Watching teachable moments unfold

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Teachable moments are defined as an unexpected opportunity seized by a teacher to offer their thoughts on a topic or to stimulate a student's mind to find answers to their questions (Lewis 2020).

As a new mom, I look to my parents to learn how I can model their parenting styles (because they're different but complementary) to how I parent my child. I also read quite a few parenting books and articles, and follow responsive parenting accounts on social media. Based on what I've observed my parents do, I think they probably read the same books and articles and followed the same social media accounts... except that they have not. They probably just figured out, over the years, that being responsive to a child's needs is a good way of parenting. And even as all their kids are now adults, they still find opportunities to teach and to model.

One particular instance pops up in my mind:

Anna's a relatively new driver. She's not very confident in maneuvering her car through tight parking spots. One afternoon, the whole family was going somewhere, with the cars fully packed (we couldn't carpool; normally, we'd only use two of the three cars when on trips). Daddy and Mommy were in the Sentra; Anna was in the Prius; Val, our son, and I were in the C230 (I was driving). Sensing that Anna was stuck on the driveway because of a particularly tight parking situation on the sidewalk, Daddy got out of his car and coached Anna to safely drive her car out of that tricky situation. 

Val and I were watching this as Anna—slowly but surely with Daddy's coaching—steered the car out of the driveway. He commented that Daddy could've just taken the driver seat and maneuvered the car just so we could leave faster. I responded that this is a teachable moment and Daddy seized the opportunity to guide Anna and let her learn a very valuable lesson on spatial awareness and defensive driving. After all, this is Daddy's parenting style: he doesn't have the time to do things for you but he has all the time in the world to teach you how to do them (or boost your confidence so you can do them yourself).

I don't know if Val has fully grasped or appreciated the value of this teachable moment because he didn't comment any further. What I do know though is that I enjoyed watching Anna learn and gain more confidence behind the wheel. I can only wish that when my son asks difficult questions or finds himself in sticky situations, I will be able to guide him and boost his confidence so he can find the answers himself and he can figure a way to solve his challenges.

Later, I realised that this was a teachable moment for me on parenting.


Reference:

Lewis, Beth. "How to Create Teachable Moments in the Classroom." ThoughtCo, Aug. 28, 2020, thoughtco.com/what-is-a-teachable-moment-2081657.

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