By Leland Pulley
Education is based on learning, having a variety of experiences, and interacting with different people. It is a lifelong experience. Every child deserves the opportunity to have good educational experiences beginning in early childhood. It is your responsibility as parents to help each of your children get the most educational experiences they can while growing up.
Some of the most basic and important education a child will receive occurs in the home. As a parent, you are a role model, guardian, teacher, coach, counselor, and friend to each of your children. So, get involved in your child’s education and remain there. Do not be passive and let individuals outside the home do things for your children that you should be doing for them. For example, schoolteachers have their place, but this does not relieve you of the many teaching opportunities you have in the home. After all, some things are more appropriate for you to teach than a third-party teacher outside the home.
There are three important things to keep in mind while raising children and being involved in their education.
- Parenting is always easier when you as an individual and adult have your act together or your life in order. Why is this important? You cannot teach what you do not know. You cannot share what you do not have. You cannot exemplify qualities of character that you do not have. You cannot spend sufficient time with your children when you are working 60 hours a week. You cannot buy good things when you lack money. This applies to both husband and wife. Mom and dad should both be in a position to have children and raise them successfully.
- Distinguish between loving a child and accepting everything he says and does. Love should be unconditional, but all behavior is not. No parent wants a child who is sassy, disobedient, dishonest, and causes problems in the family. However, you should be wise enough to separate the sin and sinner. There will be disappointments with children, as well as hurt feelings. Some children will require more discipline than others. Some children cannot be trusted with lots of freedom, nor with valuables items. In all cases, you the parent must maintain a steady and positive attitude of love and concern. While doing this over the years, regulate time and money and privileges according to a child’s disposition and behavior at any point in his life.
- Always remember that each child in your family is an individual. Therefore, strive to adapt your parental approach to each child so your job is easier, and every child gets more benefits from your efforts. This sounds simple, but often parents will treat the kids as a small group with similar needs and wants so common approaches are utilized for all the siblings. At times this is okay, but the most effective parenting will always stress individuality of each child and thus striving to do what is best for that child. Focus on each parent-child relationship. It is unique and should be treated as such.
Let us now turn our focus onto education. It begins in the home at an early age. When children are young, they are more open to parental influence and advice. So, take advantage of these early years, and continue your efforts each year thereafter. Strive to provide learning activities for each child which are suitable for the child’s age and interest. Provide practical training in the home in a variety of ways.
- Began with respect for you as a parent and other adults. This will help the child to respect adults outside the home such as school teachers, neighbors, coaches, church leaders, and policemen. In this way the child will behave in suitable ways while around older people than himself.
- It is important to have self-respect. Monitor your child’s self-image as he goes through various stages of growth and development. If he feels good about himself and what he is doing with his life, he will be happier, your job will be easier, and the parent-child relationship will be stronger.
- Strive to recognize your child’s true desires each year of his life. Discuss these with the child and help him find outlets to fulfill these desires. He will put more effort into activities and endeavors if they are in harmony with his desires.
- As a parent be neat and clean in your home and yard. This will help train the child to be neat and clean in his bedroom and around the rest of the house. Hopefully, he will carry this good trait with him into adulthood.
- Help children in basic skills such as learning to read. It can begin with you the parent reading simple stories to them. In conversations add more words with age so the vocabulary of the child will grow. Have plenty of books in the home. Take your kids to the library so they can check out books of interest to them. Do not depend on cell phones, tablets, and computers alone. Use these devices to provide some educational software for your children. Get software that involves reading skills and the building of vocabulary.
- A child can do chores around the house. Adapt these chores to the child’s age and abilities. Increase house and yard responsibilities as a child gets older. Remember, it is not a matter of whether you can do it faster or better, as much as the child has got to learn for himself. Over time, blend these with any responsibilities outside the home such as at school or eventually with a part-time job in adolescence.
- A child should learn to be responsible for possessions such as toys, clothing, and other things that he can call his own. With time the list increases to cell phones, sports equipment, musical instruments, etc. You may pay for all these things, but he must be responsible for everything entrusted to him. If he is not responsible, then less things should be given to him. In some cases, after a child is trusted with something, and he is not responsible, it should be taken away for a period of time
- Getting along with people is an essential life skill that is needed by everyone. To help your child, exemplify a good husband and wife relationship at all times and in all places. Strive to have good relationships between all children in the family. As an adult, show respect for each child and demand respect in return. Respect involves both what you say to family members, as well as how you behave around them or while interacting with them. If any child learns good interaction at home, it will certainly help him while interacting with others outside the home.
