Avoiding the corona slump - keep your kids stimulated

As the covid-19 lockdown continues we see ourselves and our children drifting further and further away from the everyday life we used to know. Unfortunately, the drift can have an impact on your child’s academic performance, because of the way the child’s brain works. ”During times without routine and practice, things that have been learned will be pruned away in the young brain,” expert explains

The lockdown is starting to drag. Many parents will do anything to prevent time away from school from affecting their child’s learning process. Concerned parents might ask themselves: “Is my child going to fall behind because of the lockdown?” And actually the change in the routine can have somewhat of an impact if we are not aware of the way children’s brains function. Normally we experience this phenomenon during the summer holidays, but now we might also be facing the challenges during springtime.

”During times without routine and planned practice, things that have been learned can be pruned away in the young brain. We typically see this with kids in school, who don’t do much reading over the summer - what we call the summer slump. When the children come back to school their reading skills have frequently dropped. They have to start over on things they had learned the year before,” neurologist, author, former teacher and neuroeducation specialist, Judy Willis explains and continues: “This is related to the brain process of neuroplasticity. The more a memory or skill is used, the stronger these brain circuits get. When you don’t get to use the new brain circuits that are constructed with new learning they can get pruned away. The circuits that don’t get pruned away, even when not used regularly, are the ones that have become very strong from repeated use. These well-practiced activities construct durable networks that make things automatic, like keyboarding or riding a bike. If you don’t do that for three months, you still know how to do them.”

Music and playing can help kids learn
There are ways to avoid losing knowledge, and according to Judy Willis, it’s all about associations. Luckily there are different tactics we can employ. And even though we are talking about learning it doesn’t have to be boring - or at least it shouldn’t be, Judy Willis advices: “As a parent, to reduce pruning of learning, you can help kids construct more associations with the learning. When I taught the Pythagorean theorem, I wouldn’t just give the students the information and make them practice. I would take them for a “shape-walk” outside and look for right angles. Doing this gives the brain another association with the math so although they are not likely to review the Pythagorean theorem during the summer, when they see a right angle, like a window, their brains hopefully link into the association they made on the shape walk and reactivate their memory of the math,” she explains.

According to Judy Willis, there are many ways of activating children’s brains and music and singing are some of the best tools:“We promote strong memory with the activated neuroplasticity and with having multiple associations with the learning. Music and songs are easier to remember than poems or text as we have an association with a tone, a rhythm or a beat together with the words. Also, the words might rhyme or have a certain sequence. So here you have multiple sensory components with which the information can be stored and retrieved. As music and words are stored in different places in the brain, each time we sing a song with a rhythm or a repeated sequence that extended circuit, of the music and the words, is activated. Because of neuroplasticity - each time a circuit is used - the brain responds to that increased activity by making the connections stronger and faster so the circuit is more efficient and uses less of the brain’s energy. This means faster recall of the information and it also means that the information will not get pruned away too quickly. There are songs I learned as a kid, about the stars and planets that I still know today! So associations with music can give learning a boost.”

Parents don’t want a “spring break” from learning
Inga Hope and her online music program The Gentle Guitar School is one of the learning platforms that are experiencing an increase in inquiries from parents, who want to keep their kids away from the corona slump and activated in a meaningful way.
“Business has changed a lot during the lockdown. We have had a marked increase in bookings. Another unusual thing is that families are booking two lessons per week instead of one. And if there are more siblings in the house, parents sign up all of them - one family has three children learning with us and is thinking of booking their fourth,” the music teacher explains and carries on: ”Right now a huge responsibility has been placed on parents, as they have to function both as teachers and as parents, so understandably it is much needed for the parents to give some of that responsibility to another adult at least for some of the time.”

Inga Hope founded Gentle Guitar with the intention of giving parents and their children an opportunity to spend meaningful time together while acquiring musical skills at the same time.
“I’m not surprised that parents are trying to get the best out of the situation right now. We are all somewhat stuck inside our homes, so of course, parents are looking for fun and stimulating experiences for their children, so they don’t waste the entire spring without learning as much as they are used to,” Inga Hope says and continues: “While the lockdown is being drawn out we shouldn’t just keep our children busy by placing them in front of the tv screen, no, we should stimulate them and challenge them to nurture the potential that the little ones truly have. And music is just a great way of doing so.”

The Gentle Guitar School has been providing long-distance one-on-one lessons in nine countries, including all over the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and even South Africa taught by teachers from Denmark, Canada, and New Zealand since 2015.