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  • Trust your instincts!

    Friday 11 November 2011

    Categories: Education, Family Relationships, Parenting

    Have you read about the research into how parents can best help their children to do well academically? What’s interesting about this piece of research is not so much the detail – i.e. the more time you spend with your child, the better she will do at school and beyond – but that it confirms that parental instinct is by far the best guide to bringing up children.

    In case you missed it, the extensive research by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) across 14 different countries has found that children who are given encouragement by their mothers or fathers achieve significantly better exam results at the end of secondary school.

    Reading together had the greatest effect on performance at school but strong academic benefits were also produced by a wide range of family activities, including eating family meals round the table, talking to children about their day, discussing television programmes and films and telling stories.

    Of course you instinctively knew that reading with your daughter is a Very Good Thing. It stimulates her imagination and sense of wonder; it helps her develop her reading skills and her concentration span. It’s also enjoyable, intimate and keeps her still! And you knew that talking with her about the television programmes you watch together, showing an interest in her activities and debating over the supper table helps her to develop her opinions and her confidence in expressing them.

    However, the research recognised that many parents are reluctant to offer help with their children’s school work because, sadly, they feel they lack some of the skills. But in fact many activities that are associated with better reading performance involve no specialised knowledge and relatively little time: such activities as encouragement; appropriate praise; sympathetic listening and, most importantly, reading with your daughter all of which will enable her to be the best she can be.

    In other words this study has proved what generations of parents have found out through experience and common sense…parents instincts really are sometimes the best.

    So trust your instincts!

    Posted by Alison Morris

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