What Kind of Learner is Your Child?
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800-A-FAMILY or donate at focusonthefamily.com slash families. What kind of learner are you? Do you even know? I'm John Fuller, joined by Dr. Danny Huerta, who heads up the Focus Parenting team. And Danny, it can be fun to discover how God has wired us to learn, to process, to make sense of the world.

You've got some pretty unique insights about this. Yeah, well, we're still learning how we're learning, right, John? I mean, this research is fairly new, but fairly old. I mean, fairly new in the research world. The visual, kinesthetic, and auditory are really the ones that people know about. And I tend to fall more in the visual and kinesthetic side.

And on this visual side, what I've noticed is I need to scribble. I need to see the picture relationship. I love infographics that help me go deeper into a concept. And I also have the kinesthetic side where I have to walk around a room or move around or actually experience what I'm trying to learn.

with the movement of my body. I've seen this. It's so fun to, as you describe it, because it's like I've seen you in meetings and yeah, you're walking around and you're thinking aloud. Yeah. I'm just trying to take it in. Yeah. Very, very involved in the process. Yes. Yes. And so our kids aren't always given that opportunity in the classroom to learn that way. It's usually auditory and some visual. Now we have either PowerPoints or

whatever, you know, it's just visual aids that they get in school. But the kinesthetic is much more difficult to get in the school. And that's more of a boy trait, but it's boys and girls. But boys tend to be more on that kinesthetic side where they need that engagement in the learning. And there's some schools now that have been created, charter schools, to address that. And so it's been fun to learn that over time.

As I've grown older and I've noticed sometimes if I'm tired, I tend to lean more in towards a kinesthetic. When I've gotten good rest, I do well with the visual and I can do well with the auditory.

So it also makes a difference as to where we're at kind of on the tiredness and sleep. And our kids don't always get the best sleep. So this has been so fun because what Danny's been describing is his own learning style, not his children's. And I think it has to start with us and an understanding of how I'm wired and

And then to understand our children are different. So we have six kids. They're all very different. And it was a big breakthrough for me fairly early on to realize, oh, yeah, they're going to be just very active as I'm reading this bedtime story. And that's OK. Very active is OK. So we're going to turn now to a clip from Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. Yeah.

And on that show, Jim talked with Cynthia Tobias. She is an expert on education and on helping kids be lifelong learners. Let's listen in. Cynthia, those learning styles that we mentioned a moment ago, let's cover those now. You've identified auditory, visual, kinesthetic. Speak to those three types and define them for us. Well, and even kind of the context of all of that is an important statement. The brain can only absorb information.

what the seat can endure. So... I like that rule. If you become distracted, if you're uncomfortable in your environment, all those things matter, right? So if you are a person who needs to talk about it, but you're in a situation where you're not allowed to talk, you're supposed to just listen. But the thing is, if you're highly auditory, the person you need to listen to is your own voice before you can actually remember it. Mm-hmm.

If you're a visual, I need to see what you're talking about. At least in my imagination, you have to draw a picture. I can't just sit there and listen to you talk and create my own picture. Show me. The kinesthetic, well, that's always one of the most challenging ones. How long can I sit in this chair? And if I'm wanting to move and you don't let me move, what am I thinking about? Moving.

That's all I'm thinking about. And so even in the stuff, the information goes in one ear, gain speed goes out the other. However, if I'm moving and I can even just turning in my chair while you're talking to me,

then I don't even know I'm moving because now my body's not telling me to move. My body is letting me pay attention. Yeah, I mean, I'm laughing because it also works in marriage. I mean, the thing that Jean and I, I mean, and she's right. I have no defense of this, but like when she's telling me a detailed story, I'm starting to finish her sentence because I'm like,

oh, you want to do that? No, let me finish. That's my husband. You know, that's part of the auditory part. And if I interrupt him, and I don't know if this is the way of a gene, if I interrupt him, he starts over. And so I have to.

discipline myself no no I know if I interrupt no it's terrible of me I mean that is something I mean look at what I do I talk to people all day and that's what I do at home too but I'm always asking him for the short version and he said you always want the short version and I went yes I do want the short so those styles work their way all through our adult life typically is the point you

This is going to be your learning style, just like you have a personality type, introvert, extrovert. And you're going to spot them really early in your children if you know what you're looking for. And you start to cultivate that as a strength and help them. They can do hard things. For instance, if the really restless child can learn how to discipline themselves to not move when they don't have to by understanding awareness is half the battle. So if you teach them why they're having trouble and how, then they can cope with it. Yeah.

