Your child’s education isn’t all about how naturally able they are to cope with different skills for things like writing, mathematics, or retaining information. It’s also about the skills that can help them learn better. Here, we’re going to look at some of the skills and how the habits you form as a parent can shape the habits they form as a student.

Planning

School involves a lot of future planning, something that your child might not necessarily have a lot of familiarity with. Learning how to use a school planner and setting up a daily routine will help them better understand time, how to manage it and how to best use it. Help them set aside a consistent time to do homework every day, for instance. The sooner they get into the habit of being proactive in planning their time, the better they will be able to plan the larger projects they start encountering as they get older.

Organisation

If planning is about the “when” of school life, organisation is about the “what” and the “where” of it. Keeping track of all their stationery and books, their school clothes, lunchbox, and so on requires some degree of organisation. You can help them recognise everything they need and make it easier to get ready in the morning by compiling a checklist of everything they have to take with them. You can also make it harder for them to lose things by labelling them with things like name tags. If they’re easier to identify, they’re harder to leave behind.

Communication

Being able to ask questions, whether in the classroom or at home, will help a child learn much more actively. But communicating isn’t a skill we all develop quite as naturally as others do. You can teach your child to communicate better by talking with them about school in a more effective way. Rather than simply asking how school was, you can ask them more specific questions that a) help them answer on demand a little more easily and b) show them the benefits of wording questions more carefully.

Focus

Paying attention is just as important to communication and learning as being able to ask questions is, of course. You’re not alone if you think that the modern lifestyle makes it difficult to retain focus on one thing at a time. Scheduling time for different tasks, as mentioned above, can help them learn to concentrate and spend time without distraction. Giving them hobbies or chores that require focus and attention, such as reading or tidying their room, will help build their capacity for focus as well. Just make sure you build it incrementally as time goes on instead of throwing them in the deep end, or they’re more likely to get frustrated and quit.

Of course, your child’s personality will also play a large role in how they accommodate and adapt to the school environment. You have to try to adapt the lessons to best fit your child, as well as trying to shape your child to the lessons.

Collaborative post

Related posts:

6 things a child needs in order to excel in school Preparing your child for their first day at school How to choose the right school for your child How to organise a school trip with your child’s school