12 December 2023
How can I help my child do better in school?
Reading time 5'
If your child is struggling with schoolwork, ask yourself the following questions:
- Do I pressure my child to read?
- Do I comment on their poor school performance to themselves?
- Do I comment on their poor school performance to others?
- Have I made any inferences about their intelligence?
- Have I ever insulted my child for their poor school performance?
- Have I punished my child for their poor school performance?
- Do I help my child with their homework?
- Do I compare my child’s school performance to that of their sibling?
- Do I have high expectations for my child’s school performance?
- Has my child ever lied to me about their reading or school performance?
If you answered yes to some of the questions above, this article may be helpful for you to find ways to encourage your child to do better.
Let's start with this: Poor performance in school is rarely an indicator of low intelligence.
Mental retardation is a very specific condition related to the normal or abnormal development of the child and should always be evaluated by specialists.
If the child has difficulties when studying, there may be a learning disability that also needs to be investigated.
In the vast majority of cases, a child who is not doing well in school is a discouraged child.
There are countless reasons why a child may lose his courage. Parents may have unrealistic expectations and the child may be under intense pressure to do well. He may have a sibling who is doing well in school and he may feel it is futile to try, especially if the parents often compare the siblings. He may be afraid of competition, something that is created by previous experiences where he failed at something and was unable to overcome it. His parents may help him with his homework and he does not see studying (and may never see it) as his personal responsibility or as the path to personal success and satisfaction. There may be many reasons. However, one thing is certain: the child does not find enough reasons to try to do well in school. He does not believe that he will gain anything from his good performance in school. So, to help him do better, we must help him understand that he has the skills to do it, but also that his good performance will bring him great personal satisfaction and significant benefits in his life.
Consider the following scenario:
Two brothers return home with their test. The older one runs to his mom, “Mom, I got 10’s in everything!” “Well done for the perfect grades, you’re a star!” The younger one was hiding and avoiding showing his grades. “So I can see yours too. What’s this? How come you’re doing so poorly in all your classes? Why can’t you try as hard as your brother? Go to your room and think about what you’ve done, and from tomorrow, no more afternoon games!”
And the following, slightly different scenario:
Two brothers return home with their test. The older one runs to his mother, “Mom, I got 10s on everything!” “Well done, I’m so glad you like learning” (the mother doesn’t emphasize grades, but rather the child’s willingness to learn). The younger one was hiding and avoiding showing his grades. The mother waited without saying anything and when she was alone with him, she asked him to look at his grades with them. Looking at the test, which had mostly below 6s, she noticed a round 7. “I see you did better in reading, I’m glad you like reading.”
In the first scenario, in addition to the child being completely discouraged from trying to do better, he loses all hope that he can catch up with his brother and most likely gives up completely. As if the insults that make the child feel useless and incapable weren’t enough, the punishment also comes to ‘close the deal’. In this way, we undermine any hope of progress in an already discouraged child.
In the second, any fear he had about showing his grades to his mother evaporates with her first reaction. The child knows very well that he hasn’t done well, but the mother’s attention to the one subject he did better is a powerful incentive and makes the child think that ‘since I did better in this, I can do better in the others.’ Most likely, he will try harder and slowly improve his performance from a little more, to overwhelmingly. In other words, he will become one of the best students.
The mother managed to avoid any comparison between the siblings, praise both children and encourage both important ones, especially the one with the worst performance. Furthermore, she avoided creating competition between the siblings, laying the foundation for the two siblings to have a good relationship with each other for life.
So how can we as parents encourage our children to do well in school?
- By not getting in their way. School is their job and it is their business. They have to find their way on their own and learn to overcome difficulties.
- By not helping them with every difficulty in their lessons, so that the children do not have to face it themselves. The work for the next day at school may be done, but the child’s ability to do the work on their own successfully has been left behind.
- By not insulting them for any failures, not making fun of them, not criticizing them, not scolding them for not doing well, not imposing punishments. These methods are significantly discouraging and bring the opposite results to what we want, that is, the child’s performance is most likely to deteriorate.
- By helping them understand that a failure is not the end of the world, but an invitation to do better next time.
- By not comparing them to their siblings or other classmates.
- By not covering their gaps with extra help outside of school, because this teaches children that they don’t have to try for anything on their own, and that there will always be a helping hand to get them out of a difficult situation, an attitude that will follow them later in life. ‘Well-educated’ children have difficulty believing in themselves, because quite simply, they have never tried for anything. And of course, they have not felt the satisfaction that comes after any success, so why bother trying? They lack the motivation.
- By being there for them when they need something, and by guiding them to find the solution themselves.
And to end on an optimistic note: even if the child never takes his place among the top students in the class, who said that academic excellence is the key to a successful and happy life? Yes, the child will benefit significantly from doing well in school, but the goal is to do well in his life, professional, family, personal. And for these, what is certainly required is courage, self-confidence, the ability to embrace difficulties and overcome any disappointment intact, easy socialization and other similar virtues.
It is nice to think as parents that we can give our children everything they need for a good life, but the truth is that this is not possible. By helping them to have a positive image of themselves, we give them the basis to build on a solid foundation. The rest, they will discover on their own.