Special education administrators and support providers spend a great deal of time and energy working with their students but a major factor of the success of these students in school is the support and involvement of their parents. Parents need practical tips about how to interact with their children at home. As an education Specialist in the field of special education, I will suggest the following techniques/tips to parents of children with disabilities to facilitate the process of home work and minimize frustration and anger.
Set up a homework schedule: Children with disabilities may decide to do their homework after school or after dinner. Encourage the child to make a personal choice of study time preference and when the time is determined, the schedule should be adhered to as much as possible. Ensure that during this time, no interruptions are allowed, such as phone calls, television and tech games.
Be a role model for learning: Parents are their children’s first teachers – exploring nature, reading together, cooking together, and counting together. Through guidance and reminders, help your children organize their time and support their desires to learn new things in and out of school.
Pay attention to what your child loves: One of the most important things a parent can do is notice the children. Are they interested in computer technology or shy to communicate? Find out what interests their interest are and help him explore it.
Practice what your child learns at school: On a daily basis, I encourage parents to go over what their children are learning in a non-pressured way and to practice what they may need extra help with.
Set aside time to read together: Read aloud regularly by exposing them to textbook chapters on DVDs and CDs. Research reveals that the more sensory input children receive, the greater the chance they will retain information. If your child is a reluctant reader, reading aloud will expose him to the structure and vocabulary of good literature and get him interested in reading more.
Connect what your child learns to everyday life: Make learning part of your child’s everyday experience, especially when it comes out of your child’s natural questions. When you cook together, do measuring math. When you drive in the car, count license plates and talk about the states.
Avoid finishing class assignments for your child: Some parents will complete an entire class homework assignment for their children. The result may be very destructive. Children with disabilities tend to feel inadequate when parents finish their homework. They may feel a sense of failure and inadequacy because they can never hope to do the homework as well as their parents can. Research reveals that this can foster increased dependency and feelings of helplessness on the part of the children.
Connect what your child learns to the world: Find age-appropriate ways to help your older child connect his school learning to world events. Start by asking questions. For example, ask a fifth grader if she knows about a recent event, and what’s she heard.
Help your child take charge of his learning: “We want to keep children in charge of their learning and become responsible for it. We want them to be responsible for their successes and failures, show them how engaging learning is all about.
Keep TV to a minimum: Parents can shape how TV affects their children by setting limits on how much they watch and what they watch by talking to them through positive modeling. For example:
• Set rules on how much TV they can watch. Recommend no more than 1-2 hours a day of quality programming.
• Model good TV behavior! Watch more educational programs and less Nollywood or Hollywood movies. Shows with more violent or sexual content should be viewed when younger children are not around.
• Help them balance TV with other activities. Encourage them to spend time finding and doing other activities they enjoy such as: reading, music/arts, sports and social activities.
All behavior must have a consequence: Appropriate behavior should be rewarded and negative behavior punished. Parents should avoid hard punishments because this will only confuse children and distort their frame of reference. For our children with disabilities, five minutes in a time-out chair or taking away a desired item is just as good. Rewarding children for cleaning their room without having been told to do so reinforces the continuation of that behavior.
In conclusion, parents should be aware that parenting is not a popularity contest but a responsibility. Following these parental guidelines will help build a positive relationship with your children in a world that is soaked with indiscipline and deprived disposition.
Isaac Osae-Brown
