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As A Parent, How Can You Contribute Effectively To Your Child’s Education?

*Collaborative Post*

As a parent, one of the things that you should try to do is ensure that your child has the best education possible. It’s all too common to see people who think that this is solely the job of the schools though, and that they do not play an important part in the education of their own child. This mindset has to stop, and we have to be encouraging parents now more than ever to contribute effectively to their child’s education.

It’s true to say that many parents don’t get involved because they don’t really know how to help, but that’s not something that can’t be fixed. In fact, there are lots of resources that you can use to help you figure out how to get more involved with the education of your child, and we’re also going to be talking about this today. So, if you would like to find out more about how you can contribute to your child’s education as a parent, keep reading down below.

Ask About Their Day When They Get Home

One of the very first things that you should do when they walk through the door after school, or when you get home after work is ask them about their day. Ask them what kind of things they learned that day, what they struggled with, how their friends are and generally all of the information you can think of about a school day. Try not to focus solely on academics because this can put them off wanting to talk about it at all. If you try to get the information you need while also learning about their friends and what they did that they found fun, this is when you’re going to get the best results.

Try to do this every day that they are at school so that it becomes a normalized part of the day. If you do, they will start thinking more about their day, the positives and negatives and then there is more for them to talk about when they get back. Not only this, but it helps them to reflect for themselves on the day that they have had.

Be There To Help With Homework

On the same kind of topic as what we were just talking about, you should be there to help with homework when it’s needed. It’s not always going to be a subject that you are the best at, but you have the internet at your disposal which should be able to give you the answers you’re looking for. If it’s something like maths though you tend to need to show your working, so it might be best to leave that one to those who know what they’re doing if it’s not your strong suit.

What you should be doing though is giving it your best shot. If your child comes to you and asks for help with their homework then you need to be there to support them. You have to try and remember though that the goal is not to give them the answer, but to help them get there on their own. Is it easy? Not really. Are there going to be times where you want to bang your head against the closest surface? Probably, but you’ve got to do it anyway.

Older kids are less likely to ask for help here, but they need to know that you are there to support them if they need it. If you do this, at least you know they have the option to come to you.

Look Into The Type Of School They Attend

There are many different types of school out there, and you want to make sure that your child is going to the best possible one that you can reasonably get them to. For example, if you want them to attend a school an hour away, that’s not exactly reasonable, is it? That’s too far for a child to travel every day, twice per day. So, you need to look at ones in the local area, and if you don’t like the look of the one closest to you then you need to work out how long a reasonable commute is and then look in that area.

When you’re doing your research, you need to know what you want from a school. Do you want them to have a Catholic school accreditation to align with your beliefs? Are you more bothered about the previous exam results that they have achieved? Or, is the student support more of a concern for you? Or, is it all of these things combined and you’re not willing to compromise on any of them? That last option is going to be tough to find, as there are always going to be areas which struggle more than others, so you need to prioritize and choose based on this list you have come up with.

Keep Up With Teachers

It’s always a good idea to try and form a relationship of sorts with your child’s teacher. Ideally, you want to be able to go to them and ask for advice, updated on your child and their schooling as well as more information. If you have this professional relationship with them, then it’s easier for you to be able to ask for these things, and keep in touch with them regarding your child.

So, do what you can to make this happen. For the most part, teachers won’t contact parents unless there is a problem because they don’t want to overstep and also because it’s a lot of extra work for them to do this. But, if you contact them and you are polite, respectful and just show that you want to support your child as best you can, they should have no problem helping you here.

Homeschool If School Isn’t Working Out

There may come a time where school doesn’t end up working for your child, for one reason or another. It might be that you don’t like the results that they are achieving when you know that they can do better. It might be that they struggle with the traditional school setting thanks to additional needs and the school your child is at cannot accommodate this. There are plenty of reasons why parents choose to homeschool, and if you think that it is the right choice for your child then there is absolutely nothing at all wrong with taking this path.

Just look into all of the requirements, what you need to do and so on. This will let you know how to go about changing them over as you can’t just pull them out of school and call it homeschooling. If you’re not going to teach them yourself, you definitely need to find someone qualified, patient, and able to rise to the challenge.

Hopefully, you have found this article helpful, and now see some of the ways that you can contribute effectively to your child’s education. It is not only the job of the school’s to ensure that your child is educated, but it’s your job as well. As a parent, you should want the very best for your children, and oftentimes this means putting the effort in to be there for them and support them across all aspects of their life, including this one. We wish you the very best of luck, and hope that you’re going to start taking this seriously sooner rather than later.

 

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