5 Ways to Help Your Child Get Ahead in School

Every parent wants to make sure they do everything they can to help their child get ahead in school, especially at a young age when brains are most formative and everything is now foundational.
Since every child is different, this can be a tricky area to navigate, especially for new parents or parents with numerous children under one roof.
A number of things can help any child get ahead, though, even if the way these things are achieved may have to be tweaked to fit individual personalities, schedules, and homes.
How Does Parent Involvement Affect Your Child’s Success?
A family that encourages learning at home and parents involving themselves in their child’s education has a huge impact on their child’s success.
Parent engagement is the sharing of responsibility between teachers and parents to help their children learn, meet educational goals, and achieve their dreams. Therefore, there’s a commitment between the two. Teachers commit to listening and collaborating with parents, while parents commit to focusing on their child’s educational goals.
Below are some effects of parent involvement on a child’s success:
- Increases academic achievement
- Better classroom behavior
- High happiness levels
- Strong sense of morality
- Improves skills
- Values achievement and success more
There are several ways on how parents can involve themselves in their child’s education. Parents can be behaviorally involved, which means they participate in activities like attending school meetings, participating in parent organizations, and volunteering on special events.
The second way is being personally involved where they communicate about school matters with their child positively and help them study at home.
And lastly, being cognitively involved by exposing their child to stimulating activities. An example of this is sending your child to a school with a wide range of activities they can participate in, such as singing in a choir, learning photography, competing in a triathlon, taking math challenges, and more. That said, Beachborough Prep School is a school that offers such activities to nurture your child and help them achieve their goals.
Now that you already know the importance of parent’s involvement in your child’s success, here are a few effective ways you can make sure that your young child gets ahead in school early on!

Support a Positive Learning Environment at Home
Though most of a child’s learning seems to happen at school, it’s important to make sure their atmosphere at home promotes positive and effective learning.
One way you can do this is by keeping the overall atmosphere at home as peaceful as possible. This is, of course, easier in some homes than others, but maximizing your home’s potential in this department can really make a difference.
This can be done by keeping the overall environment organized and avoiding clutter while also ensuring there is sufficient time throughout the day where kids can get their work done with as little interruption as possible (aside from homework aid, of course).

Create a Work Space
Additionally, it’s extremely beneficial to make sure there is an area for your child or children to complete their work effectively.
Some homes have offices or studies, but for those that don’t, having a little table or desk dedicated to getting work done goes a long way.
You can spruce up the area by adding a whiteboard or bulletin board, keeping a fair amount of stationery like post-it notes and paper, having folders dedicated to graded assignments or other documents that need to be saved, and more.
David Dodge, CEO of children’s educational software Codakid, stresses the importance of neat and organized workspaces in the home:
“Kids can have a hard time keeping themselves on task and organized because they haven’t really learned those skills yet. They’re full of energy and haven’t developed the tools to harness it into productivity. If they have a neat, positive place to get all of their work done, they’ll have a much easier time separating the work and play in their life and remaining productive.”
Of course, every child will be different in how they want their productive spaces set up and organized, but it could make for a fun weekend family project to put together an area that will make it easy for them to get their homework done and plan out their homework weeks.
Teach Them Organizational Skills

Getting your child properly set up to get all of their work done at home peacefully and efficiently is a perfect segue into helping them become independent with their own organizational skills.
By tackling motivational skills, you can also be sure to maximize on motivation through a self-starting environment that will absolutely pay off in the long run.
Easy ways to help teach your child lasting organizational skills include:
- Keeping an agenda: there are countless options for various types of agendas, planners, etc. They are a great investment for ensuring your child stays on top of everything they have to do, including their schedule. If your school does not already supply some form of agenda for your child, definitely make sure to invest in one.
- Minimizing clutter: By ensuring your child keeps their room and workspace free of clutter, you are making it significantly easier for them to tackle everything efficiently and with positive headspace. However, you motivate your child to keep things decluttered (allowance, privileges, etc.) is up to you and your family dynamic, but making sure it is a priority is what matters.
- Taking and organizing notes: helping your child figure out how to take notes effectively will help immensely both in the classroom and when it is time to study. Help them develop an organized system (bullet points, dividers in their binders, highlighting, color coordinating) that will make sense when they revisit.
- Organizing books and files: this can be done alphabetically, numerically, or by subject and placed in bins, drawers, folders, or shelves; anything that makes the most sense to your child is fair game. This will minimize unnecessary stress caused by disorganized piles of books and papers and help them focus on what really matters: studying the material.
Applying these tools across the board
Of course, this is also an easy transition into teaching your children study skills by helping them apply all of this to their study habits.
Organizing papers, scheduling time to study and times to take breaks, finding the study tricks that work best for them, and taking diligent notes are crucial to developing at a young age. They will last all the way through university and into adult life.
Promote Healthy Eating Habits

