The Integral Role That Parents Play In the Education of Their Children

Parents, not teachers, should direct their children’s education. No buts, no exceptions. Every once in a while, this direction may mean the involvement of teachers, school administrators, or other professionals as somewhat “advisors” for the children’s educational plan, but they will not be the ones to decide what to and not to do, and determine what should and should not be. It if should have been the other way around, then parents should have been dubbed “second teachers”, and not teachers being dubbed as “second parents”.

It is the parents’ responsibility to make their children learn and understand the most important things and lessons in life; lessons that cannot be explained by the scribbles on a blackboard or the typewritten letters on the pages of a textbook. Some parents enroll their children in prestigious schools and leave it at that, thinking that everything will be taken care of and everything needed to be learned will be taught. Sure, they will learn everything they need to; everything except preparing themselves to become adults. It is very sad to see many parents forgetting that experience is one’s best education. In fact, education without experience is not education at all.

Imagine this; the eldest of your children grows up and only a short while after graduating from high school, he gets married. A year goes by, and you learn that he and his wife decided to get separated. You ask him why and he tells you that you that they always fight about money and work, and that the marriage was not going to work. Now, did the knowledge on husband-wife relationships that he acquired in this school that you entrusted your children’s education to, save their marriage? Were the steps in problem solving helpful? So what if they have the ability to make any desired program function if they cannot make a marriage work?

Any responsible and mature parent would agree that marrying that early was not a very wise decision in the first place. This is not to say it is wrong to marry early, since we all have our own views of what is right and what is wrong. What I am indeed saying is that marrying early is not practical for one who has just graduated, has not saved up much, and has no experience whatsoever on making big decisions. In fact, quarrels over money and work are very shallow reasons for a separation. If both the man and woman are truly mature enough to start a family, then they would not have fought over money and work issues in the first place. Did they not exchange vows to be together “for better or for worse”, “in sickness and in health”, promising that only death will part them? As you can see from this example, school cannot take the place of experience as the vital part of your children’s education. As parents, it is your responsibility to take care that your children grows up exposed to the truths in life and guided by your experience, in order for them to make it on their own once they assume their independence.