Ask the Expert

how to help your student succeed

As a teacher, I often get asked, “What can I do to help my student?” and in my first couple of years teaching my answer was always the same: ‘Make sure they know their math facts, and make sure they are reading at home.’ Don’t get me wrong, even now, beginning my eighth year, those are my go to’s because they are easy things parents can participate in and feel confident they are doing right. Because as parents, we want to be right. We want to know what we are teaching our kids is the right thing. As I’ve gotten older, become a father myself, and had parents come back to me well after their student has left my classroom; I’ve found that that answer simply doesn’t cut it. It helps students academically, but it doesn’t help them with all the other challenges that come with being a student today. I’ve wracked my brain to come up with an answer as to how parents can help their students in school, connect with their child on a personal level, and provide advice about not only success in the classroom, but success as a person. And although nothing will ever be a fix all, nothing in life ever is that simple unfortunately, there is a common thread that I see between my students who are present in class and the ones that aren’t.

The possible underwhelming and fairly simple truth is, Communicate with your kids. Tell your kids stories. Eat a meal with your kid(s). Sit at a table, no phones, devices or TV allowed and make them tell you about their day. Don’t let them off easy. Ask them to be specific about what they’re learning and what their friends are doing

at school. Care about the drama and the gossip. Tell them about what you were like as a kid. Tell them stupid things you did in highschool (PG of course), or about the tree you tried to climb when you were 12 and fell out of and broke your arm. Tell them about the bullies you dealt with in middle school, how you felt alone at times and you didn’t know what to do. Be real.

Communication is a two way street, listen to them and really listen. You can’t know what they’re really struggling with if you don’t give them a chance to open up and a safe space to do so. And it starts small, know their friends names, know the video games they’re playing or the YouTuber that they’re into. As hard as it seems, invest in the things that you find silly that they find value in.

Too often kids feel alone and don’t realize their parents were their age once too. Now I am sure that people will think that the internet, phones and social media makes it all different. It doesn’t. Bullying is bullying, depression is depression, anxiety is anxiety. What the internet does is magnify those issues and open communication is more important than ever. We’ve all dealt with challenges and for our kids to know that we’ve been in similar situations and they aren’t alone is huge! Show your kids that you’re human and understand that they are too. It’s really hard to solve a problem you don’t know exists, so communicate.

I’ll leave you with a revelation I had as a new father and one I find increasingly relevant the more I teach:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------When my son was just starting to walk, he fell (shocker). When he landed, he had bumped his arm and had a red mark and small bruise, but by the way he screamed you would have sworn his whole arm had fallen off. At first I thought, “ Really? Dude, you fell like 3 inches, you’re fine.” But then, it hit me. Up until that point in his year of life, that was the absolute worst thing to have ever happened to him. He had never experienced worse pain in his life. It’s easy to forget that for kids, in this moment, that test, those bullies words, that heartbreak, could literally be the worst they’ve ever felt. It doesn’t mean they’re soft, they just haven’t been through as much as adults. So next time you’re at the dinner table and you talk with your kids, share a story, listen to one of theirs and start connecting.

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