Memo to Parents: Helping Your Child's Education

Raising three daughters and teaching high school and college students has led me to some observations on practical ways a parent can help a child get the most out of an education.

1. Concept: A child only goes through the educational system once. A parent owes it to the child to make that experience as helpful, useful, and valuable as possible.

2. Concept: Do not assume automatically that the school your child is enrolled in is performing acceptably. Visit the place. Look at the textbooks. Talk with the principal and your child's teachers. In some schools children are merely pushed along the "conveyor belt" from one grade to the next. Some teachers got their jobs with a college education that put them in the bottom end of the Bell Curve.

3. Concept: Education begins at birth, not at age 4 or 5 with enrollment in pre-school or kindergarten. When your child arrives as an infant, read to that baby. Talk to that baby (and NOT in baby talk.) Take the child to see things in the community. Make the toy purchases with an educational approach. A rattle just rattles and then gets boring. But plastic blocks can be built up, knocked down, and reconfigured in endless ways.

4. Concept: All throughout your child's educational career--preschool through high school graduation--keep in touch with the school. As a teacher, I noticed that the parents I really wanted to talk with (because their children had problems) never showed up for Back-to-School Night for parents. It was usually the parents of achieving students who walked into my classroom.

5. Concept: When your child expresses difficulty with a subject (math, writing, science), take it seriously. Proverbs such as "You only have to work harder", or "Pay attention to the teacher" or "I never had a problem with math. What's YOUR problem?" are no help at all. Sometimes, it's a physical thing--vision problems or hearing problems or even dyslexia (seeing letters reversed on the page). Sometimes it's a teacher who can't explain the subject clearly. There are other reasons as well, but take the complaints seriously. Sometimes you can "re-translate" the learning material to help your child understand it. When you find that that doesn't work, try some other methods: a chat with the teacher or finding a tutor.

6. Concept: A child must get a grip on reading in the first or second grade. Many children slip through the cracks and then go on, from one grade to another, thoroughly lost because they can't understand the written materials. Make reading with your child a fun thing--not a duty. Take the child to the library where your son or daughter can select books to read. Very young children (pre-school) respond to large pictures or to pop-up books. By the time the child is in third or fourth grade, an interest in adventure stories, biographies, etc. develops. Notice what kinds of books your child likes and make those books available in some way.

7. Concept: Learning is not always fun. Sometimes we learn things because the information or the skill will be vital to us in our future life. (Burger franchises often have pictures on their cash registers to help the young cashiers ring up an order. Simple addition, subtraction or multiplication are functions that are totally foreign to these kids.) One of the lessons you teach your child is "delayed gratification". Do what you should do (your assigned homework) and then you can do the "fun stuff". In households where the kids run the place and the parents cave in ("You never let me have any fun"), the children don't learn lessons about self-discipline that they will need in a career.

8. Concept: As a parent, do not fall for this anti-English cop-out: "I don't need to know how to spell because when I'm big, I'll have a secretary." Reality Check: That secretary may be illiterate, too, but you'll never know that when she sends out your correspondence.

9. Concept: Never make good grades an iron-clad requirement for earning your love. Indicate to your child that you want him/her to do the very best possible, but that your love is non-negotiable. Now you can be quite clear that you have expectations of a good report card. That sometimes is a strong motivator for academic improvement.

10. Concept: Too many hours with video games, TV, texting, or Twitter don't lead to good grades. Lay down some rules and priorities and have the guts to use your parental influence.

11. Concept: If you have the idea that for 12 years, the school has total responsibility for your child's education, you are foolish. (There are stronger terms, but I assume you get my drift.) You are the supervisor, the overseer, the Person in Charge of monitoring how the education is coming along.

12. Concept: If you find that your local public schools are hotbeds of idiocy and incompetence, consider home schooling. (Twenty years ago, I never would have said that, but the concept of "You only go through education once" has made this a viable alternative in my perspective.)

13. Concept: For you sports fan parents, who dream of your child making it big in professional sports--so that you say (indirectly or directly) that academics don't really count--you too are a colossal fool. Chuckie may achieve that dream--from kids' football to the NFL--and then bust his knees in his first pro game. That means Chuckie needs to have a career alternative. Keep sports and academics balanced. It's true that in high school and college, the bookworms (nerds, etc.) attract less attention than the jocks. But AFTER high school and college, those nerds will probably earn higher salaries, than all the students who majored in sports but didn't make it to the pro leagues.

14. Concept: Not every child is ready at age 17 or 18 for college. Treat your child as an individual, not a robot who MUST march off to college immediately following high school graduation. Some young people do better when they get jobs or learn trades after high school. Later in their lives, they may develop an attitude of "I WANT to go to college." They will get far more out of their courses with that attitude. College is not a cheap proposition for the parent whose kid doesn't have a scholarship. It's far better to make the financial sacrifice for a child who really wants to be a freshman. Don't make college education a matter of "I never got the chance so I want you to live out my dream."