Adventist education is very special to me and my family. Honestly, it changed my family tree. I am extremely thankful for its influence on my life as a student.
Now, as a parent, it's important to me that my kids also succeed in school. While embracing academic success, I am also trying to balance the importance of my kids’ mental health during the pandemic. That's one reason I love Adventist education. It has always focused on whole-person education. Together, parents and educators are working to raise healthy students.
In our home, we have worked to develop a consistent practice of the following four habits to support our kids in becoming successful students.
Sleep
Both of my kids have a set bedtime that they stick to every night. It’s very rare if they deviate from this bedtime. When my kids get plenty of great sleep, they wake up happier and more likely to do well in school. Kids need adequate sleep — it’s a fact.
Schedule
We encourage our kids to do all the work they can in school. But if they do have homework, it gets done before any free time at home. We have an after-school schedule that includes time for chores, homework, dinner, free time, bath time and devotions. Working with a schedule has made life so much easier. We can keep up with homework and the kids don’t feel as stressed. My kids really function better on a schedule — and so do I.
Cooperation
My husband and I work cooperatively with our kids. We help them study, we stay involved in their education, we Google a lot of math questions and we give them plenty of grace when grades don’t reflect their effort. Shifting away from letter grades as a standard of success has not been easy for me. But in this pandemic, I’ve begun to realize even more, that a letter grade doesn't represent the entire picture of my child's effort. When my kids know that they are valued and supported no matter what, they are more successful in their hard work.
Ask
We encourage our kids to ask for what they need because, usually, when you ask for something, you get it. Our kids know that it’s okay to ask for help from their teachers, their classmates and from us, their parents. We encourage open communication, especially when they don’t understand something, or when they would benefit from more time to work on an assignment or when they want extra credit to bring up a grade. I am glad my kids are learning this at a young age because they'll benefit from their willingness to reach out for help for the rest of their lives.
These are just four things we’re consistently doing to raise our children to be successful students. My kids are not perfect, and I am not a perfect parent, but that’s okay. With heaps of grace covering these years, we have faith that the habits we maintain will provide the foundation they need to be successful, both now, as students, and someday, as adults.
