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Follow Your Child's Work Goals

By Zach Lahn on December 23, 2021

What is the role of a parent if the children are supposed to be independent learners?

Our goal is for all parents to have a healthy involvement in their child’s learning.

This means finding the sweet spot directly between “hovering then swooping to fix” and “hands off, uninformed confusion.”

How to do this is pretty simple and here’s what you need to know:

Follow your child’s work goals each week and ask about them.

Every Monday, your child sets new goals and is given new deadlines.

Every Friday, your child knows exactly what was achieved, how much time was spent on each area of work, and what is the priority for the upcoming week.

All we parents have to do is ask the right questions throughout the week and read our children’s S.M.A.R.T. Goals and Points Tracker.

We have found that parents’ stress levels are inversely proportional to their understanding of the work and processes at Wonder. It goes like this: lack of understanding about the work at Wonder leads to confusion which leads to stress about whether their child is learning and progressing.

Imagine this alternative: diving in regularly with your child on these lifelong questions that matter to them:

What is the level of challenge in your goals this week – high, medium or low? Where do you seek help when you need it – other Wonders, maps or notes hanging in the studio, online, books? What do you do to minimize distractions? What are you most excited about in your work – why?

Here’s the hard part. There will be days that your child is really struggling. And the healthiest involvement is leaning in, being quiet, listening and telling them you trust they can work this out. You sit with them in it, but you let them work it out. This is deep learning time.


[Blogs or portion of blogs may be adapted from the blog of our partner school founder and advisor, Laura Sandefer.]