During the Circuit Breaker Measures, parents are guiding their child to complete school assignments in their home based learning.
While some may wish that their children can go back to school soon, there are many parents who see this as an opportunity to spend more time with their kids and contribute part of their knowledge growth.
If you are wondering if you can continue to tutor your child after this pandemic is over, this is the question to ask yourself:
Should You Tutor Your Child?
If you are thinking about tutoring your child despite your busy schedule, you need to consider several factors to get it to work.
First, you have to see if you have the time to do it yourself and when you can do it without affecting your work and chores around the house.
You need to make sure that you can commit to this task regularly, as well as have the academic knowledge and discipline to do it.
You should also consider your child’s personality because this will tell you how they will respond to your tutoring.
If your child doesn’t listen to you and if you easily get impatient with your children, the whole activity will not work. However, if your child is attentive and enjoy his lessons with you, tutoring can work wonders.
How do you tutor your child at home?
If you think that you can handle tutoring your child at home, you should make sure that the lessons will be something your child will look forward to every time that it happens.
Here are some tips to help you tutor your children at home:
1) Find out what learning style they have
Every child varies on how they take in information.
Some prefer getting information through text and spoken content, while others prefer seeing visually through pictures or videos. There are also children who like to learn through various formats instead of just focusing on one medium.
Take some time to see how your child prefers getting their information so that you can tweak your teaching sessions to match it. If your child finds it easier to memorise through pictures, use pictures if you can. For further details on learning styles, check out this article.
2) Create a learning space for your child at home
When tutoring your child at home, it is important that the session is done in a place where there’s minimum distractions for your children. If you have an extra space at home, make it your child’s study room and fill it with the things they will need for their studies.
It must also be comfortable for them to use and inspire them to learn. If you don’t have such a space at home, you can find a quiet spot in your home to do it.
3) Design your study plan
You can’t just haphazardly teach topics to your kids just because you find it easy, especially if they are following a certain syllabus for their subjects.
Speak to their teacher about your child’s curriculum and device your session plan around it. You can also start collecting resources that you will use for your sessions and design a schedule on how you will teach your child throughout the semester.
4) Invest on the right resources
Your child’s textbooks are not always enough to provide the information your child needs to understand subjects. Invest in books that will inspire your child to learn more about the topics they are studying in school.
Pick the ones written by top educators and experts and if there is a set available about a certain topic, purchase it for your child. Here is how you should choose assessment books for your child.
If your child prefers reading using their tablets, you can invest in e-books, online libraries and subscriptions.
5) Help them understand the way concepts work
If you will be tutoring your child in math and science, you need to help them grasp the concept in a way they understand.
You can do this by doing home experiments like our suggestions, visiting the kid-friendly libraries here, or by showing them videos showing these concepts in action.
6) Don’t be afraid to give rewards
Some children need an incentive to do well in their studies.
This could be in the form of good feedback or a reward. If they do good in your session, don’t be afraid to say that they did do well to keep them motivated. If they are feeling particularly tricky to deal with, have a reward ready to inspire them to do their best.
Make sure not to do this regularly so that your child understands that they do have to work hard for their studies with or without a reward.
7) Be Patient
Your patience may be tested depending on how your child reacts towards your sessions. If your child is still young, the pressure is much higher because you have to make sure they stay put as you try to teach them their lessons.
If you feel like your patience is running thin, call for a break and step out of your child’s view while you get your feelings in check. If your child sees that you are getting annoyed, they may blame themselves for causing it and become demotivated to continue learning.
8) Ask your spouse, partner or relative to step in
It is unavoidable for some of us not to have time to teach our children at home because of work. Others may find it hard to make time at all because you have other children to take care of.
If your spouse, partner or relative can step in, don’t be afraid to ask for their help. They can introduce other ways for your child to learn and improve bonding time.
9) Your Child’s Interest Should Be Considered
When trying to teach your children yourself, you should make sure that your child’s interest is taken into consideration when devising your sessions.
For example, if your child loves animals, you can use animals to teach them how to count and do simple equations.
10) Be ready to let a professional to step in
If you think your expertise is not enough to teach your child other aspects of their lessons, don’t be afraid to ask a professional tutor to step in. Our professional tutors can take over the classes for you and supplement the work you have done so far.
Conclusion
Tutoring your child yourself at home is a choice that you shouldn’t make lightly. Your child’s education is very important for their future and a poor foundation due to poor tutoring. Having said all that, imparting knowledge to your child is highly rewarding and satisfying, definitely worth stretching your patience to the max!
Take some time to ask yourself if you have what it takes to tutor your child yourself and if you think you can, may these tips help you out. Good luck!
For free resources to teach your child at home, check these out:
The Best Homeschooling Resources Online
How to Teach Your Child Phonics at Home?
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