Purpose-Driven Parent: How to Raise an Academically Sound Child for College and Career Readiness

By Wendy Felton

Purpose-Driven Parents: How to Raise an Academically Sound Child for College and Career Readiness is an engaging book that immediately grabs your attention with the authoraEUR(tm)s storytelling capabilities of real-life examples. The author divides the book into ten sections that provide guidance when preparing your child for academic success, college, and career readiness. Each section is filled with several real-life stories that address the topic of these sections. There are more than sixty stories in all. You will experience the behavior that other parents have exemplified. After the short story, you will experience the authoraEUR(tm)s personal reflection on the story as well as the lesson she learned from the situation (how it personally affected or how it potentially could affect that child). Some of these stories start with children as early as three years old; however, you should start working with your children as early as birth. Remember, children are like sponges; they absorb what they see and hear, especially from their parents and the people around them. They will think, If my parent did it, then it must be acceptable. ParentsaEUR(tm) actions lead to their future. If you want a better future for your child, then this book is a must read.For an online course @ $6.99, visit www.PurposeDrivenParents.com.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9781098063153

Book preview

Chapter 1

Getting on Track

Duties of a School and the Parent

The purpose of a school is to educate your child in a structured, safe environment while developing your child’s socialization skills. If at any time you feel that the school is not properly educating or ensuring your child’s safety, then it is your duty to seek out the proper administrators in order to rectify the situation.

As a parent, you should exercise due diligence in finding out the state standards for your child’s grade level. The state standards are the educational learning goals for what children should learn and master in each grade level. You can find the state standards online with your state’s department of education.

Use those standards as the basis for your children’s foundation to make sure the school is playing its role as educators. I also recommend looking up some of the highest-ranking educational school systems in the country and finding out what their state standards are in order to supplement your child’s education at home. It doesn’t hurt to have your child overprepared.

Your responsibility is to make sure your child is respectful, responsible, and ready to learn. If your child is not doing what they should be doing in school, the school should contact you, and you should rectify the situation at home.

Educating a child is a two-way street; the two entities need to be willing to do their part. The school and the parents should be united in educating the child. Children should not be aware of any grievances with the school or teacher because that is adult business and should be handled by adults. We all know how our children are at home and understand that if a child recognizes a division in the ranks, they may try to take advantage of the situation and spin any grievance they have with the teacher in their favor.

Most importantly, it is the parent’s role to make sure the child values their education. This will teach them to have a good attitude and desire to attend school to learn.

Path of Education

The different levels in a school are continuously building on the foundation of academic success and independence in order to prepare our children for adulthood. The first level is preschool, which is designed to provide early childhood training to help develop skills that make them ready for elementary school.

This stage is very important for your child because individualized instruction time in school is almost nonexistent today due to class size, so it is necessary for a head start in life. Your children should be entering school recognizing the letters of the alphabet and numbers from 1 to 100 at a minimum. They should start to develop their fine motor skills such as holding a pencil. If you want your child to be well equipped for the future, it starts here.

Then we move on to elementary school, which focuses on basic academic learning and socialization skills, introducing them to a broad range of knowledge, skills, and behavioral adjustments they need to succeed in life, particularly in secondary school. Your children should be learning how to read at this level. Make sure you are going over letter sounds at home so your child can keep up with the class or even be ahead of the class.

After elementary school, we move on to secondary education, which finishes in twelfth grade. For explanation purposes, I am going to divide secondary school into two segments: middle school and high school. The purpose of middle school is to develop study habits and time management skills and to embrace learning and the value of education in general. Parents should set up a regular study schedule for your children. Help your children figure out their preferred learning style and give them study tips for that learning style. This gives them the opportunity to master good study habits for the future.

The second segment of secondary school is high school. The purpose of high school is to teach young people about different subjects like science, math, English, and social studies. It is about teaching your child maturity and the ability to see the world from a different perspective. It is also preparing your child for postsecondary options such as college. Make sure your child is mature and becoming independent at this phase of their education. If not, you have some additional work to do.

So now that you know the purpose of each phase of education, it is your responsibility to identify any deficiencies that your child might be experiencing and supplement your child’s education accordingly.

You should be teaching or going over their homework until they become independent. As parents, we need to be our children’s support system. It is up to the parent to show them the importance of school and make sure they are thriving academically and developing good study habits. Parents should be talking to their children daily, asking about their day at school, showing an interest in what they are learning.

