WAYS TO GET INVOLVED IN YOUR CHILD’S EDUCATION
Written by Lance Green
Your involvement in your child’s education ensures a successful and versatile growth of your child. In this article we’ll be looking into how you can effectively get involved to help accelerate your child’s learning process.
Why Should You Get Involved?
Studies show that children tend to perform academically better and be well-behaved when parents are involved in their education. Being involved shows that you think their education is important, this positively reinforces your child’s perception about education
When parents work together with the schools, children seem to get better grades, enrol for better courses and maintain a decent attendance record. Children also tend to be motivated to study when you help them out with tough assignments and subjects. Apart from improving your child’s performance, parental involvement also is found to improve the teacher’s performance.
The benefits of parental involvement are not confined to elementary school children, they can even be seen in high school students.
How can you get involved?
Attend School Events
Attending orientation events help you know your child’s teachers and other parents better. This is important as you’ll have to work alongside these people to guarantee the best possible outcome for your child.
Attending other events that occur throughout the year ensures that you stay updated about your kid’s performance.
Communicate With The Educator
Ask the educator as to how they would like to communicate in case something comes up. Understand that they are humans too; they have their personal lives and priorities. If you want to talk to them, schedule it beforehand rather than calling them up when you feel like. Don’t be the parent who constantly keeps nagging and whining about the smallest things.
Talk to them about your child’s performances and how you could help improve it.
Offer to help them prepare materials or anything else that they need, provided you have the time.
Volunteer At The School
If you have the time, do offer to volunteer at your child’s school. Schools often need volunteers to help them organise events, or field trips, or even for tutoring children.
If you decide to volunteer, ensure that you don’t bite off more than you can chew, that is make certain that you can complete the tasks you undertake. Also remind yourself that you’re doing this to help the school improve and your child not to spy on your child. Don’t give your child special treatment when you do volunteer.
Nurture Their Reading Habits
Try to develop reading as a daily habit in your child. Reading inculcates creativity and hones their imagination skills. Try to read books on your own in front of your child to let them know that learning is a lifelong process and reading helps in improving yourself.
Benefits of reading books also include:
- Better cognitive development
- Improved empathy
- Better understanding of the world around them
- Building stronger relations
Join the PTA
PTAs usually work towards improving the school environment and imparting good quality education to the children. You can voice out your opinions and issues during these sessions and come up with efficient solutions for the same. You also get to network with similar families and people who want to improve the schooling system.
If you cannot attend every meeting, consider attending them virtually or talking to another parent to update yourself.
Help Your Child With Homework
This does not mean that you have to do their homework for them, but rather help them with managing it. Remind them of any assignments or works they have. Maybe even fix hours for play and study separately. Talk to them about their studies and work they have. In case they have trouble understanding, offer to help them if you have the time to.
Make Learning At Home Fun
Try to come up with creative ways to make education fun. DIY projects can help teach your child and allow them to have a little fun. Stock your house with supplies like chart paper, sketches, or crayons. Educational games such as Legos or Scrabble are also great alternatives.
Use positive reinforcements to help motivate your kid to keep learning. Small rewards like extra screen time or play time accelerates your child’s educational journey. As a result, your kid will enjoy learning new concepts and ideas. This outlook will help them immensely in their future.