The Vast Importance of Parents to the Concept of Education
When it comes to teaching the young, the first line of engagement will always be the parents. This is a universal truth that has not changed one bit. Today, Faculti Media looks deeper into this concept. When a child is brought into this world, it is pretty much expected that the parents will the primary source of care for the critical years of the child’s life.
Care is not just about keeping the child alive. It is the responsibility of the parents to ensure that the child is given a proper education. This does not simply mean enrolling the child with a good school. This involves preparing the child before they even start school. Here are a few basic things:
- Color recognition
- Basic alphabet
- Complete sentences
- Finger counting
These are a few things that any parent can teach. Education of a child is not limited to what is listed above. Rudimentary skills like being able to hold a spoon or fork is under the jurisdiction of the parents. It is the parents that build the foundation of the child’s future learning capabilities and skills.
The Role that Parents Play
Everything starts with the parents. Psychologists and pediatric doctors will all tell you that what the child grows up to be is heavily reliant on what the parents are like. Here are some of the things that parents have a hand in developing in their children:
Study Habits
Parents lay the foundation for the study habits that their children will have. No one is born wanting to study—that would be ridiculous. Instead, we have parents enforce dedicated time to study lessons. These can turn into established habits for when the child is grown.
Study habits are important as this will be the foundation of other habits like the ability to commit to a task or an agreement. It does not even have to be a full on study session. It could be something as simple as setting aside a bit of time each day for reading or doing an educational activity together.
If there is no such enforcement, children’s study habits end up suffering as a consequence. Studies have shown that children that have no taught study habits often have trouble coping with the progression of lessons. Everyone needs support at the start. If the parents do not provide this support, the child can end up behind their peers.
Educational Preferences
Every person has something that they prefer personally. A parent needs to be able to keep an eye on what their child seems to prefer. A parent is at the perfect position to spot any particular preferences and carefully cultivate it.
Parents need to take an active role in spotting what their children like to learn about. It is something that should not be left for the educators to discover. The first three years of life, the child is primarily with the parent—that is a LOT of time to spot what interests the child.
Again, everyone needs help at the start. You can have the raw materials in your grasp but if you do not know what to do with it, nothing will happen. A parent can carefully guide and nurture their kid’s favorites. Remember, behind every successful child athlete or musical virtuoso were parents who spotted the talent and helped the child cultivate it.
Information Filter
The sad truth about the world is that there are things that you will rather your child not learn about. As parents, you will be at the forefront of what your child will and should learn. A parent must filter out the information that is appropriate for children of a certain age.
This is particularly important as more and ore parents make use of gadgets to help keep their children entertained. They even make use of it for educational purposes. YouTube is a popular way to expose kids of educational videos. However, there are unscrupulous people out there that put harmful content in the guise of educational videos.
For example, there was once a group of adults that would wear costumes of Spiderman and Elsa of Frozen and have them act out mature scenes. There has been many a child that has seen their work before it was brought to the attention of YouTube executives. While YouTube does have a liability toward the content that they allow on their platform, the primary responsibility is toward the parents.
If parents took the time to pre-screen what their children will be exposed to—especially when they are still young—can mean the world of difference to what they will end up seeing. What parents do need to understand is that this role changes over time. Parents cannot and should not continue to control information when their children are past a certain age.
Play-oriented Learning (for young children)
No matter how good your educational materials are, if your delivery is not well received, there is no positive learning that will occur. Instead, the child will correlate any ‘learning’ as a chore and a hassle rather than something that will be looked up on as a new opportunity to discover something new.
Children have a natural instinct for discovery which should be utilized appropriately.
The Challenge Continues
Parents still continue to play a role in the education of their children no matter what the age will be. It is a fact of life that no matter how old children get, they will still turn to their parents for wisdom. The focus may no longer be the things that you can pick up in the classroom but the learning still continues.
What the parents need to find now would be the balance of finding just how to present that information. The parents also need to be able to judge when it would be better to let their child learn the lesson through practical experience.
Speaking directly to the parents out there today: what challenges with your role in education have you faced?
