How Parent Involvement Enhances a Childs Academic Performance

There seems to be a perennial debate as to whether parents must continue to be involved directly in their children’s academic pursuits. There are pros and cons against this. Involvement must come with a balance. While participation is key, respecting boundaries is crucial. While connecting with children, it is but imperative for parents to chart out a process of the mechanics of involvement.

But there is no argument on the fact that parental involvement has a positive impact on academics. Studies have proven that parental involvement not only leads to better scores, a deeper interest in subjects, but an overall enhancement in interest. The obvious benefits seen are many.

Setting Realistic Expectations: Parents know their children the best. Their strengths, their areas of improvement and their passion are the perfect benchmarks for parents to know their child's capacity, depending upon the subject. Setting realistic expectations from parents motivates children to do better.

Reinforce Learning: Parents can help with their own knowledge of a topic, or they might share inputs from elsewhere, igniting thoughts in their children to probe deeper into any subject. This leads to a deeper interest, sparking curiosity to research more and have a more holistic approach to any assignment, project or even homework.

Encourage Reading: Especially true for smaller children, this is a key area where parent's involvement ignites a desire to read. Parents can read together with their children, they can answer any question that the child may have. A greatly positive habit, sustaining this habit of reading from an early age leads to several benefits later in life, besides improved academic scores.

Motivation and Encouragement: Praise for efforts put into any activity, positive reinforcement of good results, appreciation for embracing self study or trying a new project are great enablers which boost children's confidence and morale. Such appreciation and show of support motivates children to thrive for success. This also fosters a positive approach towards learning.

Discipline and Time Management: Good and positive behaviour begins at home. There are no better mentors of discipline than a child's parents. Instilling values of effective time management at home, not just in academics, but also in household routines, builds in children a sense of discipline, which goes a long way in shaping them for life. Good academic scores is just one positive side effect of discipline.

Building Effective Communication Skills: Communication is not just about written and verbal skills. Engaging in meaningful communication with children can best be done by parents. This results in positive behaviour since effective communication also involves comprehending what others are saying, developing good listening skills, ensuring that one's own communication is understood by the desired audience. All these serve as great tools in enhancing academic performance, right from school to higher education, research and even in one's career and life.

Meaningful Relations with Teachers: Parents who are involved in their children's academics often meet up with teachers to understand progress, challenges and areas of concerns of their children. This often results in proactive steps and timely corrective actions, which enhance children's academic performance.

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving Skills: Parents ask open-ended questions, show different solutions to a problem, throw open new avenues of thoughts. All these result in building critical thinking and problem solving skills in children. Connecting textbook learning to real life situations can best be done by parents and this can make the journey of studying more engaging and fun.

Reduce Stress: Knowing that their parents are involved in their academic journey lends children a sense of security and assurance. This leads to less stress, a vital component in academic success. Children with less stress are more prone to taking risks, opting for varied activities and eventually succeeding.

Enrichment in Education: When parents are involved in their children's academics, their support extends to well beyond home. Libraries, museums, field studies and more of such out-of-home activities enhance children's interest in topics already learnt in textbooks, enabling them to engage with others and thereby take more interest in academics.

Conclusion:

Maintaining open lines of communication is the key to success in a parent's role in academics. Adequate space must be given to children for them to develop independence, while subtly offering support whenever they encounter challenges. Being a role model for the manner and organised structure in which education is conducted impacts especially older children positively and draws up for them a path they themselves would follow while in university. Parents can provide the resources, motivation and encouragement that children need to grow robust academically and to develop a positive mindset of curiosity for more learning.

JP International School, a leading school in Greater Noida, serves as the perfect ground for students to get a holistic education. This journey becomes more enriched when parents too take an active lead in their children’s academics. With the support of school and parents, children grow into self-reliant individuals, ready to take on challenges of the modern world.

FAQ:

Why is parental involvement needed in children’s academic journey?

Parental involvement instils in children a sense of security and support. Parents encourage children to try innovative methods to approach a situation. Parents know their children the best and hence can make the right suggestions to methods of learning. Parent’s involvement results in building more effective communication, resilience and serves as a motivation for children to try new approaches.