Academically, it is important to begin to prepare your child’s school supplies and to go shopping for all supplies that are required (school generally provide lists of necessities).
Schools often have calendars given to each child with room to write the daily homework plan and is also used as an organizer. If your child’s school does not provide such a format, then create organizational systems for your child. Child can learn to use highlighters, story webs (in upper grades), file folders, binders with color-coding and the like.
Create a good, quiet place for homework. A desk or a table with a in a well-lighted area is perfect. It is best if you are not sitting alongside your child during homework time. It is not the parent’s job to go to school again or to do ”fix and finish.” Your child’s classroom teacher needs to know what subjects are posing learning problems for your child and they learn this with a note attached to homework that was difficult to complete. It is good to provide a cork bulletin board in your child’s room to write notes, have a calendar and begin to keep plans, long range assignments, social play dates and the like.
It is important to plan an annual check-up with your child’s pediatrician. The doctor can be given health forms that many schools require and could be asked to complete them before school begins. Have a note ready for the school if your child requires medication to be given during the school day. All such medication is to be left with the school nurse or appointed office workers.
Review your child’s schedule and help to increase your child’s self-worth through praise and encouragement. Encourage reading of books by your child at his or her reading success level and do this at a family reading time where each family member gives small summaries/reports verbally of the completed book and what was enjoyable or not about the book. This is a method to prepare your child for classroom work in a fun, family way. Make a poster with the names of all the books that each family member has read in this last month before school begins. This is not a timed or competitive book race, just a book poster log that could be added to over the school year. Hang this up in a central family place in your home. You could even rent movies that have been made about the books that have been completed at family film time!
Make sure as parents that you have created a safe and sane morning routine to keep the family from being hurried and harried. Go over the routine with your child.
Do a similar activity with the after-school evening routine. Parents – please try NOT to talk on your cell phone speaker with your children in the car. Always try to model positive behaviors and car time is an opportunity to be pleasant and either chatty or silent if that is what pleases your child who will be entering the school day once exiting from the car. Do the same for an expectable evening routine. Be sure to add family time: a family game time, staying away from screen time, turning off cell phones and attendant technology (except if used for homework) if you, as parents, wish to focus positively on your family. Doing this helps with social communication.
Take all the time needed to have family experiences, praise your child’s strengths and let him or her know that whatever weakness they may perceive can be overcome and that you, as parents, will help him or her with whatever intervention is needed.
Make a comprehensive lunch list with your child if you are packing his or her lunch on a daily basis. Let your child make a weekly menu of lunches every Saturday or Sunday from that list. This will certainly help to avoid lunch arguments. Let you child learn to prepare some items that will go into the lunch bag/box. Learning reality jobs such a cooking and bed making and laundry is something that a child should learn well before they are 14 years old. Gaining a sense of personal responsibility is key in growth of independence and self-esteem.
About Lori Denman-Underhill
