Ideas for Parents to Help Students While Studying from Home
Due to the current Coronavirus pandemic, everything from work to education has gone online. It has created a burden on the teachers to create an online classroom and plan the children’s lessons and activities to feel normal about their day. But this cannot be doing without the help of parents.
By HARDIK OZA
The parents need to make sure that they properly guide their kids to learn from their online classes, complete their work on time, and ask for help when they need it.
But how can parents help?
We have discussed some ideas by which parents can make sure that their kids learn well in their online classes, exactly how they did in their physical classes.
Ideas for parents to help students while studying from home
· Limiting the distraction
To ensure that your children are focused on their schoolwork, you need to make sure that they do not spend too much time looking at their devices. You must restrict their screen time, if required, and let them use the device only to complete their work. You can also assign them to break time to let them play games on the device and continuously remind them they have a specific time gap to play, after which they need to resume their work. Further, parents can also use school parent communication apps like MyEduCom for all the communications and child’s school progress.
· Making space for learning
Many households have a specific area designated for work. Such a designated space will also help your children study in a better way. They will be able to work better in an area that is quiet, comfy, and only dedicated to learning new things. This place should be decorated differently from the area where they play games or watch television.
· Maintaining breaks
Maintaining a timetable or a schedule is of great importance in school as well as homes. Children will be able to function better if the routine at home is kept similar to their time table in schools. To achieve this, you can set different alarms that would ring at a specific time as per schedule, just how it is done in schools. You can even ask your kids to get up and do activities like riding a bike, going out for a walk, etc., so that they do not stay sitting in front of their devices the whole day.
· Letting them interact with friends
When in school, your children meet and talk to many other children, which cannot be done while at home. As we all know, it will not be safe to let them go out and meet their friends personally, so you can encourage them to get in touch with them virtually by using sources apart from social media and messaging apps.
The best thing apart from meeting someone personally is video calls. If your child is not too willing to video chat with their friends, you can have a conversation with their parents and set up a time to meet online and play.
· A mixture of screen time learning and old school learning methods
Overuse of anything can be bad for health. So is the case with the health and brains of your kids. It is quite natural for your kid to use another device to pass their break time. That is why it is very important to make sure that your kids do not spend much time on the screen. If there is no homework sent from the teachers’ side to your home, then make sure to get it printed. Parents should encourage their children to read paperbacks instead of PDF or eBooks.
· Being in touch with other parents
Like you, other parents are also going through a hard time; therefore, you need to stay in touch with them. You should always check on your fellow parents and see what methods were useful for them and see if they need any help.
· Knowing the power of a schedule
It is the first time that you and your children are working from home. Therefore, it is good to have a fixed schedule for you and your child. First, you can make sure that your child adheres to the same sleeping schedule that was being followed when they were going to school. You should have them make a time table for themselves every week and make sure they follow it.
· Not letting children treat these days as holidays.
Being at home these days might feel like long holidays, but you should not let your kids feel that way. Ensure that they take their classes, assignments, grades, tests, etc., as seriously as they used to when they were going to school.
· Including fun time in the schedule
These days are certainly not holidays, but you should make sure that you spend your free time playing games or having fun. Make sure to bond with your children.
Final words
Even though the time is hard but we have to find ways to deal with them and keep going the way that normally would. Inline education has led to increased screen time for children for sure, but it can be controlled with proper management and scheduling. Just make sure to follow the tips mentioned above, and everything will be alright.
