again because the auditory parent says it slower, louder, yells, tells me I'm not paying attention. I just go and do what I kind of think it was, and it almost never turns out. The one thing the auditory parent could do for me as a visual child is to say, "Listen, I need you to go down to the kitchen. You know that blue porcelain mug, the one that's sitting by the side of the sink?" Pause, pause, pause.

What are they doing? They are letting me process. Then I say, "Oh yeah, yeah," because my visual mind is saying "yeah, the blue one there." "I need you to take that mug out to the patio table, that big round white one, and put it there." Now the chances of my doing exactly what you told me are almost 100 percent because you took just a little bit of time and you let me track with you visually in my mind.

It's just like we do when we're giving directions. "You know that store, the one that's kitty-corner from the..." "Oh yeah, yeah." You get it in your head. For a visual kid, it's very important for me to track with you visually. You can tell me 10 times and you can say, "I've told you 10 times. How many more times do I have to tell you?" I need to see it. I need to create it in my own mind, or you need to show me a picture and then suddenly the visual, I connect and I can remember because I can see it in my head.

John Fuller: Danny, this is really good stuff from Cynthia. I'd love for you to talk to the parent who is saying, "I so need to get this, I need to help my child, but in the meantime, my child is struggling." Maybe they're showing signs of depression, or they're disengaged, or they're angry. It's coming out in their behaviors because I know that what's experienced in the classroom isn't teaching to the way they learn. What's a parent to do?

Dr. Danny Huerta: This information from Cynthia Tobias is priceless. To understand that as a parent and then have our child learn to understand this for themselves is so important. That is learning: am I a person that is more tactile, am I a person that is listening, the auditory side and talking and that's how I learn, or visually? Am I learning that way?

For a child to have that experience, they feel understood. They begin to understand themselves. So, help them go after that, but then also to advocate for themselves with a teacher. You don't have to do all the work. Say, "Hey, what do you think we should do? What does your teacher need to know about you that would be helpful in the environment you're in as you're learning?"

Now, you also want to remind your children that the world is not going to adapt for them. They need to learn how to be adaptive in this world. Part of that is when something's being taught from a visual sense and you're an auditory learner, what do you do with that? Step towards that and figure out tools that your child can have. We've learned a lot about different tools you can use when it's not matching your learning style. That will take some research on you as parents to do that.

Really, when you're helping your child understand their learning style, what you're doing is you're empowering them and giving them a roadmap of who they've been created to be. It makes sense that they'd be frustrated when it's not matching because they feel like, "Man, I'm trying to learn but it's just not going in." Validate that. Once they feel understood, then they'll be ready to advocate.

Then with a teacher, maybe ask her, "Hey, what are the different learning styles in your classroom?" Also, if there's a teacher that is feeling overwhelmed with this, you can say, "How can I be helpful?" or "Have you heard of Cynthia Tobias? There's some great tools on learning styles." It ought to be helpful, not critical, to that teacher.

John Fuller: I appreciate so much your emphasis on the tone. When we had kids in school, we found it very helpful if the school knew we're not sideline critics; we're in this with you. We see at home things; if you're seeing things in the classroom and we're seeing them at home, let's figure it out together because everybody wants this child to succeed. The school's got resources; they're not just saying it has to be this way. You're talking about being collaborative as a parent, but beginning with your child.

Dr. Danny Huerta: A lot of teachers try to be creative to meet all three learning styles, which is so tricky. That would be so hard when you have a classroom full of different learning styles, and I know teachers try their best. Come to them as a parent expecting the best in the teacher first. It's not just about advocating for your child but also having understanding to that teacher that it can be overwhelming.

Maybe get some tools from that teacher. Maybe they do understand learning styles and they're learning something about your child that you haven't learned and you can help reinforce that in the home as well. You can work as a team rather than against each other as your child learns about their learning style, learns how to advocate, but then also learns how to adapt to an environment that doesn't always adapt to them.

John Fuller: Get a copy of Cynthia Tobias's book, "The Way They Learn," to help you go more into detail on this. That'll give you the tools so you understand, so you can do a good job of explaining to your child and exploring with your child how they can best step forward.

If you're struggling because my child is falling behind, it's coming up behaviorally, or I don't know what to do next, we've got great resources here. I want to highlight our counseling team. If you are unsure about what to do, connect with one of our counselors. They talk to hundreds of people a month, a couple thousand, frankly, every month about parenting issues, marriage things, life decisions. Consider us a kind of a first call. Our number is 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY. We'll have details in the show notes.

By the way, if you can make a donation of any amount today, we'll send a copy of Cynthia's book to you as our way of saying thank you for partnering with Focus on the Family so we can have counselors and websites and resources for you. Next time we'll hear from Corey Pennypacker about how teaching Bible classes in the public school can lead to great conversations about Jesus. That's next time. For now, on behalf of Dr. Danny Huerta and the entire team, I'm John Fuller, and thanks for joining us for the Focus on the Family parenting podcast.

John Fuller: If you love Christian music, you'll enjoy Focus Live, a new station powered by Godcaster. Get the app today at focusonthefamily.com/podcast.