Why Parents Must Get Involved in the Child’s Education

Parents should be actively involved in the education of a child despite the fact that there are already several teachers, administrators and other school personnel to provide them the guidance they need through the school’s rules and regulations, the curriculum, and the learning.

Although it has been shown from studies that the children whose parents are involved in their education by helping them review lessons and study for exams exhibited higher scores in exams and performed better in the overall aspect, this is not how and why they should get involved. If being involved meant teaching and the reason for getting involved was for better grades, then all parents had to be well-educated and good at instruction. Furthermore, it such was the reasoning, then parents will fail to clearly express what the purpose of the education of a child is.

No, being involved could include but is not limited to teaching the child and reviewing him prior to exams. Parents must get involved in the education of a child, NOT his classroom. Also, the reason why parents must involve themselves is not for the child to develop a better academic performance, but to make sure that they are getting the proper learning and experience they would need once they are out in the real world. Remember that teaching your child the day’s lessons, attending parent-teacher meetings, or baking pineapple upside-down cake for their Christmas party are not the things that will determine your progress as an adult, and your success as an individual.

The following are some ways by which parents can get involved in their child’s education. Some of these ways need not even require parents to visit the child’s classroom.

- Regularly talk with the teacher of your child. Check on your child’s progress and ask if there are certain problems your child is experiencing in particular. The teacher can tell you what subjects are difficult for him, so you can teach your child at home or hire a tutor for him.
- At least discuss with your child his homework (if not help him with it).
- Obtain a copy of the school curriculum and get supplementary materials in advance for your child.
- Do not just depend on your child’s teachers; monitor his progress yourself!
- Set up a quiet study area for your child at home. This need not be an entire room. A table and a chair with a desk lamp at the corner of your child’s room would do. See to it that a specific time is set aside for doing homework.
- Always motivate your child! Let him feel how much you support him and that you want to help him get the best education of a child possible.

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.