Child education is one of the biggest responsibilities of a parent. It is never too early to start educating your child. Parents must work with, talk with and praise their young children from the very beginning. Child education experts suggest children can start their educations as young as two or three in a pre-school setting. This will help the child socialize and prepare them for the school years ahead. Once children enter grade school they are taught the basics such as reading, writing, mathematics and science. However, child education shouldn’t stop there. Parents should ensure their children are receiving a well rounded education in a school that offers arts, including music and theatre, and physical education programs. If these programs are not offered, you can work with them at home.

Child education experts claim art classes, especially music and theatre classes, help children develop self esteem and enhance their social skills. Children who study in arts classes are said to learn faster and develop at a quicker rate than children who do not. Art classes are a great way for children to express themselves and expand their creativity. Physical education programs are an important part of child education. They teach children how to be active in their daily lives, showing them the importance regular exercise. Children will learn how to socialize and work in teams through team sports, such as soccer, baseball, volleyball or basketball. Physical education also increases self esteem and provides children with a healthy body image. Children will grow up to be healthier adults as a result of regular physical activity.

The key to keeping children interested in school is to communicate with them. Parents should be active in their children’s school lives. Child education is as much the responsibility of the parent as it is of the teacher. Parents should encourage their children to do homework, tutor their children or set up a schedule to regulate time spent studying. The more the parent is involved, the better the child will perform. Child education experts urge parents to become involved, not only at home, but in the school setting as well. Parents should volunteer in the classroom – take children on fieldtrips, start an after-school reading group, or join the Parent Teacher Association.

Child education experts recommend that parents talk to their children about the value of higher education. Parents should encourage their children to strive for high grades and teach their children about their options in the future, such as going on to pursue university or college. Every child deserves a good, well rounded education. Parents must ensure the school offers a variety of classes to suit their children’s needs. If children are gifted in a certain area, such as art, parents might want to seek out a school that focuses more on the arts. Parents are the ones who will change their children’s future by providing them with the proper tools to succeed.

Novelty might have something to do with it, but the common underlying reason for a child losing interest in a child learning toy is that they have learnt everything that the toy has to teach them. You will need to find a new source of stimulation, but don’t throw that old toy out yet. If it taught a concept or a skill, that can be revisited later and reinforced, but only after a little while.

When you go to the toy store to look for a new child learning toy, your first instinct is to go with one that will likely keep your child occupied for some time. While this should be a concern, your primary one should be choosing a child learning toy that teaches a skill or a concept that is new to your child. This should be in key with your child’s development. The toys you buy your child will need to be constantly updated to ensure that they are learning and developing at the proper rate.

ABSTRACT

The importance of parental involvement as an accelerating and motivating factor in their children’s education is a worldwide-accepted fact. This research project provides an in depth explanation along with specific reasons, the importance of parents’ involvement in their children’s education. It also discusses the parenting techniques, their types and their consequences if neglected. It also describes the ways to measure the outcome of the positive parental involvement. Furthermore, it mentions the teachers involvement and the difficulties faced by the teachers in getting parents involved in their children’s (this is further supported by the examples of two teachers who with their deliberate efforts won the parents over to devote their maximum attention towards their children), single-parent involvement, children’s own efforts to improve their academic levels and joint home-school based interventions. A detailed analysis of the different main ideas is given, based on the findings from other research surveys and projects.

INTRODUCTION:

Parental involvement can be seen to fall into three types: 1) Behavioral, 2) Intellectual and 3) Personal. The research explores the effect of multi-dimensional participation of parents and the resulting progress of children in their studies when different parental resources were dedicated to them. Actively participating parents help their children in their academic development by going to schools and participating in open houses. By keenly observing the behavior of their children they can rightly judge the kind of behavior or the allocation of resources required by their children. Such caring parents can also motivate teachers to become more attentive towards a particular student, thus maintaining the cycle of parent-teacher involvement. Encourage Building up cognitive and perception abilities in a child is a major concern in the upbringing of the child. The way the parents involve their children in cognitive learning is by exposing them to different cognitively stimulating activities and materials such as books, electronic media and current events at home. This helps the child to practice all sorts of language comprehending skills at the school. The results show a remarkably positive behavior at the school and with peers.

Two parenting processes namely the Supportive Parenting (SP) and Harsh Parenting (HP) helped a lot in the research of parental involvement in their children’s education. By adjusting the levels of supportive parenting, different levels of successful outcomes were observed. Supportive parenting in even kindergarten students yielded positive results. Four measures of supportive parenting were used in the study, they were:

1. Proactive teaching. 2. Calm discussion in disciplinary encounters. 3. Warmth. 4. Interest and involvement in peer activities.

