3 Key Ways Parents Can Get Involved in School (Without Leaving Home!)

You can help your child achieve success in school by working together with your child’s teacher. A solid partnership with their teacher can lead to more effective communication and collaboration with your teen, both at school and at home. This, in turn, allows both you and your child’s teacher to open opportunities for your child to build social, emotional and academic skills. Your involvement in their school can make a real difference. 

Your Involvement Can Mean Big Academic Benefits for Your Student …

Working together to support students has been shown to lead students to get higher grades and feel motivated to do their best work. It’s also been shown that students with involved parents and caregivers maintain better attendance, have lower dropout rates, and have higher academic aims post-high school. 

… and More Than Academics

Your involvement can mean even more than just an impact on school performance. This involvement can allow your child to build social and emotional skills, including self-awareness and relationship-building when the partnership is coordinated between the school and home. And while we wish all schools had the same resources, the reality is they may vary widely from school to school. But involvement from parents and caregivers makes a difference in all schools. 

Get Involved Without Leaving Home

There are plenty of reasons why it can be difficult for families to get involved in schools. They may range from overwhelming work schedules to language barriers to stretched resources that leave school faculty with little time to develop ways for families to get involved in the first place. But here are three essential ways you can work to get involved with your child’s education – that don’t necessarily require you to even go to their school. 

1) Establish the Best Communication Methods (With the Teacher)

Every teacher has their preferred method of communicating with their students and their students’ families or caregivers. Determine early in the school year if they prefer emails, texts, phone calls, or notes in a backpack. That way you can keep up with your child’s progress and reach out if there are any issues. Don’t be afraid to speak up if your adolescent has specific concerns or challenges. You can also use the preferred method of communication to reach out and thank them when things go well with your child’s education. 

2) Get Them Reading!

Encouraging your child toward a love of reading may be the single most important thing you can do to help with their school success. Model by reading books on your own so they see it’s an essential part of your life. Have them establish a reading goal for the school year. Read books together and discuss them as you do. (Think of it like an informal family “book club!”) Think streaks are just for games? Think again. Some e-readers, including Apple Books, track reading streaks. If your teen reads paper books or an e-reader that doesn’t track their streak, gamify it by tracking it yourself. Race your teen to keep up a streak, or reward yourselves after you hit a milestone.

3) Encourage a Positive View of Education

Not all parental school involvement happens at the school. Let your children know about your attitudes and positive values surrounding education. Talk about your academic expectations and dreams for them in their education. Doing so motivates them to work through the educational challenges they may face. Talking about your own academic challenges and how you overcame them helps your teen see that everyone struggles sometimes.

Send your child the clear message that you want to be engaged in their education. Even if you can’t attend PTA meetings or volunteer at school for various projects, ask your child, “What can I do at home to help reinforce what you’re doing at school?” This type of involvement makes a difference to your child’s success. 

For even more ways to get involved in your child’s school, click here.