INTRODUCTION

Schools cannot attain high student achievement alone. Parents cannot do it alone. Students cannot do it all alone. The only proven method of achieving high success for all students is PARTNERSHIP between parents, students and the schools.

From great athletes to highly successful professional men and women, research confirms the most common connection to each one's success was their parents' total involvement in their schooling and their lives.

Some things successful parents must know and are directly responsible for are as follows:

The school teaches a child what to study, how to study and the content of study.

It is inherent in training that you must first teach something and learn something before you can train a person to do it--and do it well.

Driving a car is a good example. You can teach laws, technical knowledge--all teaching!

The real purpose of all that teaching is to enable the student to be able to drive the car. That can only be done by actual training. You can teach without training, but you cannot train without teaching. You must know (from teaching) something before you can be trained. Schools teach--most training is left to parents.

Some prerequisites of the child's successful achievement:

• Discuss and review the requirements of "high achievement" in the child's field of interest. A parent must make it clear to the child what they must know, to do well in high school, to enable them to get into the college of their choice.
• Build a strong faith in a child to do what is right and avoid doing what is wrong. Ethical and moral training must be constantly stressed in the home, the church and the school and be accepted as a family commitment.
  Children must be taught that success is a conscious process from youth on. They must know what laziness produces failure, not success. Commitment to study is a MUST for success. Parents must teach and train a child in these principles if the child is expected to succeed.

Parents must guide their child to:

• Take action--organize--sit down and study.
• To fully accept the parent/child written contract and to be committed to doing well.
• Know and clearly understand that they can achieve any goal, if they do all of the above and always believe in their ability to achieve through hard work.
• Have a "right" motive--doing what is most liked and most drives the student--serving others? entrepreneur? etc., for example, a large income may be a result, but is usually a weak objective for happiness, if that is the chief and only motivational factor. Establishing a proper motive, is a parent's greatest opportunity.

Parents must constantly monitor their child's progress in all school work, and pay attention to all school correspondence. If the correspondence (notes) indicate problems at school, parents must immediately respond in a positive way. Some ways to monitor a child's school progress are:

• Help the child to keep a separate record for all their homework assignments. Read the homework assignments--thoroughly--understand what is expected. Review this daily with your child (in all grades--K-12).
• Help the child with homework only when a question arises. Do NOT do the homework for the child. This poor modeling of honesty, as well as a negative impact on the child's learning. Children pick up very subtle messages.

Discipline includes parental modeling and teaching. To achieve a loving peaceful home environment that is conducive to learning, limits must be set on each one's freedoms that may deny another's freedoms. That is parental discipline.

Self-discipline is when a child is told to study one or two hours a day at home-study and the child can do it anytime he pleases. He/she must self-discipline, to get it done before bedtime.

There is a wise old proverb that says:

"Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it."

Discipline and training are the most important components of the parent/child relationship. It should be consistent, compassionate, with clear expectations, always relevant and forgiving (after the point is made). Discipline is a tough balancing act for all parents. No learning can successfully take place without it.

Parents are responsible to read to and with their younger children. Some advantages of reading aloud to your child are:

• It stimulates a child's interest in reading about life.
• It aids in a child's emotional development.
• It stimulates imagination.
• It improves language skills and vocabulary.
• It educates, entertains, explains and inspires.

Ruth Love, former superintendent of Chicago's schools said:

"If we could get our parents to read to their pre-school children fifteen minutes a day, we could revolutionize our schools."

When reading aloud, be expressive, change your pace with the story, read slowly, discuss the story and have a regular daily reading time, if possible. Fathers should also read to their child. Bonding takes place very powerfully through reading together.

In reading, the key word for parents is PATIENCE. It does take time--and tedious repetition for most all children to read well.

Parents must control television time. Lots of television educational programming is useful, when carefully and appropriately (by age groups) selected. Those are the positive programs. However,

• Television demands instant adulthood of children, showing violence, murder, rape and war. Much innocence is lost.
• Television trains children to have a short attention span and allows no time for critical thinking--two vital components that must be developed for successful learning.

In high schools, a system called Academic Letterman, similar to sports letters, could be started with the awarding of a school letter with academic symbols instead of only a football or basketball on the sweater and the letter on the sweater or jacket.

Note: These guidelines have not been copyrighted.  Anyone may reproduce or adapt it in any way desired; adding or deleting as desired.