The assessments were conducted when children entered kindergarten and when they reached grade 6. There was a factor noted to hinder children’s development: family adversity. It was the result of a multipurpose negative process that included the risk of low socio-economic status, single-parenting and family stress. Child maladjustments were found to be more common in families with such adversities. No matter how much negative impacts were cast, SP was found to overcome the risks associated with family adversity. SP was strongly related to adjustment procedures in grade 6 children who had single parent family or experienced low socio-economic status (SES) in their early childhood.

In a way to socialize their children, parents adopted the techniques of calm discussion and proactive teaching. They helped lessen the behavioral problems by carrying long discussions with their children, cultivating in them a sense of respect, calmness and peace of mind. Mothers also participated actively in reducing the peer stress among their children. It is also a widely accepted fact that supportive parenting plays an important role in the children’s development of empathy, prosocial behavior and emotional competence. On the negative side, the absence of supportive parenting may be related to the development of internal problems such as anxiety and depression. Lack of the necessary parental care and attention is the main factor for the subsequent rise in the percentage of juvenile delinquency (crime among children). The absence of parental instructions causes children to develop irreversible behavioral and emotional problems. They in order to seek attention, resort to crimes thinking that in this way they could fulfill their wishes. They may revert to uncontrolled violence if not kept an eye upon. Such criminal activities cannot be brought to a halt until their distressing symptoms of low self-esteem, depression, dysphonic mood, tension and worries, and other disturbances are relieved. And the importance of parents’ role in this regard cannot be over-emphasized.

In an effort to describe parental involvement, many researchers use a term “Transition”(Lombardi, Joan). “Transition” is used to describe the time period in which children move from home to school, from school to after school activities, from one activity to another within a pre-school, or from pre-school to kindergarten. The untiring endeavors of teachers in the phenomenon of transition cannot be ignored. They prepared the children and their parents to face the problems of adjusting to elementary school programs that had different psychology, teaching styles and structure than the programs offered at the kindergarten level. In the elementary level schools the teachers had to face serious challenges in motivating the parents to take interest in their children’s activities. The teachers adopted different methods to involve the parents in day-to-day classroom and home activities. They used to send notes, invitation of parent-teacher meetings, invitation of parental guidance sessions and training sessions, continuously directing the parent’s attention towards their children. Patricia Brown Clark suggests that it is very important to keep the line of communication between teachers and parents open, so that the parents can interact with the teachers and get up to date information of their children’s school activities. One way to involve parents is to schedule school events and arranging classroom activities such as volunteering for libraries, acting as classroom aides or efficiently organizing lunch breaks. The teachers also opt for making phone calls at the children’s houses to keep in touch with the parents and getting to know the extent to which they are contributing towards the welfare of their children. Apart from the above activities, the teachers also assign home activities for both the parents and their children so that the parents remain indulged in their children and the children get to study at home. However, it was a bad and disappointing experience for the teachers when many of the parents failed to respond as expected. Many of the parents were so overwhelmed with their official work that they could hardly take out some time for their beloved children.

Moreover, for some parents their schoolings were not positive and character-boosting experiences, therefore they preferred to keep a distance from their children’s school as well. This made it really difficult and at times impossible for teachers to bring the parental involvement to the desired level. Nevertheless, the activities of two teachers proved greatly fruitful in making parents involved in their children. They were Carlos Valdez, an art teacher and 8th grade class sponsor, and Mike Hogan, the school’s band director. They did it by involving parents in music festivals and other school ceremonies. They proved to be great examples for the future teachers to come. If the children’s academic development programs are to prove successful they must share two characteristics:

1) Developmentally appropriate practice:

A child’s academic progress is clearly reflected by the appropriate practice he/she administers while in school life. During transitions from pre-school to kindergarten, a child if given the exact developmentally appropriate practice tends to learn a great deal of language and playing skills. He develops a keen interest in exploring his environments and interacting (without hesitation) with his adults.

2) Supportive services:

These include the assistance that the school provides to low-income family students. The services include health care, childcare and community care. This strengthens the relation between school and children and creates a sense of security and confidence among the children. They get to learn that their communities are a part of their school since the school’s supportive services strive to help community development.

