How Can Parents Assist Their Wards Attain A Successful Online Study From Their Homes?

Students miss going to school for one thing — a chance to meet and play with their classmates, while parents can’t wait to get their kids back to their teachers. Most parents haven’t met parenting that needs careful attention and so much work.

For many students, the school academic year abruptly came to an end due to the wide-spread of the novel coronavirus across countries. This pandemic posed a threat to all public gatherings of which schools were of no exception. Thus, students had to stay in their homes while practicing the best preventive measures to keep safe.

However, after a long stay at home, some schools in most countries resorted to finding an alternative means to provide a better learning experience for their students while at home. Hence, the introduction of online learning (e-learning).

As a result of this, parents and guardians are now faced with the responsibility to assist in the successful execution of using the online platforms to properly educate their wards.

In this article, we take a look at a list of things parents, guardians, and caregivers can do to help their children thrive in their studies with the online experience during this period.

• Help them create a personal study timetable:

Within the confines of school is a well-structured timetable that regulates the activities of students during the day. Even though online learning comes with a schedule, students are likely to miss live sessions or be inactive in class. It is therefore important that parents and guardians help their wards build effective study routines that will keep them on track and enable them to keep up with lessons. Additionally, parents must equally bear the responsibility of ensuring that timetables are followed religiously.

• Reduce distractions by setting up a designated study or workspace:

With a well-structured system put in place by schools, being in a classroom setting creates an atmosphere that compels students to want to learn and get better grades. Your ward’s ability to focus during study hours is very vital and critical for their success. Hence, a parent that assists his or her child to achieve this, contributes greatly to attaining excellence for their ward regarding their study online.

Having the right workspace and environment designated for your child helps them to easily get rid of distractions thus, focusing on their school work. As a parent or a guardian; identify the environment that works best for your child and help them create it. This will in turn create an enabling environment with little distractions for your ward.

• Familiarize yourself with your child’s online learning platforms:

Utilizing electronic gadgets and technologies to have access to educational materials and curriculum outside the traditional classroom setting is what we term as e-learning.

Soon, the sudden switch to e-learning due to the emergence of COVID will result in school children spending most of their school hours on online platforms for learning. Hence, parents and guardians need to make time to familiarise themselves with these platforms — exploring their usage and how they work to give better feedback to teachers. Children whose parents or guardians get well acquainted with these platforms gain the advantage of being assisted through the use of these online platforms comfortably.

Furthermore, their interaction with the various inbuilt communication tools on these online platforms can be properly monitored by their guardians and inclusively boost the progress of their schoolwork online.

In the end, your involvement as a parent or guardian will serve as a great means of support to your ward.

• Stay In touch with your ward’s teachers:

Online learning does not depict the traditional onsite teaching and learning process that takes place between a student and a teacher. However, the practice of online learning is not void of the teacher-student relationship encouraged in schools. It is worth noting that E-learning is not independently practiced by students. Therefore, parents and guardians must learn to keep open and frequent communications with their ward’s teachers since this is key to their success.

Teachers still play vital roles in the success of your ward’s studies. Thus, be sure to proactively stay in touch with them to be fully abreast of the expectations for your child and how they can properly maximize the usage of the study materials made available to them to attain academic excellence and success.

For most parents and guardians, the unexpected turn of events leading to having their wards move away from a well structured and effective learning curriculum over a long period has been overwhelming. However, assiduously following the steps listed above will go a long way to help parents, guardians, and caregivers in establishing a unique online study culture for their wards in their homes.

Written by Emmanuella Shika Tetteh.