How Parents Can Help To Motivate Their Children In Learning By Alvin Poh

Below is a checklist of parental behaviors that can facilitate the motivation of our children to learn. None of these suggestions in and of itself is enough to spell the difference between a child who studies and one who does not. Rather, it is their combination and employment as a totality that can realistically help our sons and daughters to consistently involve themselves in the pursuit of learning at school as well as at home.

• Actively Demonstrate Your Value For Learning

The basic question here is "Can your children see that you are still a learner?"

Do you read books, go to the library, write letters, watch educational TV programs, or attend local school functions?

Do you discuss ideas at home, share opinions on social and political change, or wonder out loud about new scientific and aesthetic discoveries?

Do you read to your children, play educational games like Monopoly, Cash Flow and chess with them, or facilitate their involvement in creative projects?

Your children look upon us as their role models. If they see you doing it, then they know it's worthwhile and can identify with you. If they don't see you enjoying learning, they can dismiss your support for learning as another example of "not practicing what you preach."

• Show A Non-threatening Interest In Your Child's Learning

This means that you care and want to know what your child is learning, but not for purposes of criticism or surveillance. In this manner you might ask about what he is learning in school or indicate your desire to see papers and projects he is creating.

Meal time is an excellent time for exploration of new things your child has learned at school. On these occasions your disposition should be to understand and share in the enjoyment of your child's learning. They are not situations in which to criticize or be demanding of the child to improve or to show superior work. Such reactions will usually cause the young person to avoid discussions of this nature - or worse, to resent schoolwork for the oppression it brings to home life.

Hence I'd recommend all parents do their best to create a motivating moments for their children at every meal time with the family.

• Consistently Offer Your Child A Sincere Expectancy That He Can Learn Eeffectively

In order to learn, children must believe that they can learn. Much of this attitude is influenced by the work they do in school and the expectations and feedback they receive from teachers and other students. You as a parent, however, are the most important adult in your child's life. Whatever you say or do regarding her ability to learn will have a major impact on the child's self-concept as an effective learner.

By acknowledging effort as well as success, you tell the child that the intrinsic act of learning is valued. This approach builds an appreciation of learning for the sake of learning.

• Get Involved In Your Child's School

At one time it was believed that students did not learn because they were lazy or stupid. We now know that this is a misleading and injurious myth.

There are two other erroneous beliefs that continue to misguide us:

- Students don't learn because their teachers are not effective;

- Students will not learn because their parents don't care and therefore don't prepare them to learn.

Both may have some partial truth, but both are far too simplistic to explain the causes behind poor student motivation.

It is far more likely that the student, the teacher and the parent all play significant roles in determining how motivated the student is to learn. As parents, we can do our part by being involved in the life of those schools that educate our children. By knowing the teachers, by being aware of the curriculum, and by supporting the school itself, we ourselves can be more knowledgeable and, indeed, motivated to facilitate the motivation of our children to learn.