Back to school 2024: Effective tips for parents
Stacey Cohen, an Educational Psychologist and the founder of Budding Minds, shares a few tips to help parents support their children on their journey of learning.
Many schools in South Africa will be opening for the 2024 academic year next week.
Witnessing your child starting school can be a nerve-wracking experience.
Most parents feel excited yet anxious because they want their children to thrive in their academic journey.
Language is a crucial part of communication and when children know how to communicate and understand what is communicated, it helps them thrive in school.
Stacey Cohen, an Educational Psychologist, says: "Parents can do simple things such as having conversations and constantly talking to their children to promote language development (increase exposure to language)."
READ: Mom's response to kids going back to school: "Now, I can have my me time"
Children learn through play. Playing allows children to increase their imagination and creativity while developing their cognitive skills.
Stacey encourages parents to "play stimulating games" with their children "to keep them engaged and thinking".
She says, for example, the game can be parents asking their children "to spot as many green things as possible; to identify any animals; to sing along to some rhymes in the car".
Creating art is also another way to ensure kids can improve their cognitive skills.
"Allowing children to do arts and craft activities at home will allow them to practice working with glue, scissors, holding crayons, and orientating paper. Educational games and crafts done by the whole family in a casual environment may help them form a good attitude towards learning."
Stacey also says parents can foster a positive attitude towards learning by regularly reading to their children.
"In addition to this, I have found parents who read to their children every night foster a positive attitude towards literacy and those children appear to develop the skills for comprehension as well as easier letter recognition when they begin school," she concludes.
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