Family Involvement

(Book on Early Childcare Review)

Brittany Green (Clayton)

Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana

 Having family and community involvement in your child’s learning is an important factor
into your child getting the best education possible. Having a child whose parents are involved in
their schooling leads to higher grades and better attendance. There are many ways as teachers
that we can help the children by offering services as simple as tutoring. Children at times need
extra help that they can’t get during class time and their parents aren’t able to help them. This is
where a tutor would help, but that’s not exactly cost effective for everyone. Parents have many
things to worry about such as paying rent and bills and can’t pay a tutor and they don’t know the
curriculum well enough to help their child. This is where having free tutoring available would
help many children. The best part about this tutoring is that there are many high school students
and parents who would be willing to help. Getting a group of people together for an hour or more
after school and offering snacks and drinks to everyone involved is a great way to help our
children succeed.
Support groups are a great way to get parents involved. If you offer an online platform
for parents in your class to connect with you and other parents, they may feel more comfortable
connecting about concerns or questions. Waiting on a reply from a teacher for forgotten spelling
words or reminders of field trips can seem pointless at times because teachers aren’t able to
answer calls or messages during the day and many days have meetings after class. Having this
platform can help by allowing parents to ask other parents the questions and possibly get answers
a little sooner.
Many fathers who can’t attend certain responsibilities for their child want to.
Work and other things stop this from happening most of the time, however. One thing that as a
teacher I could do to help fathers be more involved with their children’s learning is to offer
things such as donuts for dad day. This can be during school or after school depending on which
works better for your dads. During this time the children can have projects made to show dads
how important they are, while eating some donuts and having fun. You could also have a daddy
reading day once a week. This is something I believe would work out great for fathers because if
they aren’t able to make it that day, the child won’t feel left out.
Military families are becoming more of a norm in today’s society. These families are a
group that I feel gets left out. I would like to be able to incorporate some teaching to helping
children from military families feel more welcomed and loved. There are many ways to do this,
but some of the best ways I learned from reading were to write letters to soldiers overseas and
their families. This could be to thank them for their service, to tell them happy holidays or just a
simple hello could be a positive experience for the child and the military personnel. Another
great way to incorporate military families would be by getting in touch with the families in the
school and community. These children and families may need someone to talk to and to know
that there is someone out there willing to listen is a great way to help them.
Offering an after-school program is a good way to help children and their families. This
program could be as simple as after school care or as much as offering families in need a little
extra help buying school supplies and clothes. This is very important as there are so many
families who can’t afford these necessities. As a mother, I know that the first day of school is
exciting to kids and they love to wear a new outfit and shoes. The sad thing is that many families
can’t even afford one new outfit and shoes. The after-school program could provide a chance for
those families to interact with teacher and staff and let them know they may need a little extra
help without the pressure of other people around.
In conclusion, there are several ideas that can help children achieve a better learning
experience, whether it be tutoring or help from other students. Parental involvement is important
in a child’s learning, and a lack thereof, can be detrimental. In order to encourage parents to be
there for their children, there are several ways to accommodate busy schedules and financial
difficulties. It is important to come up with creative solutions to these common problems that
families may face today.