How Can I Help My Child Succeed in School?
This is probably the foremost question that parents have when their child is heading to high school.
When this question is asked in a browser it generates a whole list of strategies that a parent should do… and probably will find impossible to implement!
Listen To An Expert!
I have taught for over 30 years in both the UK and the USA. As a National Board Teacher, a lifetime administrator, parent and grandparent I feel I have something to share that will help.
If you look online for a list of what ‘should be done’ is a long one and includes:
Establish a positive attitude towards education.
Create a supportive learning environment.
Communicate with teachers:
Encourage good study habits.
Establish a Homework Routine
Set realistic goals.
Focus Beyond Grades
Provide academic support.
Promote a love of reading.
Emphasize the importance of attendance.
Foster a growth mindset.
Stay involved and engaged:
Support Self-Advocacy and Organizational Skills:
Foster Healthy Sleep Habits
These are all very legitimate and worthy goals, but I have to ask just you, busy parent, are you going to achieve all that while working and / or running a home and raising other children while having time for your spouse and yourself?
The honest answer is that you are not! This list – while ‘legitimate’ …. will either generate in you an overwhelming sense of frustration and despair… or simply abandoning the fate of your child’s academic success will given to the schoolteacher and those that run the school.
Isn’t my child’s success the teacher’s responsibility?
This is indeed a legitimate comment and one that is frequently made. However, many parents don’t appreciate the demand of the teaching profession, given that on any given day a teacher will have classes of 20 – 30 (sometimes more) students for approximately an hour’s lesson 5 – 6 times per day. Each student brings into the classroom their own personal ‘load’ of abilities and predispositions which may affect their individual capacity for learning!
To bring this into sharp focus for parents who wish to exclusively put the burden of their child’s academic success squarely on the teachers, I will share the following.
When I have been confronted by parents about their child’s lack of progress I would respond ” So you would like me to give your child individual attention then?“
Invariably such a parent would demand that I do so!
I would then gently point out that ‘with 30 students in the class and about an hour per lesson and of course the necessity to treat ALL my students the same …I could give their child just TWO minutes per day or TEN minutes per week individual time.’ [This is a reality for most teachers in secondary (middle and high school) education]
The parent is then able to see that their child cannot make any academic progress unless there is another ‘dynamic happening’ such as their child responding to the instructions given to the whole class.
So, is there anything I can do?
When parents are brought to see the reality faced by students in class and the sheer impossibility of their reasonably sounding request, there is often a look of despair on their face!
However, I would then say to parents that they ‘ALL have one commodity that I and my teaching colleagues would (genuinely) love to give students that NO teacher has…. and that is 1:1 TIME with their students.
How Listening Really Helps!
This simply means that by parents listening to their child recall – IN DETAIL the experiences of the lessons that their child attended during the day IS, the most effective stratagem they could possibly use.
Most parents, when asking this question “How was your day at school?” get fobbed off with simple one-word responses. Really, they should be asking “What did you learn in school today?”
By asking them to recount what precisely what they learnt forces a child to revisit the class and re-experience the lesson… and it is that exercise of recall reinforces the lesson that was taught.
“But I am NOT a teacher!!” would often be said to me in protest by parents, to which I would respond “No of course you are not. But by you putting your child in the role of the teacher you can quickly discern when something doesn’t make sense to you! This means that when you ask your child to explain something again this action further reinforces their understanding!
What if I still don’t understand and my child can’t explain it?
If understanding cannot be reached you then this means you have a targeted question to approach the teacher with the following lesson. Such specificity aids greatly in allowing teachers to release understanding an
Further listening benefits
Schools, for all their crowded classrooms and corridors can be lonely places where a child’s self confidence and self-esteem can be quickly eroded. By your talking to your child, in detail, about their experiences in the classroom bringing reinforcement of their understanding will naturally generate a sense of their being supported and increase their success.