Seven Top Tips for what parents can do at home to help their child succeed:
Create a home environment that encourages learning and schoolwork. Establish a daily routine of mealtimes with time for homework, chores and bedtime.
It should come as no surprise that success — or failure — at school starts at home.
Research has linked poor academic performance to factors such as a lack of sleep, poor nutrition, obesity, and a lack of parental support.
The good news is that the same research also shows higher test scores for students who live in homes where healthy habits, regular routines, and good communication exist.
How can you make your child head off to school in September with the best possible foundation?
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Follow these 7 tips and watch your child do well.
ENCOURAGE HEALTHY HABITS
You can’t perform well when you don’t feel good. To help your child have the best chance at doing well in school, make sure they follow healthy habits at home. Choose a bedtime that will give your child plenty of sleep, and provide a healthy breakfast each morning. Encourage exercise, and limit the amount of time they spend watching TV, playing video games, listening to music, or using their phone.
Create a routine and stick to it
Many children thrive on structure and will respond well to routines that help them organize their days. Get them involved in planning the routine. Children are different. Make sure the plans suit your child’s personality.
Create a Study Space
At school your child has a desk or table where she works. There is plenty of light, lots of study resources and enough room to work. Why not provide her with the same type of environment for homework?
An assigned homework space often makes it easier and more fun for children to complete assignments at home.
Read with them
It is often said that children spend the first several years learning to read, and the rest of their lives reading to learn. The written word is a gateway to all kinds of learning, and the more you read to your child, the better chance he has of becoming a proficient and eager reader.
Try to sit down with your child to read a little bit every day, give her plenty of opportunities to read out loud to you, as well, and above all have fun.
Be a good role model
Children learn by example. Let your kids see you reading. Take time to learn a new skill and discuss the experience with them. Sit down and pay bills or do other adulting stuff, while your kids do their schoolwork.
If you display a strong work ethic and continually seek out learning opportunities for yourself, your kids will begin to model that same behavior in their own lives.
Show Interest
Don’t limit your support to your child; extend it to her teachers as well. Meet the teachers and stay in regular contact by phone or e-mail so that you can discuss any concerns as they arise. Not only will it pave the way for you to ask questions, but it will also make the teachers more comfortable with calling you if they have concerns about your child.
Expect Success
Perhaps the most important way you can support your child’s efforts at school is to expect him to succeed. That doesn’t mean that you demand he be the best student or the best athlete or the best artist. Rather, let him know that you expect him to do “his best” so that he’ll be proud of what he can accomplish.
My final thought
Dear parents, If you make that expectation clear and provide a home environment that promotes learning, then your child will have a greater chance of becoming the best student he can be.
Thanks
Olu
Positive Parenting With Olu 