By Les Huysmans

I often get asked by parents how they can help their children at home, to help their child succeed, build their confidence and deal with excessive screen time. To help your child at home, it’s important to understand your child’s character and behaviour, your parenting style, and the resources available to you. Here are some tips to get started:

Embrace challenges:

Encourage your child to take on challenges, starting with homework. Review it together and ask questions to prompt your child’s thinking. Avoid giving answers and focus on your child’s understanding, not their mistakes. Make it a positive and light-hearted challenge.

Provide positive reinforcement:

Acknowledge your child’s strengths and efforts, highlighting all the things that were done correctly. This helps to build your child’s confidence and self-esteem.

Foster a supportive environment:

Create a home environment where your child feels comfortable making mistakes and trying again. Review homework bit by bit and ask for your child’s thoughts and feedback. Emphasize that it’s okay to make mistakes and encourage your child to persevere.

Persevere in the face of obstacles:

Give your child the opportunity to find solutions on their own. If they struggle, guide them towards the correct answer by asking questions, narrowing down the possible solutions, and remind them of their successes. Share your own experiences of persevering through challenges, to show them that they are not alone.

Set achievable goals:

Encourage your child to set achievable language learning goals and celebrate their successes. The aim is to help your child walk away from homework feeling positive and motivated to keep learning.

If you would like to get in touch over the content of this post, or to work together, you can find my contact details on the About Les-page.