Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Parents Shall Study

However, there are many researches which have proved that parents involvement shall not be less that teachers’. Such point of view has been proved by some studies which demonstrated the big shift in children’s scores and education level when their parents get involved in children’s education process. The great effect of parents involvement can be explained by psychological aspects and children’s attitude to their parents.

When children are not demonstrated learning environment at their homes they would hardly start learning something at home. The learning environment at school is considered by them as a contrast to rest and relaxing environment at home. If no family member are interested in learning children would have the worst example of home behavior. If there are no books at home children would hardly be interested in reading at home.

Often parents demonstrate their interest in children’s learning by asking simple questions of ‘How is your schooling?’ or ‘Have you done all the home tasks yet?’ They can often encourage children to study by promising some bonuses and gifts (sometimes they even pay children for good marks). Such questioning and money encouragement do not give children the clear idea of learning goal. One of the strongest forces that drive children’s behavior is following parents’ behavior models. Children follow instinctively their parents’ communication and attitudes models and have a will to be like their parents. Thus, children would be much more interested in learning at home if their parents will demonstrate great interest in learning by themselves. If children can see many books at home and parents reading something new during evenings they would like to read at home like their parents. Parents can also read aloud to interest children in what they are reading about. Children mirror their parents in behavior, communication and attitude standards.

Children’s attitude to their schooling directly depends on their attitude to teachers and parents. Parents can create the stuffy attitude model by active participation in children’s school life such as volunteer activities in school life, teacher-parents conferences and meetings and classes’ attendance. The more parents know about their children’s school, teachers and school activities the more their children are interested in study.

Many parents would argue they do not have enough time for school activities and teachers’ conferences. They have to work till the late evening and are so tired after work. However, watching TV in the evening can be easily replaced by communication with children, reading and doing homework together.