2016 resolutions to ensure your child’s success – Must read for all loving parents

This is a sponsored post. Read below...

As people shouted Happy new year to usher in 2016, I found myself thinking about what I want my year to be like, then a thought struck me! What about my baby girl? I can plan for my success but who will plan for hers? As an educationalist / guidance and counsellor I thought to share my personal resolutions for my child’s success in 2016 with concerned parents out there. I encourage all parents to read and share opinions. Please continue..

I have an 8 year old daughter who is about to write common entrance and a 14 year old son who will start preparations for Jamb, Waec, IGCSE and other university entrance exams this year. I’ve also been in the education industry for over 17 years, first as a teacher and then as a counsellor to more than 20 schools within and outside Lagos.

The advice I’m giving comes both from my wealth of experience as a counsellor who has interacted with hundreds if not thousands of students on a very personal level throughout my career and also as a concerned mother.

My 5 resolutions for my child’s success:

Listen to them: Spend at least 20 minutes a day having heart to heart talks with each of my kids or simply delving into their world… playing a game they like with them, listening to them talk about their classmates or telling jokes they learnt in school. Your impact affects every area of their lives: spirituality, academics, morals; the more you know about your kids the more you can influence them

Maximum investment in my children’s future: My children, not mycars, or goods or even land!! My children are my most valuable and potentially rewarding investment. And I am determined to give everything I have to assure them the highest quality of education possible

Create and enforce a daily time table for my child: Structure and planning are non-negotiable if you seek high performance. A well set out time table would ensure that your child makes progress in various areas every day (Please biko fellow parents, include rest and playtime in the time table, don’t use work to kill them)

Personal tutors for my kids: I can talk a bit here as an authority because of my career and my experience of almost 2 decades in this field. Nothing is as effective as getting your child a personal tutor who is able to teach your child lessons tailored to his specific needs and biased towards strengthening areas of weaknesses. A personal teacher is a very strong source of motivation for kids, over the years I’ve seen kids go from D grades and C grades or from poor scores to exceptional results in just 1 or 2 terms because they got a tutor. For this reason my kids have always had tutors from the ages of 5, I have never compromised on this.

I cringe when I hear parents say they already spend so much on school fees. I would say emphatically that even in the best schools, the teacher will not single your child out for special explanations when he has 19 other students, he may explain once maybe even twice but if your child still has an issue he will move on with the rest of the class. This is the simple reality. But a private tutor can go on and on as many times of required. My advice usually is to put the child in a school where you can still afford to get the child one – on – one attention

Once the issue of whether or not to get a lesson tutor is sorted the next challenge parents face is “how do I get a good tutor in Lagos?” I had the same problem, my kids are schooling on the mainland (I am against changing their school because we moved from our house on the mainland) but now we leave in Lekki and the school teachers are unwilling to come to lekki for lessons. I had almost given up when I stumbled on Prepclass tutors. I asked around and spoke to a friend who is also using their service and she said her kids gota very good tutor

Being the skeptic I am, I decided I would test them out I actually didn’t expect I would get private tutors who meet my high standards: I requested fortutors for my son taking igcse since my I was handling the tutoring for my daughter by myself.

I was very impressed with the response I got from them, I decided to share:

See the email response of the tutors I got from them

They sent me 5 tutor profiles to have a look at so I could pick 1 or 2 I would like to meet face to face, I took a snapshot of the details of the tutors they sent to me but hid their sensitive details, see below:

When you consider the years of experience these teachers here have, the schools they worked in and their qualifications I had to admit that the quality of tutors I got from them was at least 5 times better than what I got from other tutoring services I tried out and to be honest, It was better than what I would have gotten if I had gone out of my way to go around Lagos looking for tutors. Yet I just sat at home and made a call. The process of meeting with Prepclass visitation staff was just as impressive and when I meet my tutor I was delighted, everything was very smooth.

Of course getting a tutor from your child’s class or school is also a good option but getting a tutor from services like Prepclass would ensure that you get a teacher who lives close, has more exposure/experience and you would have a reputable company to hold accountable if you are not satisfied. I had to cancel out the names of their tutors so I don’t publicly release sensitive information but you can easily reach out to them by calling 01-2913790 or visiting www.prepclass.com.ng /hometutorform to get a tutor from them today. As a consultant myself I truly had to applaud their efforts in finding some quality teachers. I’ve been using their services since June last year and I haven’t had any complaints.

For 2016, I implore Parents to try these resolutions. Spend time with your child, invest in your child, have a daily schedule for your child, get your child a personal tutor AND LAST BUT MOST IMPORTANT, everyday call your child to your room and pray on your child everyday make prophesies into the future you want for your child DAILY.

God bless you all