Your school-going children spend half their time on weekdays away from home, with their classmates and teachers. It may be hard to keep up with their lives especially if they do not openly share how their days have gone. In an ideal world, your children would be willing and able to share all aspects of their life with you. However, this may not be possible due to various reasons - they may not perceive certain topics to be worth sharing, they may forget after a full day of school, or perhaps they may find your well-intentioned questions as meddlesome.
How could you hence find a balance between nurturing your children for personal growth and academic success while not being perceived as a “helicopter parent”?
This is where a digital school management system would come into play.
Be updated on your child’s performance in school
You may find yourself heavily invested in your children’s studies and academic progress. You may also find yourself asking your children for updates in their school work, exams and projects and trying to help. If your children find this approach too overwhelming and pushy, this may cause them to push you further away and perhaps even spend less time on their studies.
However, there is a way to keep up with updates from school on their strengths and areas of improvement without having to ask your children all the time. You can use the parent communication app in the school management system used by the school. Various school management apps come in different forms but they have a common goal to keep parents informed and connected. For example, the Little Family Room function in the LittleLives school management system does exactly that.
You will be able to access private information related to your child and general school updates. You will directly receive updates on your children’s progress. Assessment reports will also be available on the app. Using these updates by teachers as some background to kickstart a conversation with your children. Hopefully with this approach they may be more open to sharing ongoing challenges and it may be easier to suggest ways to help - for example, extracurricular activities, tuition classes or perhaps just more time with you. By coming on less strongly, you will not appear to be putting too much pressure on your children to do well, and they will feel more inclined to open up.
Communicate with your child’s teachers
There is much research to show that consistent and meaningful communication with parents benefits students. Parents who have a good relationship with their children’s school have children that demonstrate the following behaviour:
- Greater class participation
- Positive feelings towards school
- Better grasp of learning material and improved academic performance
- Reduced school-related stress
Technology that is both sophisticated and school-centric exists, and it is there for you to maximise. Certain school management systems may have multiple parent communication functions within its app – e.g. private message function, mass broadcast function, and survey function on one centralised application.
Some added benefits of using such a centralised system to communicate with teachers are:
- Quick and comprehensive updates on your children’s performance in school - this involves personal progress and not just academics. If there are areas of concern that need immediate attention, teachers can engage you early to co-manage your children’s development.
- You can share health and medical updates with the school and vice versa.
- The secure chat function allows you to stay in touch with teachers, which facilitates better flow of information from both sides.
- Be informed of school events or updates immediately, which would allow early notice to make the necessary plans or arrangements for your children.
- The school attendance management system would update you on your child’s attendance and safety in school.
Your interaction with the school via the parent communication app can give you a third-party insight into how your children are doing. Such discrete monitoring can help enhance your knowledge and find ways to help or engage your children at home.
Open and honest chats with your children
Though there may only be twenty four hours in a day, make it a point to carve time for your children. Children may feel neglected and frequent communication is needed to overcome this. One tool you can use to learn more about your children would be the school management system.
To sum it up
A smart school management system is designed to make your life easier. It is the nervous system for your institution around which other technologies are incorporated. It is, in fact, a master plan to regulate administrative operations in a consolidated, integrated, efficient and smooth way to increase the productivity of your school.
If you are still looking for a system that will work well for your school's operations, you can contact LittleLives to see how we can help!
