10 Steps To School Year
Success
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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