Educate the Parents

Parents have a significant role in their children’s learning particularly in early years. Therefore, it is said that home is their first school and parents are their first teachers. It is a place where they start to realise the importance of learning. For this, parents can do a lot of things together with their children. For instance, they can explore nature together, read together, cook together, and count together. They can set an example by showing children good manners and appropriate social behaviour. In fact, they support children to learn with everyday life experiences so that the latter should be curious towards learning.

Of course, the parents’ education level determines how they define learning, although some sort of social pressure is usually involved, too. Unfortunately, the community where I have been working currently has a majority of parents who have limited education and their definition of “learning” is also restricted within learning alphabet, numbers and homework alone at children’s very early learning stages.

It has hardly been three weeks since they first sent their three year olds to school and yet they are already demanding that their children should be able to do the things mentioned above. Let’s take a couple of examples.
One parent whose child has not developed her speaking skill fully comes to me and says, “Ma’am, my daughter does not have enough homework; I want her to learn A, B, C…quickly.” For her, homework means writing. The poor girl is learning to speak and the mother wants her to write A, B, C…and 1, 2, 3…Another counter argues, “My daughter knows A, B, C, 1, 2, 3 and all nursery rhymes and even some writing,” to my statement, “She is very young, so do not pressure her; let her learn at her own pace.” 

In contrast to parents’ opinions, my observation indicates that these children are learning many things after coming to school. Some examples include: to greet their teachers and friends; to wash their hands before and after eating their meals; to go to the toilet independently; to take off their shoes before entering their classroom; to follow their daily school schedule; to make friends and many more. They all have also been exposed to literacy and numeracy which they have been learning according to their individual learning capacity. Unfortunately, parents do not seem to notice their children’s development in other aspects except for in reciting the alphabet, numbers or nursery rhymes. 

Research suggests that if parents positively involve themselves in their children’s learning, the latter’s achievement level will be higher in comparison to those children whose parents do not do so. It is high time the parents were educated about what learning means in the contemporary world and how children gradually develop their learning abilities and how these abilities differ from each other. They should be discouraged to compare their child with his classmates. If parents are not aware of their role to help their children to flourish in different sectors, it will be hard for children to explore their potential to the fullest. Rote learning alone is simply not good enough for survival in the 21st century.

(Published in an English Daily The Rising Nepal on Friday, Feb. 16, 2018 ) 

 [The pictures on this blog are posted here with permission from their owners or have been gathered from various sources on the Internet. If you are the copyright-holder to any of the photographs herein do not hesitate to contact me. They will be swiftly removed if desired so.]