Children are born with a natural love for learning. What happened? If your child has lost his or her love for learning or if you’re worried he or she might, try these suggestions for helping your child learn to love learning.

Set the Example

Your children watch everything you do. When they’re young they look to you as an example. When they’re older they look at your behavior, hoping you’ll mess up so they can use it against you and scream about what a hypocrite you are from their locked bedroom (which, by the way, you paid for with your hard earned money). Since they’re watching everything you do, you might as well show them you love to learn. It’s not as hard as you think. Try the following:

• Talk about things you learn during the day or problems you solve at work. This is not the time to preach. This is the time to share your love for learning.
• Discuss things you’ve read. It doesn’t have to be Shakespeare.
• Adorn your home with good books--you may have to actually read them; otherwise your children will think you’re a fraud.
• Speak highly of educated people. Don’t resent success. Embrace it.

Make Learning Fun

Children’s idea of learning consists of them sitting at a desk for seven hours while having information crammed down their throat as they’re being distracted by the cute guy or girl in front of them as they dodge spit balls from the class bully and hope the teacher doesn’t call on them. No wonder they don’t love learning. Make it fun:

• Read what they’re reading at school and talk about it at dinner. Rent the movie and watch it with them.
• Take them on a field trip. Be creative. Zoos and museums are nice. Taking your daughter to Sea World after her unit on marine life is memorable. Taking your son to a baseball game and learning percentages by studying batting average, ERA and how much the hot dog price is marked up will provide the perfect excuse for getting out of the house.
• Play games. Scrabble. Boggle. Trivial Pursuit. Sudoko. All of these games provide mental stimulation and are a fun way for kids to learn their new spelling or math skills.

Make Learning Applicable

When will I ever use what you’re teaching me? Good question. It’s your job to answer it. Here are some ideas to help your kid apply what they’re learning to real life:

• Set goals with your kids. Show them what they have to accomplish in school in order to reach those goals. "You’ll never become a physicist if you don’t work harder in math" is much more effective than "Improve your math grade or I’ll take away your phone."
• Relate what they’re doing to real life. Kids don’t realize how important reading and writing is in any career field, for example.
• Take them on field trips. Show them learning in action.

Other Suggestions

There are so many ways to instill a love of learning in your child. Here are a few more suggestions:

• Teach your child how to organize and study. Many children hate school because they don’t know how to succeed at it. Good organization and study habits are lifelong success skills.
• Encourage your child. Recognize success. Let them know you’re proud of them.
• Learn what they’re learning. If you’re willing to take the time to learn something, they’ll be more likely to believe it’s worth their time, too.