Please help me know how to help my child succeed in school!
Like every parent, you want your child to shine. You want them to succeed in school, shine in extracurricular activities, and excel in life.
But how do you achieve all this? Is there a manual on how to help my child succeed in school?
In this article, we’ll list down workable tips to help your child succeed in school. We’ll look at what makes a child succeed in school and also, how to challenge your child academically.
10 Highly-Effective Tips on How to Help My Child Succeed in School
At School
1. Schedule a Meeting with Your Kid’s Teachers
At the start of every school year, find time to meet with your kid’s teachers.
Inform the teacher about your commitment to seeing your child do better in school.
Also, let the teachers know that you are always available to talk if there are any problems with your child.
2. Attend Parent-Teachers Meetings
If the school schedules a teachers-parents meeting, make sure you attend. Before the meeting, you can ask your child if there are issues they’d want you to raise during the meeting. If the issues are many, write them down so you don’t forget.
During the meeting, listen to the issues raised by the teachers, especially those that directly affect your child. Note down the tips, the dos, and don’ts given by the school and apply them.
3. Ask Questions
If there are any concerns about your child’s academic performance or behavior, talk to your teachers. Also, you can ask other appropriate questions like:
- What are my child’s greatest weaknesses in class?
- What can I do to make my child perform better?
- Are there ways I can help my kid finish their homework on time?
- What makes a child successful in school
- How to help my child improve in school
- My child complains of a particular bully in class. Is there something you can do to stop this?
Remember, the bottom line of your conversation is, ‘how to help my child succeed in school.’
4. Compare Your Child’s Performance with Others
Because your child is not alone in school, it is important to gauge his performance against the others.
Seek to know if your child is keeping up or requires extra help to catch up.
If there’s a problem with your kid’s performance, ask how to challenge your child academically.
At Home
5. Ensure your Child Completes their Homework
When your child gets home from school, ask about their homework.
Let them know that you value academic excellence just like their teachers and are willing to do what it takes to see them succeed.
To do this, you can set aside a conducive space where they’ll do their homework without any distractions.
Here, the only focus should be their homework- no phones, no TVs, and no games.
You can help your child do their homework and praise them when they get a problem right.
Please remember, doing your child’s homework will not help.
Instead, work it out with him, giving him a step-by-step guide on how to do it.
6. Find Homework Help
If you’re in no position to help your child with their homework, find a tutor to help.
To find the best tutor for your child, you can talk to the school, a local tutoring group, library, or a nearby after-school program.
At times, students in higher grades, neighbors, or friends can help your child do his homework.
7. Provide Everything Your Child Needs to Succeed
Knowing what, where, when, and how to do things is important not only in education but in life.
Besides having a designated spot for schoolwork, ensure your child has all they need to learn.
8. Let them Know that Studying is Their Responsibility
As a parent, you keep wondering how to help my child succeed in school, especially in particular subjects.
Well, the truth is, just like everyone else, your child will love some subjects and ‘hate’ some.
But this should never be a reason to fail some and pass some.
As a parent, let your child know that working hard in all subjects is their only job.
They should put in extra effort to pass in very interesting subjects and the less interesting ones.
9. Take Charge of the Internet, TV, and Game Times
On average, most kids in America spend hours watching television, playing video games, and browsing the internet instead of doing school work.
As a parent, you have a responsibility of creating a balance between studying and other stuff.
For instance, you can use some extra TV time as a reward for better performance in school and vice versa.
10. Talk with Your Kid and Listen at the Same Time
At times, all your child needs is someone to talk with. Someone that will speak a language they will understand and really listen when they speak.
If they have a concern or a question, don’t ignore it. If you don’t have an answer, let them know you’ll research and get back to you.
Similarly, if you ask them a question and are hesitant to open up, don’t push it.
Let them know you’ll be here when they are ready to open up.
How to Motivate a Lazy Child to Study
In your search for how to help my child succeed in school, you may find that your child is too lazy to study.
But the good news is that you don’t have to endure your child’s laziness and poor grades in school.
To get you started here are some tips that have helped me know how to help my child succeed in school:
Give beneficial motivations
Every child has some activities that they’d give anything to participate. For some, it’s football, swimming, bike riding, or even playing video games.
You can use what your lazy child loves to push them to study.
For instance, you can promise 1 hour of video games after a 2-hour study period-of course with breaks in between.
Your child will give his all to earn the 1-hour playtime, which will, in return, make them work harder and perform better in school.
Begin with your child’s favorite subject/ topic
Unlike what most parents do, begin with the subjects or topics that your child loves.
This will give the moral to study since most of the answers are at their fingertips.
Still on how to help my child succeed in school, you can start by allocating more hours to the favorite subjects.
As the days go by, shorten the time and allocate more to the harder subjects.
Put yourself in their shoes
Remember that time when you were a child? How you hated being pushed to do things you didn’t want.
Again, remember that subject that you wished the teacher will get an emergency so you skip it.
Well, the same case applies to your child.
Now, using the experience gained over the years, address their ‘laziness’ with a higher understanding.
Instead of telling them how they ‘MUST’ study, show them the importance of education today and in their future.
Remember, though you cannot make a child love a subject he already hates, you can make them see its importance.
Show them that a little compromise in life is key to getting what they desire.
There you have it. 10 effective tips to help my child succeed in school!
ALSO READ: How to Make Your Child Successful in Life- 10 Proven Tips