Teach English in Shuitou Zhen - Yuncheng Shi

Raising a child is one of the biggest challenge for every parents because loving them is not enough to make him or her good parents and give them good education. The role of parents in their children education is very important and therefore needs a joined and collaborative effort from both educator (school) and the parent in order to improve on their children success. To begin with, it would be wised to define briefly some of the basic terms that can ease ones understanding. Education as define in Wikipedia is the process of facilitating learning, or the acquisition of knowledge, skill, values, beliefs and habits. It can be formal or informal and frequently takes place under the guidance of educators as well as self-study. A parent is a father or mother otherwise known as a person who brings up and cares for a child. However, being a parent does not necessarily mean one is the biological mother or father. From the above definitions, one can deduced that parents are the first educators/teachers to their children and that parental support for learning at home combined with their basic involvement in their children school lives is essential to the children education. They are a major player and a very necessary one. One of the most important thing a child should be able to rely on in life is his/her parent and whatever the case, some sort of guardian always needs to be there for a child until he/she is old enough to live on his/her own. Children nowadays are influenced (either positively or negatively) by role model in their lives be it a superstars from movies, singers, favorite teacher and most importantly their parents. They will usually learn from and look up to them. As a result, parents have a great role to play in helping their children look up to the right people and get the best education the can have. Parents can play a role in the education of their children in the following ways; Education begins from home so parents can start by being a good friend to their children. In doing this, it permits a child to express his/her mind and their feelings. As a result, would increase the level of confidence, which in return help them to excel and perform better both at home, and in school. Furthermore, parents should be able to look/provide a good school/environment for their children. Providing a good school or environment for one’s children does not mean sending them to the most expensive schools or buying them the most expensive learning materials. It is all about making sure the school/environment is comfortable, safe, secure, and conducive, equipped with necessary learning facilities, and has standard teachers with great values and morals. In addition, it is important for parent to assist in assignments and home evaluation. Giving them home support would encourage them as well as boost their zeal for learning. This however, does not mean parents should do every assignments for them but should rather do it together and help them with ideas and guidelines in doing their assignments. Moreover, the educational life (formal or informal) of a child is very important so parent should make it a priority. Prioritizing their education would simply mean to do a proper monitoring of the learning at home and at school, checking on their performances, avoid unnecessary trips that can affect their study schedule a well as not encouraging them to take unnecessary leave of absence from school. Further, there should exist a parent teacher relationship. Maintaining parent teacher relationships is also important because it shows parents commitment and interest in their children educational lives. Parents should make it a duty to attend parent teacher meetings and get to learn from the teacher about their children activities and manners while in school. In addition, to inform them some of the difficulties their children faced at home in relation to their studies and together they can better handle/manage these difficulties. Furthermore, studies have shown that children achievements in life increase when parent are involved. When parents are involved in the education of their children especially formal education, the children have better classroom manners, improved attendance, greater self-esteem, increased achievement in test result, increased motivation to learn, a decrease in children dropping out of school and the list goes on and on. In conclusion, parents role in education is primordial given that a child’s education begins at home with their parents being the first teacher. The involvement of parents in the educational lives of their children plays a vital role in their success. Therefore, a balance of home education and school education moulds a child’s actual learning.