While your child’s learning location may have changed to your living room, you still want them to excel. The habits they adopt during their academic years often stay with them for life.
However, some children struggle with their lessons more than others — how can you help as a parent? The following nine tips will help your child flourish in school.
1. Planning
Children aren’t born with innate time-management skills. Teach them how by investing in a planner — and helping them use it.
At the end of each school day, sit down with your child to have a snack and review their upcoming assignments. Please assign a time estimate to each one — then, you can return later and adjust as necessary.
2. Fast-Writing
Writer’s block can strike anyone — even the youngest learners. Help them to work past it by teaching them fast-writing.
To do this activity, set a timer for approximately 20 minutes — shorter for younger students. Then, have them write words and phrases related to the topic. The critical component is not stopping — not to worry about grammar, spelling or mechanics. If nothing new comes to mind, they can repeat what they’ve written.
3. Setting Time Limits
The human body wasn’t designed for nonstop work. Your brain is a muscle, and while it differs from your biceps, it still gets tired — so does your child.
Set time limits for various academic tasks. Teach your little learner the Pomodoro method, where they work for 25 minutes, then take a break. If your child is in homeschool, you can use this technique to help plan their day.
4. Getting Tech-Savvy
Even if your child returned to a traditional school, 2020 taught everyone to prepare for the unexpected. Helping your child gain tech-savvy will only benefit them later in life, even if they never do a day of virtual learning.
STEM careers remain in high demand — encourage your child to learn more about fields like computer science and engineering. You may inspire a passion that leads to a lucrative future job.
5. Learning Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is crucial to success — but many schools don’t teach it. As a result, it falls on your shoulders as a parent to share this vital skill.
Encourage your kids to reflect on their emotions and ask others for perspective. You can use a chart to help your youngest learn how to identify various feelings.
6. Keeping Moving
Children need exercise to develop both mentally and emotionally. If your child attends virtual school, they get plenty of screen time. Take them outside to skip, run and jump in the open air.
Make use of your local playground — most experts consider outdoor gatherings safer than those indoors. Please continue to wear masks and practice stricter hygiene protocols like hand-washing to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases. It is cold and flu season, but that’s no reason to make your child hibernate.
7. Eating a Healthy Diet
Likewise, your child needs nutrition to grow and thrive — and perform well academically. A deficiency in minerals like magnesium can adversely affect their mood and motivation.
Why not make healthy eating part of your homeschool curriculum? You can get in the kitchen together and talk about the nutritional content of the various foods you prepare.
If your kids went back to a traditional school, make sure their lunch kettle contains nourishing nom-noms. Stock your fridge with kid-friendly meals that support their development and academic progress.
8. Balancing School With Extracurriculars
Extracurricular activities need a new name. Instead of considering them supplements to the three Rs, make them integral to the learning experience. Research shows those who take part have a 50% increase in the odds of their school identifying them as gifted.
Use caution, though, not to dampen your child’s enthusiasm with excess pressure. Allow your little one to choose which activities they like — don’t force them into soccer merely because you miss your goalie days.
Likewise, use positive encouragement to prompt your child to achieve on the field. Criticizing them — especially in front of others — dims their light and transforms an activity that should be joyful into a chore. Even houseplants fail to thrive when exposed to negative language — think what it does to your little one’s soul.
9. Sleeping Enough Nightly
As much as they might protest it, your child needs a regular bedtime. It helps stabilize their circadian rhythms and ensure they’re ready to learn when the school bell rings.
Set up a charging station in your kitchen and enforce a strict no electronics policy in the bedroom — this tip will help you sleep more soundly, too. Practice what you preach — if your kids see you staying up till all hours and sleeping until noon on weekends, they’ll imitate your behavior despite what you say.
Use These 9 Tips to Help Your Child Flourish in School
The nine tips above will help your child flourish in school. Get started today for the ultimate spring semester.
Article Submitted By Community Writer
