May 17 2022

Embrace and Learn from Mistakes and Challenges

by Erik Youngman, Guest Blogger

Regardless of your children’s age and where you live, there are daily opportunities to help children embrace and learn from mistakes and challenges. Teachers and parents have an important shared responsibility and opportunity to model and empower critical skills to children. Children make progress when teachers and parents model and empower learning from mistakes and challenges with a growth mindset. Progress and change are dependent upon specific skills that are required and improved while learning with a growth mindset and become even more important as expectations and rigor increase. [Read more…]

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May 03 2022

Purposeful Parenting Pointers

by Erik Youngman, Guest Blogger

Purposeful parenting pointers provide potential parameters to ponder. Parenting could be considered the most difficult job because of the constantly changing variables. However, parenting is also extremely rewarding. Parents can support children success and healthy social-emotional growth in a variety of ways. While appreciating the monumental lifetime responsibilities of parenting, readers are encouraged to reflect about these potential parenting pointers to provide options to consider at different times for different children.

I frequently tell my three daughters and other students to be patient, polite, positive, and persistent. Enjoy reading additional words that begin with the letter “p” that will help parents empower children. [Read more…]

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Apr 19 2022

Managing Daily Family Life

Once families become busy with work, school, outside enrichment activities, community service, and college and career planning activities, they can easily become overscheduled and stressed by the many demands for their time. Through weekly family meetings, families can sit down together and coordinate their daily schedules. They can determine how household chores will be completed, how to manage allowances, and how they will give back to their communities. Family members can discuss how they will address challenges and an emerging family crisis. They can celebrate successes as a family, discuss family activities, and plan for trips. Each family member can rotate responsibilities when serving as the meeting facilitator or a secretary to record family decisions.

Sample Family Meeting Agenda

A typical family meeting agenda may include the following topics:

A celebration and recognition of a family member’s successes
A review of each member’s household chores for the upcoming week
Clarification of allowances offered to various family members and weekly allowance payment
A discussion of the overall schedule for the coming week including parents’ driving schedules for school drop-offs, afterschool coordinated activities, the childcare schedule, and any special events for the family
A discussion on any community service or volunteer activities for coordination
Ongoing planning for family mini vacations and a longer summer vacation
A discussion and updates on family members or friends who are ill, need added support, or any emerging family need
Anything else that requires discussion, coordination, or support services

Brainstorming Solutions at Family Meetings

Once a family becomes comfortable with the family meeting format, families can actively discuss challenging and difficult topics in relation to the family’s values. If a family member is suffering from a debilitating illness, family members can brainstorm how they can support the family member per the following examples:

All family members can create a series of get-well cards as a family art activity and one member can make sure to mail the card with a message weekly.
Another family member can organize a dinner delivery plan with local neighbors, friends, the extended family, and a church group.
A parent can organize a driving schedule for doctors’ visits.
A family member can help with the financial management of bills and household chores.

As family members work together as a unit and model effective problem-solving skills, the parents and their children model how families can effectively work together to manage daily challenges and emerging critical needs. This model will help children become effective in the daily management of their lives as they become more independent and seek career and college opportunities and experiences beyond their family. [Read more…]

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Apr 05 2022

College and Career Explorations

When children are preschoolers, they love to think about what they want to be when they grow up. Some want to be garbage collectors, doctors, princesses, and athletes. Whatever career passions children relish, it is important to reinforce these interests with relevant play activities and enrichment outings to learn more about various careers. Parents can help children visualize a plan for a career opportunity by encouraging their children to:

Communicate with folks in specific professions.
Research the educational and job requirements for potential careers.
Participate in field trips and community activities to learn more about specific careers.
Attend parents’ work activities and shadow parents, colleagues, and friends to explore various careers
Encourage children to help at work with duplications, mailings, and computer inputting if permitted by the company.
Secure community service volunteer responsibilities, internships, and paid jobs.

As children enter middle school and explore various careers, they must learn how to research various college and career academic requirements to ensure that they are taking the proper courses for a specific career. They can attend career exploration days, meet with college counselors, and attend college tours to learn more about academic preparations. The more children understand the requirements for specific careers, the greater their successes will be to prepare and plan for appropriate course selections.

Early College Options

Early college, or the ability to take college courses in high school, can save thousands of dollars in educational preparations and tuition costs later. Middle school and high school students can learn more about early college by contacting their local school district to determine which high school campuses offer community college courses at the high school site. Parents and students can also contact their local community college to learn which courses high school students can register for during and after the school day. Additionally, many state and private colleges offer summer and vacation break intra-sessions on different careers including computer coding, science and math academics, performing arts, and writing workshops.

Community Service Leadership Opportunities

As part of their high school graduation requirements, most high school students are required to participate in community service activities. Some students use this time to explore careers and provide community services at elementary schools, for youth sports teams, and at various social service agencies. During summer breaks, students may participate in an international business program or cultural exchange program in another country. Other students work at summer jobs or internships to learn about merchandising, computer coding, and legislative support services for a local legislator.

Much success supporting your children’s school leadership and career planning options.

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Mar 29 2022

Becoming a School Leader

Parents are their children’s first teachers. Many feel inadequate on how to become a school leader. Some parents may have had a negative experience in their own academic experiences. Others may have attended school in another country. By participating in their children’s classrooms, parents can learn how to help their children at home with their homework and school projects. Parents can share their own skills, hobbies, and cultural experiences with students in the classroom. Additionally, children will respect their parents’ presence at the school and feel important. Parent classroom volunteers can:

Provide food donations when requested and help prepare meals with the students.
Donate classroom supplies requested by the teacher and prep curricular projects at home for classroom use.
Serve as a classroom parent representative to provide added support for class parties, field trips, and grade-level events.
Share a talent or hobby in small group learning centers.
Mentor and shadow new classroom parent volunteers.
Provide interpretation and translation support for parent volunteers and students

Classroom Support

Classroom parent volunteers will be able to:

Gain insight in how their children are adjusting to the new school year with their classmates and the academic course work.
Observe how the teacher is coaching and interacting with various students when responding to diverse educational challenges.
Advocate effectively with teachers and staff because they have an established relationship and committed partnership with the school community.

School Leadership Roles

As parents become experienced classroom volunteers, many will receive leadership training from teachers and parent mentors to expand their volunteer leadership at the school. Parents can become school leaders and support the school by:

Serving as a parent representative on school and district committees
Participating in the school’s Parent, Teacher, and Student Association (P.T.S.A.)
Supporting a school’s fundraising foundation with fundraising and sponsorship events
Soliciting and advocating for added community partnerships at the school site through community-based organizations and local businesses
Leveraging added instructional support services by organizing special events, field trips, and community service projects for students and their families
Creating a school-based performing arts program with local artists, museums, and community theaters
Expanding physical fitness and nutritional programs with community-based organizations and sports groups

As parents partner and expand their roles at school, they will become more confident in supporting their children’s academic needs and successes.

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