Effective means of school orientation

Effective means of academic guidance for children

Is it better to let the son deal with his academic matters alone, or is interfering in the children’s academic situation better? Is there a clear limit to the academic year that represents a transition from academic assistance to self-reliance?

There are those who specify the fourth grade, and there are those who extend it to the first intermediate grade, and the truth is that it is largely subject to individual differences between children in the ability to comprehend and in their ability to plan and manage their academic schedule, and the extent of the preparation and training they have achieved in basic cognitive skills, and parents should not rush to leave it. Children before verifying their ability and obtaining sufficient preparation, it is possible for the son to achieve success, but this may have long-term damage.

Educators confirm that the strong intervention of parents in their children’s studies would bring about clear academic progress for the children, and would lay the foundation for clear success in their future lives. Some studies have found that family intervention in children’s academic field achieves the following:

• Better grades and higher graduation rates.

• Stronger orientation for children to complete their higher studies.

• More positive behavior in general.

What are the intended forms of educational intervention?

First: Academic preparation: It is necessary to prepare children in advance to receive knowledge, create ways to interact with sources of knowledge, and create a stimulating atmosphere for study, through the following matters:

• Paying attention to establishing knowledge acquisition skills: such as thinking skills, how to be critical, how to solve a problem..., and this can be done through some practices in daily life, such as giving a summary or general ideas about the Friday sermon that the son attended, or criticizing the story that the daughter heard or I read it, or raise a problem in a conversation around the lunch table, discuss skills, write, and summarize ideas, and read to or with children throughout their age groups in a manner appropriate to their ages. (Reading stories and encyclopedias to a preschool child, participating in reading stories, historical novels, and encyclopedias to a school child, reading and discussing with a teenager about topics of interest), and planning skills that can be developed by helping children set a personal or academic goal within an appropriate time frame and take the appropriate steps and scheduling to achieve it. For example, the son sets an hour every day for a week to complete his project.

• Organizing family times so that lunch is served at a specific time to provide the opportunity to continue a specific routine regarding duties without having to reschedule it every day.

• Limit the time for watching television and electronic games - on school days in particular - to one or two hours at most, to stimulate children’s abilities to achieve academic achievement, and to encourage thinking about means and hobbies that develop children’s abilities.

• Providing tools that encourage mastery of performance (pens, types of colors, sizes of rulers, quality of sharpeners, training notebooks, explanatory posters), and providing a dictionary, encyclopedia, atlas, and globe, according to the type of study materials.

• Create the appropriate atmosphere for studying, and reduce distractions as much as possible.

• Helping children to determine the appropriate places and atmosphere for them. The son may prefer to focus in his room alone. Places equipped with a large table, such as the dining room, to create a teamwork atmosphere are among the stimulating things where the family gathers at one table to each of them complete his work, even if the father’s work is to read a newspaper.

• Creating permanent channels of communication with the school and continuous follow-up with teachers about the children’s progress, and attending parent councils to determine the children’s academic needs and their responses to learning requirements.

Second: Paying attention to the psychological factor in the interest in studying:

• Helping children understand the purpose of study and that it is not limited to pleasing parents and teachers, or achieving high grades, but it is a legal requirement through which a person can achieve the highest levels in this world and in the afterlife. It is also a life need that accompanies a person throughout his life in school, work, and even with himself in life. Understand its potential and know what elevates it.

• Helping children to identify their cognitive strategies, and comparing their progress when using a different strategy, for example, the son’s use of the reading and repeating method in a history lesson, for example, and his use of the mind mapping method in another lesson, and the summarizing method in a third, then comparing these methods and determining which are the most or least effective, from This type of comparison helps the son know what he needs to do to increase his chance of success and excellence, and increases his motivation to make an effort.

• Observing the son’s psychological state, as feelings of oppression and distress may hinder his ability to achieve and concentrate. To avoid such feelings, it is necessary to take into account the child’s age stage when determining the time to perform the homework. A teenager can continue for an hour, while a first-grade child is difficult to continue for more than 15 minutes. Without taking a break, it is important to avoid coercion and pressure on children to perform assignments, even if it sometimes requires abandoning the assignment and writing a note of apology to the teacher for that day. This is because repeatedly performing assignments in an atmosphere of distress and oppression leads to the son’s dislike of learning. And studying in general.

• Avoid negative comments that make the child feel helpless, hopeless, or alienated, whether they are comments related to the child’s personality: “What is this stupidity?” Or it has to do with the subject “What is this boring or difficult curriculum” or the school and teachers “Do you call this a school?” “What kind of teacher is this?”

• Asking children daily about their school day - while avoiding the style of accountability - conveys a message to children of parental concern and their expectations for progress and diligence.

In our time, which is full of distractions and temptations, the challenge that parents face in monitoring their children and providing them with academic care increases, as they see their children facing difficult situations in a test that they were unable to prepare for or an assignment that has come due and has not been completed, and they spend tense nights and times filled with stress and suffering, or they see... Another type of child who does not care, does not care about a test or assignment, and does not care about a grade or grade; Can we face this challenge and reduce such painful consequences? In light of the above, we can say yes, with God’s help, if we take into account the reasons for this. The most important aids to this are:

• A sense of responsibility: “You are all shepherds, and you are all responsible for your flock.”

• Always pray for your children. One of the most beautiful prayers I have heard regarding studies is, “O God, teacher of Abraham, teach them, and O teacher of Solomon, make them understand. O God, appoint for them someone who will teach them useful knowledge and help them acquire it.”

• Do your best to prepare them and support them psychologically and financially, and do not let them learn by trial and error.

Dr.. Sahar bint Abdul Latif Kurdi

Family and child counselor