Don’t Make These 6 Singaporean Mistakes in Your Child’s Home Tuition

Can your child still fail despite having tons of home tuition? Yes! There are many ways home tuition can go wrong. And when things do go wrong, Singaporean parents blame everyone; the tuition agency, the home tutor, their child – everyone, except themselves.

Truth is, parents often underestimate the impact and role they can have in making home tuition successful for their child. We present to you: The 5 most common mistakes Singaporean parents make that undermines the effectiveness of their child’s home tuition experience.

This may seem obvious, but a lot of parents hire home tutors unnecessarily. When a child is scoring good grades and has good study habits, you probably can avoid having home tuition. If your child scored 90 marks in his recent mid-year exams, he doesn’t need a math tutor 2 times a week!

While we appreciate your good business, having too much home tuition on top of school and CCA commitments can overwork your child and have negative effects instead. As the saying goes, “All work and no play make Jack a dull boy”. Sometimes, less is more!

While parents will be naturally curious how the session is going, you should avoid hovering over the home tuition session at all costs. This is not only quite annoying, but can be very distracting to both your child and the home tuition teacher. Some parents even join in the tuition lessons. This can quickly create awkward situations and make the tutor very uncomfortable. In fact, it is surprisingly one of the common reasons tutors stop teaching after one lesson!

The fact that you have hired the home tutor means that you need to give a little trust so that the home tuition teacher can do their job! If you have followed some of our home tuition tips, things should never go horribly wrong. If it is the first few lessons, you can always ask your child for feedback after the lesson. Don’t hover!

As home tutors ourselves, there’s almost nothing worse when our students turn up to lessons half-dead. They certainly do not wish to be there, but are forced by parents!

These situations most commonly occur on weekday evening lessons when the students come after their CCAs. Look, we completely understand that you want to keep that Saturday morning free because it’s where your family visits grandma’s place. Yes, family time is important.

However, realize that your child is also human. Often, school can go for 7-9 hours, and then they have CCAs. By the time it’s evening, they have already ran out of physical and mental energy! A one-to-one tuition session is often paced faster than class learning and demands a lot of mental energy. Always allow them some time to rest before the tuition session and avoid scheduling sessions after busy days or close to bedtime. Hey, sometimes even sacrificing that weekend once in a while is worth it!

Some parents give up completely when one tuition teacher does not work out. Others stick to the same tuition teacher even though clearly it is not producing results. Remember, home tuition is a very individualized service, and the tuition can go wrong for many reasons! In fact, it often takes 2 tries before parents can find the right home tutor for their child’s situation.

When your child is evidently unhappy with the current tuition teacher and clearly not improving after 3 months, it is advisable to seek a new tuition teacher. There are plenty of options offered by SmileTutor. Sometimes a fresh start can completely turnaround things.

This is the direct opposite of mistake #4. The worst nightmare of any tuition agency is a parent who likes to flip tutors like pancakes. Doing this wastes the time and money of not only the tuition agency, the tutor, but also yourself. It also delays proper tuition help that your child receives.

Understand that it takes time for tutor and student to break the ice and familiarize with each other’s learning and teaching styles. Most tutors are actually decent teachers and sincerely want to help your child. We always recommend you do at least 4 lessons with each tutor before evaluating and deciding whether to continue, not after one lesson!

P.S. You do not want to be that infamous household that tuition agencies are secretly gossiping about. Yes, we’re telling you, there are such cases.

Often, parents are overly concerned with the qualifications, gender, race, age, experience etc. of the home tutor. However, they neglect the fact that such factors do not correlate with the teaching style, level of responsibility, commitment, and personality of the tutor. Having a lot of paper requirements will only limit our tutor search and lengthen the time it takes for you to find your home tutor.

Smiletutor always prioritize tutors that we know or have had good reviews by parents. This is because we know that paper credentials do not mean as much as the tutor’s character and work attitude. In fact, there have been a lot of really good tutors who at first may not seem to have that much credentials.

Much like matchmaking, you should not choose a partner just based on his paper qualifications, right? You meet them and find out first if you ‘click’! That’s exactly what we always recommend to parents who are concerned about tutors. We are one of the few tuition agencies that will allow conference calls prior to hiring home tutors.

So, there you have it! The 6 most common mistakes that parents make when hiring home tuition in Singapore. Without a doubt, home tuition is very costly. Which is why as parents, you have every right to be so concerned with whether the tuition is effective. Hopefully, you’ve benfitted from this article and now know how to take practical steps to avoid these mistakes and to ensure a better home tuition experience for your child.

If you liked this article, or know other common mistakes that parents make in hiring home tuition, please talk to us in the comments below!

Related: How to Get the Most Out Of Home Tuition with Your Singapore Tutor