#129 Parental Influence for Effective Learning

With so much going on…what do I share with you this week? So many different possible perspectives, but as I haven’t written anything specifically for parents in a while, I’m going to share some content from a presentation I delivered on behalf of ‘Parentkind’ this week. My grateful thanks go to this organisation, who have invited me back 4 times to deliver on the same topic of; ‘How to Help Your Child Achieve in School.’

Parentkind acts as a hub for all the parent-teacher associations across the UK, providing regular sessions for their members on a range of topics relating to education. Judging by the fact that hundreds of people have signed up over time to attend my session, there appears to be a genuine concern on the part of many parents about what more they can do to be supportive of their child’s education.

As parents, we hold in our hearts many different hopes and dreams in relation to our children's future, some of which will be dependent on what happens during those years in school. Our perspective can change over time as our offspring work their way through formal education, experiencing ever changing surroundings, personnel, routines and curriculum. So, just stop for a moment to consider if any of the following Top 10 parental desires, are what you want most for your child at the moment;

1. Sense of Belonging
2. Good Mental Health
3. Academic Progress
4. Successful Transitions
5. Effective Study Skills
6. Confident Exam Preparation
7. Sense of Achievement
8. Higher Aspirations
9. Feeling Safe
10. Greater Motivation

Alongside those hopes and dreams, or maybe even because of them, we can also experience some frustration in relation to the education system. Although it can sometimes be a particular school causing concern, more often than not, it’s the system itself that’s failing our children. Most teachers are doing their absolute best under less-than-ideal conditions, but that doesn’t take away the real concern experienced by individual parents over the progress of their own children in school. Take a look at the Top 10 parental worries that I hear most often, and see which ones might be resonating with you at the moment;

1. School not delivering on promises

2. Lack of influence over your child’s schooling

3. Physical/mental exhaustion of teachers

4. Reduction in child’s willingness to engage with school

5. Limited progress following years of disruption

6. Large class sizes

7. The shortage of qualified staff

8. Out of date curriculum with emphasis on exams

9. Difficulty with a specific subject area

10. A lack of communication between home and school

Now I don’t want to bore you with too many lists, but there's one final thing to consider before we look at solutions, and that’s the barriers which a growing number of children and young people face when it comes to learning in school. Just take a quick look and see if you can relate to any of the Top 10 potential barriers to learning that might be impacting on your child’s academic progress at the moment;

1. Physical Disabilities
2. Autistic Spectrum Disorders
3. Language Barriers
4. Executive Function Disorders?
5. Impact of Trauma
6. Specific Learning Difficulties
7. Previous Poor Educational Experiences
8. Disadvantage Gap – Limited Opportunities
9. Disrupted Education
10. Lack of Self-Belief

Not all of the above hopes, concerns and barriers will affect every family, but each time I deliver this webinar, cumulatively, almost every number appears in the ‘chat’ from attendees being asked to record which hopes and fears affect them most. This is a very real issue and many parents are keen to know what they can ‘do’ to make a difference for their child. It feels sometimes like a no-win situation because the system is so rigid and fighting it can be a seriously uphill battle.

I have some really good news on this front though; You may not have much influence over the education system as a whole, but you can certainly influence your child’s experience of it.

The quickest and most effective way to make a difference, is to focus on your child’s ability to learn, rather than focusing on their education. That’s where metacognition comes in, and why I specialise in developing the skill in learners. You can send your child to school with a different kind of mindset that enables them to rise beyond expectations.

Cognition is the natural ability that we’re all born with in order to learn. That instinctive learning keeps us safe and helps us reduce our vulnerability by being a relatively unconscious process that builds a massive database really quickly. The problem with learning in school is that it’s not naturally experiential or under the child’s control. So ‘going beyond’ normal cognition is needed, ie; metacognition. Developing metacognition at home quite naturally through the way we communicate, is where a parent can have the greatest influence.

Metacognition is all about making learning more conscious, enabling a student to become less dependent on the system, engage more effectively with the curriculum, and take greater control over their own progress. In my experience any child, barring serious health problems is capable of making that change, often surprising themselves as well as parents and teachers, with what the are able to achieve.

I've covered what parents can do to kickstart the development of metacognition in their children in previous issues, but if you don’t want to trawl back through over a hundred articles to find that, make sure you subscribe to this newsletter, which will ensure that you receive the next issue, where I will repeat that information for the sake of new readers.

Take care till then.

Warm regards

Liz