GenParenting

Parenting resources for all who love and care for children

How to Improve Your Children’s School Successes

How to Improve Your Children’s School Successes 

As an elementary school principal, I provide guidance and resources to support our students’ social-emotional and academic successes. Our school also uses Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) to reinforce positive social behaviors and define consequences for problem behaviors. We focus on ensuring a predictable, consistent, positive, and a safe school environment for all students. By using a common language on school-wide expectations, less time is spent on discipline. More time is focused on instruction, building a positive school climate, and promoting positive interactions between staff, students, and families. [Read more…]

Homeschool to Traditional Classroom

Homeschool to Traditional Classroom

As our son approached middle school, I realized that I was no longer equipped to teach him adequately in math and science.  Neither subject was enjoyable or interesting to me in middle school, except that time we took apart our science teacher’s lawn mower, cleaned it, and managed to get it running again.  He called it a unit on engines.  I think it’s called free labor.  Either way, it was memorable.  But I digress.

As seventh grade loomed around the corner for my son, I knew that I wanted someone who excelled in math and science to teach him.  I could either hire private tutors and shuttle him to those classes, or he would need to return to a traditional classroom where the teachers could handle his questions without having to google the answer.  We chose to find a school.

Since he had been homeschooled since kindergarten, I wanted the transition to a classroom to be successful, both socially and academically. I had been his primary teacher since kindergarten, and I had some educational concerns.  How would he adjust from a flexible homeschooling schedule to a traditional school day with several different teachers and formal grading?  Would we discover that he had major gaps in his learning that would prevent him from succeeding? [Read more…]

Why I Homeschool

Why I Homeschool

I never thought I would homeschool.  Ever.  As a third grader, I cried when my best friend announced she was going to be homeschooled.  I was devastated!  To me, homeschoolers were isolated and terribly bored.  The homeschoolers I knew wore long dresses, rode in big passenger vans with multiple siblings, and stared awkwardly at strangers in public without speaking. I was, of course, overjoyed the next year when my friend returned to class.

As a parent, I fell into homeschooling rather accidentally.  I had taught in traditional classrooms and always planned for my children to attend public school.  In order to maximize family time with my husband’s crazy work schedule and because we knew we would be moving halfway through the year, we decided (very last minute) to homeschool. [Read more…]

How Covid Affected Student Learning – Part 1

How Covid Affected Student Learning – Part 1

The Week of March 4th, 2019

The country had been going crazy with the politics of President Trump. Protesters were wreaking havoc in cities. Random fires were being set. A real threat to our safety was felt throughout the neighborhood, school, and home.

My first experience/awareness of the panic with COVID-19 was a routine Thursday evening trip to Costco. The parking lot was full like it was a day in December getting close to the holiday season. We could barely find a place to park. The store was packed and buzzing with people. This is super unusual for Thursdays. The main reason I shopped on that day of the week was because it was not packed. On this particular Thursday you could find some people masked while shopping. [Read more…]

Purposeful Parenting and Ovecoming Challenges

Purposeful Parenting and Overcoming Challenges

Guest blogger Erik Youngman’s blogs on purposeful parenting and learning from challenges embrace the following ten practical approaches to parenting:

  1. Through positive, patient, and purposeful problem-solving, parents can model effective limit setting for their children. This includes clearly defined boundaries and goals for daily living.
  2. Parents incorporate play in project-based learning activities at home. These may include messy art projects, science explorations, performing arts, creative writing, and sports.
  3. Children are encouraged to ponder and creatively reflect on their various learning activities for continuous improvement and growth.
  4. Kids learn to pivot and respond resiliently to life’s great adventures and challenges.
  5. Parents encourage their children to embrace and learn from mistakes and challenges.
  6. Children effectively manage daily challenges through time management and understanding their family’s clearly defined boundaries.
  7. Parents help their children overcome difficulties by modeling effective problem-solving skills and encouraging new skill development.
  8. When students own their learning challenges, they identify how they can overcome learning and skill development difficulties and ask for help for added guidance.
  9. Children are inspired to do their best through resourceful goal setting and self-self-assessments.
  10. When parents collaborate with their children’s teachers, they can help their children ask deliberate questions, model through example, and encourage classmate support.

[Read more…]