By Dimity Kirwan, CEO & Founder of Beyond Teaching
As a parent you want the best for your child, but sometimes it’s tough to know when to step in and how to provide that extra support. As a teacher, we know all the signs! They range from severe disruption or behavior problems to a child simply asking for help and spending every free minute with his/her teacher.
When students get older, it gets harder to encourage them to seek extra help in school. In a
desperate effort to be “cool,” kids feel stigmatized by the need to ask for extra help or even for challenge work (being too brainy can also be a source of ridicule), and they’d rather spend lunchtime with their friends. At the same time, there is an increased sense of pressure to do well once a student enters high school. A student who is struggling but doesn’t want to get extra help in school is at risk of falling behind.
At this point, it’s usually the teachers’ responsibility to inform a parent via weekly communication or parent-teacher conferences. But sometimes, it’s difficult for a teacher to maintain constant communication. In this case, how do you know when your child needs extra support?
The most obvious sign is when your child asks you for help with homework. For stay-at-home parents and parents with elementary-age children, this is an easy fix; however, this is a bigger challenge for working parents and those with teenagers. Teenagers are less inclined to ask for help (parents and teachers included) for the aforementioned reasons, or they’re at the stage where they just won’t listen to you, period. Also, the majority of us never look at the periodic table or a calculus problem after high school. In this case, we need a qualified individual, such as a teacher, to support our child.
Do you remember how to do this?
Here are some more clear and less obvious signs that your child might need a tutor:
- Your child receives failing or poor grades (curriculums often build on earlier units, so getting a tutor after the first quarter/trimester can help your child for later concepts).
- Your child makes excuses about why homework isn’t getting done or gets easily distracted while doing it.
- Your child takes an unusually long time to complete a basic homework assignment.
- Your child seems unhappy in school or expresses frustration with a subject or teacher.
- A teacher communicates with you about your child’s behavior or grades (students tend to act out when they’re struggling with a subject).
- Your child seems to work hard, but still receives mediocre grades.
- Your child says he/she is bored in class (this means he/she needs to be challenged, or he/she is struggling and translating this into boredom).
- Talking about standardized tests or exams triggers stress and anxiety in your child.
- Warnings: high grades don’t always mean a student understands the work. Kids who are sensitive about their grades can find ways to make it up through extra credit, retaking tests, etc.
It’s also important to know what to look for when hiring a tutor. Particularly with high-level content and standardized tests, it’s important to hire an individual with adequate certification in teaching this subject.
Always be sure to find out and look for the following:
- Degree and experience – does the teacher have experience teaching the subject (particularly important in high school); how long has he/she been teaching?
- Special education experience – note teachers who are not certified to teach Special Ed also work with special education children and learn about it as part of their degree.
- What does the tutor do? Is the tutor there to help with specific assignments or do they come prepared with extra work/new techniques and strategies? Does the tutor give assignments?
Finally, there’s always ways for parents to help their child, even if it’s subtle!
- Talk with your child about his/her work; ask if he/she needs help (car rides are always a good time to do this – you have a captive audience).
- Check homework everyday (assigned by the school and the tutor).
- Structure time to do homework.
- Provide a quiet place to study.
- Be available to help, but don’t do the work.
Ultimately, better performance in school translates to higher self-esteem and success later in life, and sometimes all a student needs is for an adult to reach out and ask if they need help!
For information on how to find a tutor, visit www.gobeyondteaching.com or email Dimity at dimity@gobeyondteaching.com.
