New Bedford Guide Your Guide to New Bedford and South Coast, MA
By Jordis Brown
Supplementing public education is the job you unwittingly signed up for the second you sent your little one to school. Small classroom sizes, well trained teachers, and being a PTO all star isn’t a sure fire cure to your child doing well in school. It’s you! If the second your child steps off the bus school becomes a distant but haunting memory, then you are not doing your part in being their parent. That’s to help them grow into a functioning and independent adult in society. Education is a must.
Parent and teacher communication is key! You need to find out what they are doing in class and how well they understand it. Homework sometimes is a good indication but they don’t bring home everything they’re covering in school. Writing a note and asking how little Emma is doing and if there is anything she should work on at home can be very helpful. Many Elementary schools assign folders where you can slip that note into. Have an older child or afraid your penmanship will look like your child scribbled a letter. Just email them. That’s right, every teacher has a school assigned email account and if you can’t find it listed on a school’s website, just call and ask. We’re no longer children and shouldn’t be afraid to talk to teachers anymore. They welcome the open communication with parents. Believe it or not, sometimes a teacher will tell a child to work on something at home and SURPRISE they don’t. Shocking I know..
What if you don’t understand the classwork yourself? Don’t feel bad. My middle-schooler was covering Pythagorean theorem in Math and I tried to do a refresher online for myself and I still have no clue. BUT I did find some great FREE online games and YouTube videos for my daughter to go on. Teenagers using the internet for constructive use is always a good thing (supervision is always a must). What if you don’t have a home computer? Comcast offers discounted programs making computers and internet more affordable for low income families. You can find out more by going here internetessentials.com/
If that isn’t an option check your local library. There are five libraries just in New Bedford! Five! I didn’t even know that till I “Googled” it. There is one named The Casa da Saudade Library which offers English, Portuguese and Criollo collection. I’ll have to check that one out because after all I’ve never met a library I didn’t fall in love with. Most if not all have plentiful learning material at your fingertips from books, to online print-outs. Even weekend and after-school programs offered for free. I bring my youngest to story times just to start off the educational process.
I’ve been a working parent and a stay-at-home parent. The one thing in common is that I’ve always been a parent. My number one goal is to make my children happy. Struggling at school is a miserable thing that has long term affects from everything to accomplishing their dreams to little Tommy’s own self worth. No child should feel stupid. So if I can put a little time aside everyday to give my child the skills and confidence to make school a bit easier it’s worth doing. They have peer pressure, puberty and all that in-between to worry about. We can’t go through that for them but we can at least take the edge off classwork.