- Look for a child’s basic interests or the things that he naturally enjoys. By getting him involved in various activities, there will be more feedback on his interests and potential for developing various skills. Many of these activities should occur in the home and some in the yard. At times you will take the child to activities outside the home and participate in these with him. Do not be so wrapped up in your adult concerns that you have little or no time to enjoy activities with your children and support their activities outside the home.
- Teach your child how to set simple goals and accomplish them. This will lead to bigger goals and longer-term goals as a child grows up. Success in achieving goals contributes to optimism. This provides more incentive to get involved, and do more things for oneself and eventually for others.
- Over time any child develops attitudes. Some are positive and others are negative attitudes. Beware of specific attitudes that your child is developing, and what is causing them. What is each attitude based on? How important is it or how influential is it in the child’s life? If it is a negative attitude, can it be modified into something better or eliminated?
- Everyone has values or things which are important to them. Some values are material things like toys, clothes, computers, a car, or musical instruments. Most important values deal with intangibles. For example, does your child value education? Does he value hard work? Are friends important to him? How important is winning in various activities and endeavors? As you observe your child over the years, it should be easy to recognize his values. Discuss them with him and strive to help him have the best set of values possible.
- Each of us develops strengths and weaknesses. Hopefully, your child has far more strengths than weaknesses. Help him identify specific ones that he has at this time in his life. Encourage him to reinforce his strengths, as well as develop new ones. What can be done about weaknesses? Openly discuss these things. Give some ideas and recommendations for the child to think about. He will obviously need your help with increasing strengths and decreasing weaknesses. Remember however, the primary responsibility for doing this is with the child. He must allow you into his life in order for your help to be effective. Obviously, some children are more open to parental encouragement and help than others.
- Every child should learn about and develop a code of ethics for his thoughts and actions. Ethics as used here includes morals. A few examples are honesty, fairness, patience, tolerance, kindness, and obedience. Ethics and morals provide general guidelines for acceptable thought patterns, feelings, and behavior. This leads to self-control under a variety of circumstances. Ultimately it means being an acceptable member of any group – family, class, club, business, town, or country. The most important people to help a child develop ethics and morals are parents. Other individuals who have influence in the child’s life can also help him. These include relatives, teachers, coaches, religious leaders and others.
- Interaction between boys and girls becomes more important as children get older. They may play games together as young children. As they pass through puberty and become teenagers many things change. Boy and girl relationships, social events, dating, and sexual guidelines need to be discussed with every young person. Parents should take the lead in this area. Positive support from churches can reinforce personal standards stressed by parents. Schools also offer instructions related to health and sexual activity. However, some teachings via schools are without moral guidelines or restraints. As a parent be aware of what your child’s school is teaching about boy and girl relationships.
The list of items above is not complete. You should be able to add more items on your own. What should be obvious is all the things that you can and should do as a parent to the lay the foundation for a good education of each child.
Despite all your efforts with each child over the years, you will soon recognize that children are individuals and they learn in different ways. Some children are basically more intelligent and ambitious than others. They also progress at different rates. You will have more success as a parent with some children than others. Why? One child will match up better with one parent more than the other parent. One child may fit in with the home environment better than a sibling. Accept these realities of life. As long as each child is treated fairly, and in suitable ways for him or her, you as the parent should feel satisfied. With age the child becomes an adolescent and then an adult. Each year he is accepting more responsibility for what he says and does. He is developing an individual track record for his mortal life. Eventually, you as a parent must say the child is on his own and now responsible to conduct his affairs in the best manner possible. When this does occur, you will get your greatest reward for all those parental efforts over the years.
Key Words – learning, educational experiences, home, parenting, qualities of character, love, parental approach to each child, provide practical training, respect, self-image, desires, neat and clean, learning to read, chores, responsible for possessions, getting along with people, interests, goals, attitudes, values, strengths and weaknesses, ethics and morals, boy and girl relationships, children are individuals
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