As parents, we play a vital role in determining the sort of people our children become. It鈥檚 our job to teach them the life skills we think are important.
But trigonometry? Composing an essay? The difference between compound and complex sentence structure? That鈥檚 another story.
Things have changed since we were at school
Even if you can dredge such information from the deep recesses of your brain, you鈥檒l probably be told, with a disdainful flick of an adolescent head, 鈥淭hat鈥檚 not how we do Maths these days鈥�. So yeah, teenagers are awesome. And the way things are taught is constantly changing.
Thanks to regularly updated teaching and learning methodologies, leaning back in your chair after dinner and telling your kids everything you can remember from your own education unfortunately won鈥檛 help them prepare for NCEA. What鈥檚 more, this is likely to be compounded if you didn鈥檛 go to school in New Zealand.
Thankfully, homework help doesn鈥檛 require you to know every answer yourself. If your child鈥檚 homework is beyond you, it doesn鈥檛 mean you can鈥檛 help in other ways.
Focus on process
When students are struggling with their schoolwork, what they often need help with is time management.
Breaking down an assignment into constituent parts and then helping your child to establish how long each part should take is often the difference between overwhelmed paralysis and actually completing the project.
For children who have a tendency to procrastinate (and let鈥檚 face it, that鈥檚 most of them), it might be useful to set clear goals and provide incentives. This might mean rewarding them with a snack or screen time for a concentrated stretch of homework.
Some students hate the loneliness of being packed up to their bedroom to do their schoolwork on their own. In these cases, it鈥檚 useful to set up a workspace in a central part of your house 鈥� it also means that you can keep an eye on what they鈥檙e doing. You might even want to sit with your child and complete some of your own to-dos, so that you鈥檙e both working together in a companionable way. Being your child鈥檚 鈥榮tudy buddy鈥� (even if you are working on different tasks) is a great way to build your relationship.
In all of these cases, you鈥檙e teaching your child how to tackle a task, become organised, and meet deadlines. You鈥檙e showing them the process of being a good student and, for that matter, a good employee.
Even if you know, they likely won鈥檛 listen
It鈥檚 notoriously difficult for any of us to teach our own children. As soon as children start going to school, they tend to resist our attempts to help them with their homework.
Epic battles over homework can begin in primary school and only get worse. Even teacher-parents with actual, bona fide, direct knowledge of the curriculum are rarely consulted by their own children. Even when these fountains of untapped wisdom are finally called upon at home, they often find it less stressful to let their child struggle alone, and even to fail, than to have an inevitable fight. It鈥檚 true! Teenagers with hormones and an underdeveloped executive function are too busy asserting their individuality and independence to listen to you.
Accept and outsource
As parents, we鈥檙e all subjected to the aggravating experience of watching our children behave differently and learn better with other people, despite our repeated attempts to teach them the exact same thing.
It鈥檚 the most common thing in the world and as soon as we accept this, we can all mend our broken hearts and find solutions.
Just to reiterate, this doesn鈥檛 mean you can鈥檛 help your child learn. We can help our kids by creating the time, space, and the right environment for them to succeed. Even if we鈥檙e outsourcing the actual teaching component, the most important job is still ours. At the end of the day, we make sure our kids eat properly, get enough sleep, and know that we will always love them, no matter what mark they get in their assessment.
听
Contact us to discuss how we can support your child鈥檚 learning journey.
