Schools, teachers, and parents play a vital role in the holistic development of the child. Parents are the first mentor of the child and the teacher is the second. Parents play an important role in encouraging and motivating their kids to learn. Good parental support helps the child to be positive, healthy, happy, balanced, and good lifelong learners.
Parent’s Role
Spend “child-centered time” with your kid every day. Spend quality time with your child. This means putting away all distractions giving your full “face-to-face” attention, and letting your little one lead playtime. Do what the child wants to do, not what you want the child to do. Pay attention to what your child loves to do. Find out his/her likings & disliking and encourage him/her to be passionate about his/her interests.
Involve your child in different activities that do not require a great investment in terms of time or money. For instance, make a craft with your child or a card for someone in the family or extended family. Play in the garden or in the park with your child and strengthen the bonding.
Inform the teacher very honestly about the child’s behavior and work at home.
Grab every opportunity of having heart-to-heart talks with your child. Allow your child to talk about his/her feelings and concerns and how she/he feels about herself/himself. Make sure that you listen attentively and ask lots of “why” and “how” questions.
Create a loving home environment where your child can express his/her thoughts freely and concentrate on studies.
Do Offer (Selective) Praise: Offer praise for an action than for a result. For example, if your child made a goal while playing football, praise the child for the hard work and practice that he/she has put in which has earned the goal. For the sake of your child’s self-esteem and happiness, avoid praising on the number of goals that have made you proud of your child. Praise for concrete actions and effort.
Don’t Criticize and Compare: Especially when children are showing bad behavior it is best to ignore at that moment and focus on the positivity. This doesn’t mean that you don’t correct the bad behavior. You should talk to them at an appropriate time when they are listening to you and they will imbibe what you say. Avoiding criticism boosts a child’s self-esteem and helps keep them happy and motivated. If you have multiple children, avoid comparing them with each other. Also, avoid comparing them with their friends or cousins. Every child is an individual, so focus on individual strengths. Set expectations that are reasonable based on their personalities. It’s important for each child to understand his unique value to you.
Do Show Gratitude: Gratitude or being thankful is the greatest value that should be practiced regularly. Teach your children to focus on being thankful for nonmaterial things, such as sleeping in a warm bed or taking an art class, to broaden their perspective. Every day at dinnertime or before bed, ask him to name three good things that happened that day.
Don’t Hide the Negative: Positive stories are good, but negative ones are quite effective, because they illustrate perseverance. Negative anecdotes enforce the idea that families can stick together and triumph through good times and bad. We all know that no life is free from adversity no matter how healthy or wealthy you are. Children need to learn how to deal with it. Tell stories about your family, whether they’re about you, your spouse, or extended relatives. Storytelling doesn’t have to be formal. Try engaging with your children at dinner or during family gatherings. A person’s happiness is deeply tied to the depth of her social relationships,
Do Prioritize Your Own Friendships: Happy kids have friends, so help your child develop his friendships. You can start by not neglecting your own friends. Don’t be guilty about being selfish with personal time. Spending time with your friends actually sets a good example for your children, because maintaining friendships helps teach the value of social relationships.
Don’t Protect Kids From Failure: Let your child make her own mistakes, it is part of their learning process. To help children prepare for adverse situations, help them learn to accept life’s realities, such as conflict, struggle, and consequences. For example, if your child isn’t getting along with a teacher or a classmate, let her try working it out first. Children have to deal with the fact that this world is full of flawed people. Console them or talk to them about the feelings, provide solutions but don’t become the solution. After all your aim is to be raining happiness. Avoid becoming a helicopter parent, who is always hovering and who wants to always swoop in and rescue a child before something bad happens. Instead, adopt a middle-ground approach to parenting. The trick is to stay just far enough away that the children begin to develop their own autonomy, but close enough that if a child really needs help, the parents can come in.
Teacher’s Role
Major challenges for teachers are to nurture children’s learning and give him various experiences to face this challenging world. She molds the child to be a responsible and independent learner. The teacher is the first person from whom the child learns his social skills in school. Teachers make him comfortable and guide him on the early concepts and developmental skills of life. Open-minded, well balanced and a planned teacher has a great power to bring a positive change in the child’s development. The early years of learning are very important in the development of a child. The goal should be to embark on creating happy, balanced, and stress-free children.
Develop & nurture teamwork skills in your students by providing them with enough opportunities to work in groups, in the classroom.
Every child is an individual and is unique. Recognize the worth of each child. Always encourage & praise the children whenever they do something good.
Give respect and love to the students and treat them with dignity. Also, be helpful and sympathetic, humorous and lovable.
Make tests fun and interesting learning experience for your students. Children love to have fun in what they do. Remember that play is their work. Making playful and fun-filled lesson plans help the children to love the learning experience.
Give the children valuable assignments that are interesting, interactive and engaging for them. Explain the objective of the home assignment clearly in the class, so that the children thoroughly understand the basic aim & concept of the homework.
Teacher-Parent Relationship
Trust and mutual understanding between parent and teacher is a real secret of a child’s happy learning.
Support and cooperativeness from parents towards teachers help a lot to connect, understand, and work towards children. Remarkable positive change is seen in a child if the parents and teacher understand and work hand in hand.
A good parent-teacher relationship leads the child to be positive towards attending school.