By: Gabriela Córdova Olguín (psychologist)

One of parents’ most important worries is to achieve that their children learn as much as possible at school. School represents a source of academic, social and emotional knowledge; it provides children with multiple experiences that allow them to develop interaction skills, trouble management and goals achievement.

Therefore, it is important that children enjoy school activities; when this happens it is easier for them to learn and they develop better, because it makes it easier for them to acquire new concepts and important materials.

Family plays an important role in children’s learning process, because there is where they get self-confidence, affectivity and the identity they need to have a healthy and positive development. The most important and basic way to help children is accepting, respecting and loving them. With those things we are working in favor of a healthy development of their personality, which will help them to face every day challenges at school.

Today, it is important that children are calm and have enough time to do their homework. Very often this aspect is not easy for parents because it turns out to be a source of struggle and not of communication. To start with, it is necessary to negotiate the best time of the day so that the parent is available to supervise what the kid does, and on the other hand it is important that the kid is willing to do his/her homework without interference.

Sometimes due to the lack of time and willingness to pay attention to children, parents end up doing their homework. The most important thing here is that children acquire the habit and responsibility of carrying out their obligations. If you show interest in what they are doing they would feel much more encouraged to work, and even more if you are close to them and encourage them to discover how stimulating learning might be.

If the child has unexpected problems to learn, read, write, hear, talk or study mathematics, then teachers and parents should investigate more. It is possible that the child has to be evaluated to see if he/she has a learning problem.

Learning problems tend to be diagnosed when children start going to school. This happens because schools concentrate more on things that could be difficult for children, such as: reading, writing, and solving mathematic problems, hearing, talking and reasoning. Teachers and parents discover that children are not learning as they were expected. It is possible that the school requests an evaluation to know what is causing the problem.

In order to prevent this kind of situations it is important to consider the following:

• Praise your child when he/she is doing well. Children with school difficulties are very good at other things. Find out what your child likes, for example, dancing, playing football or working with computers.

• Find out which is the best way for your child to learn. Does he learn by means of practical experiences, seeing or listening? Help your child to learn based on his/her strong areas.

• Encourage your kid to help you with domestic tasks that can increase his/her self-confidence and concrete skills. Give simple instructions, divide tasks in small steps and reward your child efforts with praises.

• Encourage activities that motivate research, for example, going to libraries, museums or parks.

• Read something interesting everyday, listen and answer their questions trying to talk with them always respecting their point of view.

• Look for the opportunity to participate in their games; it is a good opportunity to relate with them, to know what they like and they interests.

• Do not offer expensive prizes or use expressions such as, “if you do your homework I will give you a present”, “if you do your homework I will take you somewhere”, children must be convinced of the advantages of doing their homework and if they do not, consequences should be immediate.

Nowadays, we have a lot of work to do, and parents’ participation is very important to reinforce what children develop. When children learn to accept that they can make mistakes and be weak, they feel motivated to overcome challenges, which help their own learning process and development as a future grown-up.

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