Being a parent is the toughest job on the planet. Besides ensuring that your children are cared for, loved and that their emotional and physical needs are met, the very act of being a parent makes you your children's first and longest-standing teacher.
It is impossible to compartmentalise learning. Children are born with an innate need to learn. Parents are their first port-of-call as their first and most influential teachers. Learning that takes place at a school is called "education", yet education starts on the day that we are born.
Parents cannot separate the learning taking place at school from the even greater learning taking place every day in our homes, on the sports field or within our family, cultural and religious structures.
It seems necessary then that parents involve themselves in the extension of education that we call the school. But how? Here are a few helpful tips that you may want to consider:
1. Be an example of positive, productive learning and positive behavioural choices. Your children are 100 percent more likely to do what you do rather than what you say. Avoid degrading teachers when facing challenges. Seek to find positive solutions that ensure that your children feel valued, yet respectful towards those who teach them at school.
2. Show sincere interest in what happens at school on a daily basis. Ask questions and be willing to listen to understand when answers are shared. Find out how the day went. What was best/worst about the day? Who did your child hang out with?
3. Be excited about any positive news or progress — whether academic or social. All children seek acknowledgement and purpose. Acknowledged progress will result in greater progress.
Celebrate all learning, from academic to cultural to the arts. Your child's positive sense of self is your most important priority.
4. Teach the art of determination, courage, a positive work ethic, resilience, self-responsibility and motivation by embodying these yourself. Challenges, frustrations, anxieties and fears are inevitable. It is how we choose to react to these that will ensure success.
5. Allow for error, mistakes and some failures are inevitable. Teach your children to own these and to see them as opportunities to learn. A child who is willing to acknowledge their mistakes, own them and seek positive ways to learn from them will live a life without limitations.
6. Seek to build and maintain a positive working relationship with your children's teachers. Attend meetings and activities whenever possible, and be open to suggestions of support and additional aid where needed.
7. Wherever possible, find the time to look at the work that your child brings home. Do this with the aim of finding the best ways to support, encourage and motivate your children to become the best version of themselves.
Celebrate all learning, from academic to cultural to the arts. Your child's positive sense of self is your most important priority.
A child with a healthy sense of self is not afraid to try new things and make mistakes. They believe in themselves enough to stand firm in positive life values, despite obstacles along the way.