It is commonly believed that children are good self-teachers. Their self-initiated strategies help improve their expression, creativity, intellectual capabilities and extra-curricular skills. This idea is proved by the documentation of young children’s work provided by Reggio Emilia :

“The Reggio Emilia educators highlight young children’s amazing capabilities and indicate that it is through the unity of thinking and feeling that young children can explore their world, represent their ideas, and communicate with others at their highest level.”(Edwards, Pope. C, Springate, Wright.K)

The climax rests in the fact that how the parents would know that their sincere involvements are really proving worthwhile for their children. The answer lies in the attitude of the children. The degree of parental involvement can be judged by a child’s attitude towards his school subjects, his academic desires and achievements. There is a direct relationship between academic achievements and the attitude towards school. Schunk in 1981 had the following idea of aspiration or academic desires:

“Level of aspiration is defined as one’s subjective probability that he or she will reach a certain level of education.”(Abu, H. & Maher, M)

As a result children who received adequate parental concern were found to be much more confident in their academic desires and achievements than those who could not get the right amount of parental concern. The individual involvement of mothers and fathers also plays a vital role in the behavioral development of a child. Students from one-parent household were observed to show less positive attitude towards schools and studies as compared to students from two-parent households. One study aimed at investigating parental concern showed that despite mothers’ sincere endeavors, the role of fathers could not be ignored and both served as an important foundation for the future progress of the child. This can be proved from the following fact:

According to a recent report from the National Center for Educational Statistics (1997), compared to their counterparts, children with involved fathers are more likely to have participated in educational activities with their parents (e.g., to have visited a museum or a historical site with their parents in the past month), and are more likely to have access to multiple types of resources at home as well (as measured by the proportion of parents who belong to community or professional organizations, or regularly volunteer in the community). (Flouri, E. And Buchanan, A, Pg.142)

Also, the parental involvement has been discussed and implemented in terms of interventions or prevention programs, which are nothing but safety measures taken to assure healthy and perfect upbringing of the child.

Alternatively, you can contact the National Resource Center for Health and Safety in Child Care and Early Education to find out information about your state’s home daycare child licensing regulations. Toys inappropriate for the child’s age or development may create a safety hazard. Child proofing doesn’t have to be a long and drawn out process — many home safety products are available on the market.

Where there is a lack of child safety at home, it can only take a few seconds for an accident to happen. Recognize that when you were a child, your parents would have done everything possible to ensure your safety. Yes the likelihood is remote that harm will come our way, but as a parent, that element of remoteness is enough to keep me ever vigilant where the safety of my child is concerned.

Well known for its work relating to road safety, the European New Car Assessment programme (NCAP), pedestrian safety and child restraint systems, TRL has built a global reputation second to none for its knowledge, technical application and professional integrity.

Millions of teenagers cruising around with cell phones could prevent abductions from pedophiles, rapists or child molesters. Hence, his strong dislike for child molesters and making sure they are six feet under. With an estimated one million pedophiles online, you need parental controls to protect your children from Internet predators and from child molesters.

If they are approached yelling/screaming is a great idea (remember child molesters want to avoid being seen). Millions of teenagers cruising around with cell phones will prevent abductions from pedophiles, rapists or child molesters. 22 solution for hardened criminals, child molesters and violent ones.

Molesters depend on the fact that a child will keep their secret. Computers now list the child molesters in your community and in most post offices you will see a list of predators. And I’m not just talking about the child molesters that are trying to steal your kids away from you.

Nothing can make parents more furious, then child molesters or serial killers slipping through the cracks of the so-called justice system.

You are your child’s first teacher, and understand them better than anyone else. By talking to them, playing with them, and introducing simple skills you can help set the scene for their future development.
The first thing you have to do is that “talking and listening to your child”.
The most rapid development of your child’s brain takes place between their birth and the age of two. Your child continues to learn and develop rapidly during the important early years of their life.
By building a few simple learning games into your child’s daily routines and helping them investigate their environment, you can help give them the best possible start to their education.

You help your child to learn by giving them opportunities to:

* Look at interesting things, in the garden or in the home
* Touch a variety of objects
* Listen to a range of sounds like songs, rhymes, stories, music
* Taste a range of flavours
* Investigate things that open, close, float, sink, twist, turn
* Explore objects like large boxes, things that make noises and things that move
* Play for uninterrupted periods, alone or with others, with help from adults, and in their own way
* Talk to other children and adults

The second, reading together.

Everywhere you go with your child you have a chance to read together. Whether it’s on the bus, in shops or at the post office, you can point out the words around you and that’s the beginning of reading. Reading stories with your child, even if for just 10 minutes a day, will help to build important skills, as well as capture your child’s interest in books.

Next, learning about numbers and shapes.

Counting things and noticing shapes come naturally to children, so you can use your child’s interest in these activities to help with maths. Maths skills can be developed through stories, songs, games and imaginative play. Even helping in everyday tasks like telling time or measuring ingredients for cooking, gives children the chance to learn new maths skills.

And the last one, spending quality time together.

Turning off the television or computer and spending time with your child creates valuable opportunities for learning. Here are a few ideas about activities that your child can learn from:

* Pottering around the garden together teaches children about plant life, insects and animals
* Simple kitchen tasks, like letting your child spread the jam on sandwiches, can give an early lesson in cooking and improve motor skills
* Playing games together teaches fair play and cooperative behaviour
* Family and holiday photos can give lessons in family history and geography