Nutrition is a key element in maintaining your child’s motivation, focus and productivity.
One of the most important ways to do this is by making sure your child goes to school already mentally ready to tackle the day by eating breakfast.
Of course, different families have different budgets and time allotments to dedicate to breakfast, especially with how hectic it can be in the mornings when trying to get everyone to work and school on time.
A nutritious breakfast can come in many forms and can often be prepared the night before. Fruit, healthy granola bars, low-sugar cereals, and toast are all perfect for rushed mornings.

If your kids don’t typically feel hungry in the morning, stock up on foods that they can take with them like breakfast bars, nuts, or half-sandwiches that they can snack on either on the way or between classes when they work up an appetite.
After school, try to promote healthy snacking that will maintain focus and positive energy before dinner. A lot of the same healthy breakfast options like fruit, nuts, and granola bars can be applied here.
It’s important to realize that not only does proper nutrition help your child get ahead in school now, but it is also something that they will typically carry with them for the rest of their lives. Healthy portions and food options are critical to introducing early on, and it’s one of the easier things to do for your child!
Teach Them How to Code

Unless you yourself are an expert coder, this may be something to accomplish through outside help and lessons.
Luckily, learning to code is easier, more fun, and more accessible than ever. Plus, it is often encouraged for young children in today’s tech-heavy environment! Many programs and resources are even completely free.
Coding is critical for modern kids to learn because the tech industry is expanding at rapid rates. It is expected that there is be around one million open jobs in the U.S. tech industry by 2020, and it is still only
Check out the Kano Tablet for an awesome tool that allows your child to not only code with an easy step-by-step build your own tablet kit.

There are also various other skills that children learn through codings, such as problem-solving, creativity, communication, mathematical skills, and more.
Coding is also something that is a great deal of fun. Your kids can learn how to make their own games and develop exciting skills that aren’t always taught in schools, even if they are immensely beneficial to students’ educations.
Whether your child is interested in STEM industries or something entirely different, coding is definitely something to look into to promote lasting skills in your child that can be used in future academic, personal and professional settings alike.
Get Involved

Getting involved with your child’s education early on is a great way to make sure you know what’s going on in their world and help encourage them to thrive.
It is always easy to find ways to get involved in your child’s educational life, whether through their school or extracurricular development.
Aside from attending teacher-parent meetings and functions and getting involved with the school itself to the best of your ability, there are plenty of other ways to maximize your involvement:
- Help with school bake sales
- Volunteer as a homeroom parent or class helper
- Chaperone field trips or school parties
- Attend school board meetings
- Give a talk for career day
- Organize class parties
- Join a parent-teacher group or organization at the school
- Attend school events like plays or concerts
Every parent has a different schedule, causing their ability to be also involved to vary. There are plenty of small ways to do so, though, and they definitely help you get closer to your child’s life and make a difference.
In Summary

There are plenty of ways to help your child develop their talents and abilities as much as their potential allows, and any parent would want to maximize that as much as possible.
By supporting a positive learning environment, instilling organizational skills, staying on top of your child’s nutrition, teaching them to code, and getting involved, you already going above and beyond for your child’s development!
For more great tips on being the best mom, you can be for your unique child, make sure to look through our other fantastic posts!