With our society growing increasingly competitive, tuition is very common nowadays. Parents hire private tutors or register at tuition centres to help their children catch up in their academics.
However, because of how convenient and widespread it is nowadays, many parents forget or are not aware of the etiquette that they should uphold with their tutor, which can result in conflicts, tutors losing motivation to teach and cancelling on the assignment.
Here are some ways you can prevent that from happening; to maintain a healthy relationship with your child’s tutor and help them to help your child.
Trust them
It is normal for parents to feel anxious when they engage a tutor and wonder if the hard-earned money that they are investing is put to good use. However, they need to take the leap of faith and have trust that the tutor will help their child.
This is why it is important for parents to do thorough research on the tuition centre’s credibility and get to know the tutor properly before deciding to engage them, so that they can feel more assured with their choice.
If you’d like to know of your child’s progress and how effective the tuition has been for your child, you can ask your child for their feedback after the session, instead of closely surveilling the tutor which can make the tutor feel uncomfortable.
Some parents want to sit in during the private tuition lessons so that they can observe the tutor’s teaching firsthand.
Although some tutors may be comfortable with that, the last thing you should do is to interrupt the tutor while they’re teaching with your comments, as that would be very disrespectful.
Talk to them with respect
Tutors are just doing their job in trying to help your child. They, too, are humans with emotions and deserve to be respected.
Many parents are too critical and demanding of the tutor that they engage and it slips their mind that a tutor’s job is not easy.
Should you have any feedback for the tutor, phrase it in a respectful manner and practice effective communication.
Discipline your child
The main job of a tutor is to help your child in their academics, and not to discipline the child. The responsibility of disciplining the child lies with the parents.
Ensure that your child shows respect to their tutor. If you notice or have received feedback from the tutor that your child was being rude, you should take the responsibility to discipline them and offer an apology to the tutor.
It is common for tutors to receive verbal abuse from the students and parents need to take matters into their own hands.
Some students are also uncooperative in completing their delegated tasks or homework that are required to help them progress in their learning. If you are aware of that as a parent, you should also take charge in disciplining them.
Ensure that they complete the homework that is assigned to them before their lesson, so that their tuition lessons can be more effective.
Don’t contact them outside of their work hours
Most of the time, parents will have the contact numbers of the private tutors that they hire for their children. Parents should not take advantage of this and bother the tutors after their working hours.
Tutors are being paid for the lessons that they conduct, hence parents and students should clarify what they need to during lesson time. A tutor’s time off of work should be respected.
Pay them on time
Some tutors depend on their pay for their livelihood. As with any job, you need to take responsibility and be transparent with the fees that you pay to the tutor you hired or the tuition centre.
Otherwise, you may risk the tutor cancelling your assignment, or getting blacklisted by the tuition centre.
Don’t demand immediate results
Tutors are only humans who are there to help your child to have a better understanding in their studies. They are not machines that can guarantee immediate and consistent results.
Other factors may play a part in your child’s results and improvement. They might be distracted or unmotivated due to other reasons. It is ultimately up to the student to put in the effort and want to improve.
Conclusion
Just like any other job, tutors also need to feel respected and appreciated. Tutoring is a respectable job in which tutors help to bridge the gap in a student’s academic understanding.
If the parents are causing trouble for the tutors in doing their job, the tutors will lose their motivation and it is difficult for them to carry on even if they wanted to help your child.
Parents should work hand in hand and support the tutors to help their children improve.
If you are a tutor wondering how you can deal with parents who are not supportive of you in your job, read our article for tutors here.
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