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One of the most important aspects of parenting is
ensuring that your child gets a good education. School is a place
where your child not only learns skills such as reading and writing;
it is also where your child will learn about friendship,
responsibility and fairness. In short, school is a test run for the
"real world," and your child needs your help to navigate
this complicated arena.
When your child was a baby, you set your life
around nap times and diaper changes, now your growing child needs you
to set your life around school.
1. Establish consistent
routines
Take the "year at a glance" approach.
If you have a child starting first grade and one in fourth, then you
must sketch out how you will achieve a balance between school, their
activities, your work, and your activities.
It is best to look at all of these areas at once,
so that you can spot the trouble areas. Once you have the big picture,
it is time to ask how you can set up a regular routine to ensure that
everyone’s needs are met, including yours. Early in the school year,
decide which activities will fit, and which will have to be postponed.
One of the biggest areas of concern for modern families is activity
overload. Avoid it!
Now that you know what activities you will be
engaged in, decide where homework fits and set a regular time for it.
Whether there are assignments or not, this should be the time of day
that your child always does a little extra school work. When will you
have dinner? If possible, make it at the same time every day and
expect all family members to attend. Don’t eat on the run! If you
have to eat in the car in order to make everything fit more than every
once in a while, then you are doing too much!
2. Set reasonable bedtimes
Open any magazine in America and you might find a
story on the cumulative sleep debt that Americans are suffering from.
It causes accidents, ill health and poor work performance. It has the
same effect on young students. Without enough sleep, their learning
suffers as does their behavior.
Additionally, lack of sleep makes kids prone to
getting sick, which means they miss school and get behind. Avoid these
problems by setting a reasonable bedtime for your children and
sticking to it. According to the National Sleep Foundation, elementary
age children need between 10 to 12 hours of sleep each night. They
recommend allowing an additional 10 to 20 minutes to that amount to
account for the time is takes your child to fall asleep. Keeping these
requirements in mind, your child’s bedtime should be no later than
8:30 pm.
3. Learn to say..."No we are doing
too much"
There are many demands placed on our kids time.
There are after school opportunities galore: sports, music, drama, art
and more. Parents have an equal number of options for after work
activities. Parents want to provide the best for their children and
many believe that giving them access to all the numerous opportunities
is the best way to enhance their learning.
In fact, the best way to enhance a child’s
learning is to allow them to slow down and think about what happened
in class and one or two extras. This type of reflection can only come
when parents and children have some downtime together. Advocate the
motto: “Just Do Nothing” once in a while.
4. Limit TV
Kids are not as good at moderating their exposure
to TV as parents are. They need the help of their parents to make good
choices and to limit the time spent being a passive observer. Kids
learn best when they are actively involved in what they’re doing.
Reading, talking, exploring, drawing, building, playing -- these are
all important parts of childhood. Make sure that they don’t get
squeezed out by too much Scooby Doo.
5. Encourage reading
Research has shown that one of the greatest
predictors of academic success is the amount of time a student reads.
When asked by the parents of students what they should do to help
their child learn, teachers always answer, “Get them to read.”
Books not only open new worlds and ideas for children, they build
their vocabulary, improve their memory, grow their imagination and
teach them valuable thinking skills. Time spent reading is an
investment in your child’s future.
6. Support your child's teacher
It is an unfortunate fact of modern day society
that teachers feel less support from parents, administrations and
governments than ever before. This is a shame, not only for the hard
working teachers who deserve to feel respected as professionals, but
for the students they teach.
For a child to truly learn in school, all three
members of the team need to work together. The teacher, student and
parents need to be all working toward the same goal with commitment
and help from one another. All parts of the triangle must be connected
for the goal to be met. Go against the tide -- give your child’s
teacher the respect they deserve and the support they requires. Your
child will thank you.
7. Enlist support
It truly does take a village to raise a child.
Too often these days, however, parents find themselves struggling to
do it all with very little support. If you live near grandparents,
aunts or uncles, ask if they can occasionally go to the soccer game,
or pick up the art materials or buy the new notebook.
Very often it is the little tasks that combine to
make parents feel overwhelmed. Spreading the small tasks around to
willing volunteers may give you more time to focus on the important
aspects of the school year. If family members aren’t available to
help, then exchange help with neighbors and friends.
8. Practice what you preach
To make the school year go more smoothly, it is
important that your child is responsible, timely and well-behaved. You
are far more likely to have a child who behaves this way, if you model
appropriate behavior for them.
If you are frequently late, often forget
important items, and are stressed and irritable most of the time, you
are far more likely to have chronic problems with your children --
especially during the school year when time is tight. Give your child
the skills to succeed by working on them yourself. Nobody’s perfect,
but if you show that you ask of yourself the same things you ask of
them, then you are more likely to garner their cooperation.
9. Plan ahead
If you fail to plan, then plan to fail. Harsh
though that statement may be, it often happens that you’d experience
more success at school if you’d take the time to plan ahead. If you
know that your daughter is going to appear in a play during the month
of November, and that it will require lots of rehearsals after school,
don’t enroll her in tap class and swimming.
When you know that time will be tight, it also
makes sense to speak to your child’s teacher to advise her of the
situation and to get her help with scheduling homework. Always keep in
mind what is coming up next week and what may be required due to the
seasons. Getting to school in September may not be much of an issue,
but what will you do when the snow flies?
10. Keep your eye on the prize
Being committed to managing the school year well
takes effort. Keeping your family balanced despite all of the demands
on everyone’s time can be difficult. All of it can be managed better
if you always stay focused on your purpose. Your purpose as
a parent is to raise well-adjusted children who can enter society and
forge a good life on their own. They need a good education to do this.
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