Staying Involved in Your Child’s Education

Mr. Samir Al Baghdadi

As your child ages, it becomes more and more difficult to stay involved in his or her life. Between a communication barrier beginning to form, hormones and the desire to fit in, children break away from their parents. This doesn’t need to affect how involved you are in his or her education.

1.Newsletters and Other Updates

The school will send home newsletters and may even contact you via phone to let you know important updates. Instead of pressing the “End Call” button, listen to what the message has to say even if it’s an automated recording. By keeping up to date with information from the school, you’ll be able to know when the parent teacher conferences are, know when standardized testing is and etc, so you can help to prepare your child.

2. Talk to Your Child

Parenting takes a mixture of being a friend and being a parent. Make sure you let your child know you’re always there to talk and help in anyway you can. This is sometimes very difficult, but as a parent, you have to at least make an effort to keep the communication open.

3. Know Your Child’s Friends

Your child’s friends influence her or her in many different ways, from the way he or she dresses to how well he or she performs in school. For instance, your child may feel the need to slack in school because of other children slacking. Your child may not want to study if other kids are on the computer or video game console all night or out partying. Thus, you need to know who your child is hanging out with, so you can try to weed out the children who are negative influences on your child.

4. Visit the School

You don’t need an invitation to an open house or to a parent teacher conference to take a trip down to the school. You can visit at any time to help you evaluate your child’s progress.

5. Extracurricular Are Important Too

You may think that the drama club or the basketball team do not have an affect on your child’s education. In one sense, this is correct. Your child won’t receive a grade for these. However, if you don’t show interest in your kid’s likes not involving sitting behind a desk, they may feel like you don’t care.

6. Check Homework

Set up a designated homework time. This should be a time where the TV and video games are put away to avoid distractions. Once your child finishes his homework, you should look it over. Make sure that he or she fully understands the material and is actually doing his or her homework. This should be a rule in your home.

7. Talk to His or Her Teachers

You need to talk to the teachers and not just during parent teacher conferences. While you don’t want to bother them daily or even weekly, there’s nothing wrong with stopping at the school every now and then to check on your child’s progress. Ask the teachers where your child seems to be having problems and any other additional questions that may assist you with ensuring that your child is doing well in school. This will help you to identify his or her strengths and weaknesses and aid in them growing as a student. This might seem a bit embarrassing to your child, but can you risk him or her struggling in school and you not knowing about it?

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