4 Easy Steps to Teaching Children the Importance of Going to School

For our children the importance of going to school is unparalleled. Oftentimes young children, before they reach the “rebellious” teenage years, believe mom and dad know everything. They follow the example set by their parents without ever analyzing what they are learning. Unfortunately, we as parents teach them things through our actions that we may not want to teach them. It is important that we step back to see if our words and actions are teaching our children just how important their education is to us and if we’re teaching them the importance of going to school.

#1- One way to impress upon the minds of our young children the importance of going to school is to make daily, regular attendance a habit. This includes arriving at school and at class on time whether they attend public, private, or are home schooled. Students who are often late and/or absent tend to have more difficulty maintaining a high level of academic performance. If we as parents allow our students to miss school often for various reasons, they may begin to believe that education is less important than it really is.

#2- Another way to teach our children the importance of going to school is for us to attend parent teacher conferences and to be involved in other ways in their school activities and with their teachers. If parents are involved, the children will make the connection that it is important. When we spend time doing a thing, we attach importance to it. If we do not spend time being involved with our child’s educational experience, we are in effect telling them that it isn’t important enough to warrant our valuable time. That is a message that we do not want to send. It will negatively influence our students’ view of education, and we can’t afford to do that.

#3- We can teach our children the importance of going to school by making homework a regular part of our daily routine. Validate the education through validating the homework assignments. It is vitally important that a parent sit down with a child to review homework, to help with homework, or to organize homework for the following day. Whether or not we believe that the homework is “busy work” or “too much,” our children are looking to us to see just how hard they should work on homework.

#4- Finally, let’s teach our children the importance of going to school by getting excited about what they are learning and making a big deal out of their achievements. If you teach them that you are so happy they are learning to add and subtract or that learning about different kinds of rocks is exciting, you are more likely to have an excited student on your hands. If your student is excited about school and sees all the excitement you exhibit, they will enjoy the educational process more and more.

The attitudes and the values we express either verbally or non-verbally are the very attitudes and values that our young children are likely to develop as well. Since we can all agree that education plays a major role in our childrens' futures, let’s model for them habits and attitudes toward their own educational experience that will lead them to understand the importance of going to school.

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