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Guided participation, as the name suggests, is the act of someone more experienced helping someone else who is less experienced in something in the hopes of the inexperienced person becoming competent with the practice.
Often, guided participation is goal-orientated - meaning there is a level of expectation that one will be good at the act through a series of guided participation. Guided participation is used with children globally, but the goals vary due to various cultures worldwide.
Guided participation is highly beneficial for children since social interaction is required to develop problem-solving skills and that guided language experience is essential for this process - guided participation is the basis of that.
According to late Lee Vygotsky, a Russian Psychologist, when caregivers guide children while partaking in activities they are not competent in, it helps them develop a better sense of tenacity, enabling them to discover more with increased problem-solving skills.
After all, problem-solving and learning will only work best if children are in a respectful, responsive, and reciprocal environment that encourage interactions back and forth.
But in my eyes, guided participation helps promote one critical feature within children - independence. Through guided participation, children will be the ones who do the problem-solving actions without any take-over from the adults. Still, instead, the adults are there to guide them to enable children to do the process by themselves eventually.
And that there is the goal of guided participation; in the hopes of children eventually becoming independent with the process that they might not be so competent with from the start.
Needless to say, guided participation is exceptionally beneficial for children as it has many qualities that aid in the development of children. So, how can parents go about using guided involvement with their children?
Well, it’s relatively simple - when your child claims that they do not know how to do something, for example, he does not know how to wear his shoes. Instead of entirely helping him to wear his shoe, or not wear his shoe at all for the matter, you can use child-friendly instructions to guide him on the procedure and process of how to wear his shoes. Of course, please help your child on matters that may be totally out of his reach depending on his age, as he may not have the capabilities to do that yet (tie shoelaces at age two, for example).
Once that is done, you may guide your child a few more times with instructions the next time your child is required to repeat the same action process. However, each time, reduce the number of verbal instructions and eventually stop giving any instructions when appropriate. After all, the goal of guided participation is that through repeated guidance with words and actions, the child will ultimately be able to do the steps by himself. That is the part where he becomes independent and will become competent in the action process.
Whatever action it is, if your child says that they do not know how to do it, please do not just do it for them - instead, please use guided participation - it will help them to be independent and aid in their development process, as mentioned above.
I understand that it will be easier for you to just do everything for your child, but by doing that, your child would miss out on valuable skills and qualities that aid in his development!
If you have any thoughts or questions on guided participation, do share them in the comments below or on our Instagram page!
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