Ways To Stay Involved With Your Child’s School When You Are Busy

Reprinted from Early Childhood Digest, North Dakota Parent Assistance and Supportive Schools, September 1999

Being involved with schools is an important way to show you care about your child’s learning.

How busy parents stay involved in school. One mother, who cannot volunteer in the classroom because of her work schedule, finds it easier to go to meetings at night, and has been to some school council meetings. Another mother volunteers to keep things organized in the halls at the end of the school day, when she is there picking up her child. In a family where the mother is taking care of a baby, the father is able to help out in his older son’s classroom two hours a week. Even with a baby, there may be things you can do at school: sell tickets for a show, answer phones in the office, or help put away books in the library when the baby is napping. If it’s hard for you to be in the school building, you can work on some things at home, like decorations or displays for the classroom.

How schools help busy parents. Some schools have after school child care or homework tutoring. Some schools provide transportation or child care to help parents come to school meetings at night. Schools in our study also made special arrangements to help. One school asked an older child to help a younger one from a different family with his homework because the younger one did not have anyone at home who could help. One school loaned a parent a video of a volunteer training meeting that the parent could not attend because of work.

Ways parents ask schools for help. Staying in touch with your child’s teacher is the most important thing you can do at school, but sometimes it can be hard to find a good time to talk. One mother called her son’s teacher and asked for the parent-teacher conference to be changed to a better time for her. Another mother asked the teacher to call her at work, when the teacher needed to talk to the mother about her child. If it is hard for you to come to classroom open houses at night, ask if they also can be held in the mornings before school. Ask about potluck breakfasts to feed busy families before they go to work and school. Maybe you could come to meetings at night if the school helped. For example, ask if the school can open a study hall or offer homework help for older children during the meeting.

Think about what’s right for you

Some parents feel so overwhelmed from everything they have to do that they can’t seem to do anything. All parents should remember that there are places where they can get help when they need it. Family resource centers can help. Parent education programs can give parents new skills that will help them better use their time with their children. Parents may know another parent they can talk and get ideas from.

Parents often feel guilty because they cannot spend as much time with their children as they would like. But it can help for parents to know that when they are busy, they can be setting an example for their children. Children watch their parents work hard at a job, attend classes, help out at church, or take care of relatives or friends. They can learn about responsibility and work for a goal from your example. Talking about this can help reinforce their learning.

Take time to think about your own situation. There may be things you’re doing now that help you to be a part of your child’s learning. Maybe there are changes you can make or ask others to make. Maybe some of the ideas from parents in our study can work for you, too.

This article was prepared by Ellen Mayer, Holly Kreider, and Peggy Vaughan of the Harvard Family Research Project (HFRP). For more information on the work of the School Transition Study, a large national long-term research project looking at how family, school, and community shape children’s development, please call HFRP at (617) 496-4304, write to them at 38 Concord Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138, or visit their web site at: http://hugsel.harvard.edu/hfrp .

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