Teachers play a crucial role in a child’s education. This does not negate the fact that the parents remain their children’s primary teachers. While teachers do their best at school, parents are not exempted from adding value to their children academically. If perhaps you notice your child struggling with his studies, there is help you can render as the parent to improve their grades at school.
Here are tips that you can employ to help improve your child’s grades at school.
1. Speak with your Child
One major factor that causes a great decline in a child’s academic performance is motivation. When a child has lost motivation to study, it affects their tests, homework, and eventually grades. If you wish to tackle the problem heads on, you need to know what the problem is. First, determine what is causing the lack of motivation and ensure to work on it and not just listen alone.
2. Dwell on the Positive
This is for parents that like to scold when their child brings home bad grades. As much as you’d like them to know you are not happy with the result, you really do not have to result in flogging and punishments. If you keep this up, the child will start lying, keeping the real problem away from you and causing long-term damage.
Rather than punishing the child, approach and ask why their grades are dropping. Go ahead to even ask them what they think can be done to ensure this does not happen. If you feel angry or disappointed, and your child feels bad about the low grade, it may be best to hold this conversation later in the day or on a different day. By then emotions would have settled and proper discussion can be held.
3. Monitor Screen Time
Too much of everything is bad, the same principle applies to screen time for kids. While this is often tagged as bad, there is beneficial screen time if it is properly monitored. Yet, parents need to monitor how much time their parents spend on screens and what they are doing. Watching cartoons or playing video games can be exciting for children. However, children can spend hours doing that if parents don’t monitor their screen time. This has a negative impact on health and grades.
You need to set a limit on how long your kids will spend on screens and stick to it. Instead of video games and cartoons all the time, get them educational content and games that will add to their knowledge and teach them new skills.
4. Go through their Homework Together
I know this sounds tedious, but as a parent, you need to be aware of your kids’ capabilities. Going through their homework and test sheets will help you identify together where they need improvement. If your child is also having a problem with the teacher’s kind of teaching he will tell you at this point, then you can help by providing a solution from the school or via a tutor.
5. Employ a Reward System
A common strategy that most parents still employ to motivate their children to improve their grades at school is punishment and flogging. What we do not know is that punishment isn’t nearly as effective as parents expect it to be. In fact, it has more harm than good.
Instead of flogging, a much more effective approach is creating a healthy and positive reward system. So, if you see that your child is struggling with a test, you can encourage them with something they can look forward to. This can be going to celebrate a good grade with ice cream, cake, candies, or their favorite show or buying something that they really want.
Make sure not to make it a habit, though. Rewarding every single accomplishment can lead to your child becoming dependent on external motivators and becoming prone to addictions.
6. Get Help
You are not expected to have knowledge of every subject your child is offering. There are also times you might not be available to help due to work. In cases like this, seeking professional help from tutors can be beneficial.
Do you have tips that are working for your kids? Kindly share them with us in the comment section.
