As a parent, your goals are probably related to improving your child’s academic and social prospects. Kids need their parents to guide them and provide them with not only opportunities to thrive in their health and well-being but also the ability to succeed on an academic and social level. In life, people tend to do better when their parents are involved in getting their social and academic needs met.
Start on the Right Foot
It’s never too early to start thinking about how you can set your child up to excel in academics and social activities. Although you might think that a toddler is too young to benefit from exceptional academic and social opportunities, your family will probably notice a difference in the outcome of your child if you let them attend preschool and enroll them in the best preschool you can afford in your area. According to NPR, children whose parents put them in preschool have an 8% higher rate of attending college than those whose parents forgo preschool in their formative years.
If you can’t send your child to preschool due to financial struggles, you may be able to get a scholarship for a local preschool or a voucher. You might also be able to find free preschools in your area. Alternatively, there may be homeschool co-operatives for preschool-age children that could replace preschool with all the benefits of it.
Prioritize Attendance
Sometimes, simply showing up to school and important events can be enough to give your child an edge in excelling in education and social activities. According to Education Week, kids who have a history of attending preschool in their formative years tend to typically miss one and a half fewer days annually than those who have not attended preschool. When you make attendance a priority at an early age, it will be easier for your child to understand that attending one’s obligations is a fact of life by the time they get to a point where they are responsible for taking themselves to school and fulfilling other duties.
Allow for Key Appointments
Although attendance matters, you’ll need to keep in mind that there may be times when your child is unable to attend school or extracurricular activities. This is a normal part of life that must be taken into account when you’re planning your and your children’s schedules. According to the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, students tend to skip 2.2 days of school annually for standard dental healthcare appointments. As a result, you should try to schedule appointments for the same day or let appointments revolve around breaks from school to maximize attendance.
If your child has a lot of medical appointments, you may be able to support them by offering alternative schooling options. Cyberschool and homeschooling can make it easier for a child to get their educational needs met while dealing with life challenges. Once your child can attend public or private school again, you can resume their education as normal with the confidence that they won’t have missed out on the lessons and subjects they need to stay on the same page as their peers in their grade.
Academics allow children to explore their interests while also getting credits in classes that may help them get into the colleges that they want to attend when they get older, depending on how old they are. Pushing the kids in your family to excel in different environments looks different depending on their ages and stages in life. For those who are in high school, the academic foundation you lay now may affect the trajectory of the rest of their educational career. Even children in elementary school can benefit from having parents or loved ones in their lives who introduce them to environments where they will be nurtured with developing social skills and academic skills.