Success at Home & School

What can Parents do to help their child at home?

By Bill Lucas

Parents can do a number of important things to help. But the most important message for parents to hear is that it is what they do at home that matters most. The most important message for parents to hear is that it is what they do at home that matters most. The following approaches are most beneficial:

✔ Consistently set high expectations.

✔ Establish routines which promote questioning, reading, exploration, practising, problem-solving and study.

✔ Talk to children in ways which demonstrate interest in both their progress and development and the wider world.

✔ Read regularly yourself and talk about your own enjoyment of reading.

✔ Visits to museums, historic places, films, gardens, sporting events.

✔ Play the fullest possible range of games with the whole family and see the value of play as a vital part of learning .

✔ Praise your child in ways which specifically acknowledge the effort and hard work which has led to any particular  success, partial success or failure.

✔ Require children to undertake household tasks and take responsibility for looking after other people (a younger sibling, a grandparent, a visitor, for example).

✔ Encourage children to learn to care for and look after the world (pets, plants, etc).