Watering the leaves misses the point

If your plant is wilting and losing leaves, how do you help it? It doesn’t require a green-thumb to know that watering its roots will be far more effective than watering its leaves. The wilting leaves are the consequence of a “root” issue.

When your child is struggling with an assignment, it’s tempting to identify a quick-fix so they can finish the assignment and move on. However, to solve the problem for the long-term, it’s important to identify the root issue.

For example, when your child is having difficulty answering reading comprehension questions, your instinct may be to strategize a way just to get the questions answered, thereby solving what appears to be the immediate problem. But digging deeper, you may find that the vocabulary is too difficult, or keeping track of all the characters and their various connections is confusing, or they can’t make sense of the big-picture context. Addressing those challenges with targeted interventions gets at the root of the problem and outfits your child’s toolbox with strategies for use over the long-term.