And so the rest of their lives, they'll know how to learn, not just get it and leave. Yeah, helping them, equipping them to understand how they learn is really critical. There's another element to this. It's analytical thinkers and global thinkers. I define those because I'm not sure which I might be. This is probably one of the most empirically sound questions.

Witkin was the researcher, just to put it in a really short version, and his studies date back to the 1940s, and they're really solid, and it shows that the whole population of the world, which is what he did, not just the United States, we kind of have two ways of

that our minds were designed to take in and process information. And one of them, the analytic way, is to, as soon as you take it in, you want to listen for the details, you want to put it in steps and put it in an organized manner and break it down into pieces.

The opposite, the way my brain is wired, and not my analytic husband's, is when the information comes in, I want to step back and go, okay, wait a minute, what does this have to do with anything I care about? What are we talking about? And that's the global thinker. The global thinker is trying to figure out, how does this fit into the whole big picture? And it makes such a difference in almost every aspect of learning and of personality.

Yeah. And again, the funny thing is we're not talking about marriage, but man, does it apply? Because opposites tend to attract. And that's genes, the analytical, and I'm the global. Well, and then our other genes too, right? I mean, we're giving those traits to our kids and they come out a mix of both. Sometimes the parents look at each other and go, so where do we get this one? Yeah.

Danny, as you observed earlier, this is old, but it's new. And the studies and research continue to kind of develop. Cynthia was talking there about the analytical and the global analysis.

So how about your kids? Where are they kind of in that rubric? Yeah, I love this conversation because it's so important for us as parents. As you were saying at the beginning, John, and as Cynthia pointed out as well, that we need to know our kids because when our kids feel known in that, it really opens up a world for them to understand themselves and to know how best they're going to learn. Many kids do want to learn, but when they face blockades or they just don't feel like they're learning, it's very discouraging. And so with our kids, I've noticed that

that Alex is more naturally bent towards the analytical, super good at math, amazing at math. But bigger concepts into like the English world and abstract, a little more difficult for him. He could do it, but it was more tiring. Whereas for my daughter, those global ideas and writing and being creative on that side, super good. Math, not so good. She absolutely hated math.

She actually, John, had a big distaste towards Matt. I'm relating to Lexi right now. I really am. And I would too. I'd be more on the global side, but-

We all have pieces of both and we need to realize that, that we can learn on the other side. It's just going to drain us. And so for our children, if they're having to be in the analytical all day long with their global, just realize that they're going to get more tired. And if they have trouble with self-control, self-control is out the window because they've had to use so much of their brain power to try to figure out how to get in that side of the brain to be analytical.

And vice versa, if you have a child that's much more analytical and having to be on this global side, they may tune out. They may get really antsy and maybe even defiant in trying to learn because they're having to be on a side of their brain that is just so tiring to them. So let's be mindful of that.

And maybe write down, if you have as many kids as you had, John, six kids, nine kids for some homeschool families, write down the different learning styles.

under each child and continue to learn. Tell your kids, hey, this is a learning process for me. I want to learn more about you. And if at some point it just doesn't match for a while, let's change it up. We can put a pencil and erase it. The fact is we want to learn about each other and then from there continue to grow and then go into those sweet spots as much as possible. Yeah, that's really good. And Cynthia Tobias has

As I said earlier, she's really developed an expertise in learning styles and in equipping and empowering children to learn well. She has something called the Learning Styles Profiles. And if you're wondering about how your child thinks and how you can better understand their learning style, we're going to link over to Cynthia Tobias' Learning Styles Profiles in the show notes.

And if this ministry has helped you along the way in your parenting journey, please consider making a donation to support us. Help us to reach other parents and equip other parents and make a difference in coming generations. When you join the support team, either through a monthly pledge or a one-time gift of any amount, we'll send Cynthia's book, Reclaiming Education. Teach your child to be a confident learner. It's got so much information on education.

educational options and about school and about learning. There's a lot here. It's a resource we'll be happy to send to you when you make that donation. The details are in the show notes. And more from Cynthia Tobias next time. For now, on behalf of Dr. Danny Huerta and the entire team, I'm John Fuller, and thanks for listening to the Focus on the Family Parenting Podcast.

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