Parents, you hold the most important role in your child’s life, teaching them how to be successful in school and raising them to be respectful, responsible, and mature. After all, you have been in their shoes before. Use your past experiences to help them conquer any challenges they may face.

Reflections

Parents need to help their children transition through the different paths of education and understand the rules and the roles each party plays including themselves.

Lessons Learned

Parents often get the lines blurred when it comes to the difference between providing and raising a child. Providing for a child is giving them a roof over their head, feeding them, and clothing them. Raising a child is teaching them to respect authority and do what they are told.

Conclusion

The school is not responsible for raising your child; that is your responsibility. So it is important to help your children learn how to behave in the classroom so the teacher can teach the class. Your child also needs to learn how to respect the teacher’s authority even if you don’t respect the teacher.

Children Are Individuals

I need you to realize that each of your children is different; they each have different personalities, respond differently emotionally, etc. Even if they have the same biological parents, they are still different, and you need to raise each child differently with the main rules remaining consistent. Some children may need a firm hand of discipline, while others need additional love.

It is important for you to recognize these small differences and raise your children accordingly. Each child has their own individual strengths and weaknesses. Some children struggle academically, and some children are naturals in academics. As parents, you need to meet your children at their level and not yours or their siblings’. Don’t compare children; just accept them for the beauty they possess inside.

This reminds me of a story about my sister and me. We did a DNA test. She did it first, so I asked her why she wanted me to do it too. After all, we share the same parents. I felt we would have exactly the same DNA. She said that siblings share the same DNA but are not a perfect match. I finally did the DNA test, and she was right. We share the same DNA strands, but the percentages of each strand differ between us. She has less England, Wales, and Northwestern Europe in her, while I have more. This would explain how the two of us had red hair at birth, but her hair eventually turned completely brown, and mine turned auburn still showing traces of red.

She was naturally gifted at academics and loved to read. I always struggled in academics and had dyslexia. I like to say she got more of the book sense, and I got more of common sense. I loved physical education class, and she hated it. Thus, it is important to assess each child separately while meeting them at their level.

Take the time to identify the differences in your children and help them to be successful academically by using their individual gifts and talents. I believe that all children blossom, but some children blossom naturally. Start paying attention to the child who needs help blossoming. If we water and nurture our children with love, attention, and guidance, then our children may blossom at the same time.

Reflections

Parents, even though your children can have the same parents, their DNA is still different. Your children are still separate individuals; one might be good in math and the other good in science. They don’t even look alike always. Take twins, for instance. They look alike but can take on two different personalities.

Lessons Learned

I made sure to meet each one of my children at their level and not mine. I learned this skill because my sister and I were totally different. As a child, I was held at her level and not mine because she was the eldest and the smartest. Both of my children had their differences in strengths and weaknesses. I made sure to identify their strengths and made them stronger, and I got them the help they needed to develop those areas that needed improvement. I made their strengths stronger by involving them in organizations that would enhance them even more.

Parents need to meet each child at their individual level. Make sure not to compare them to each other because this could lead to jealousy and envy. Try hard not to bring attention to their differences, and don’t let the teacher bring up differences if they taught both children. One child isn’t smarter and better than the other. They all have their unique differences, so nurture them. Help them identify their gifts and develop them.

Conclusion

Parents, you are developing your child’s self-esteem. The words you say and use on your child can cut them deeply. Make sure to watch everything you say to your children. Wounds may heal, but scars never go away.

The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far from the Tree

While working with at-risk youth at the secondary level of education, I wondered why more than one-third of them had no passion or interest in their education, especially in the metropolitan areas. A few years later, in that metropolitan city, I took a position as a parent liaison. The school was in the heart of the city. The chance for me to observe the family dynamics from the grassroots level had finally presented itself. As parent liaison, my role would be to get the parents involved in their children’s education and to operate the parent center for parents to have access to the internet and a computer lab.

After getting to know some of the parents and students, I identified some of the key components that could impact the future stability of a student’s life. I started developing a series of questions such as How could two students from the same social, economic environment take two different paths in life? What was the added ingredient for success? What could I do to assist parents to help their children achieve academic success? Some students would continue their educational path enrolling in postsecondary school while others wouldn’t finish secondary school. What was the secret to one student’s success and the other one’s failure?

My quest for the answers was about to begin. One of my duties was to track parental participation at school functions, through sign-in sheets. I had sign-in sheets for the parent center and for every event the school hosted. As I monitored the sign-in sheets, I discovered a pattern. The students with parental attendance at these programs thrived in school and applied more effort to achieve academic success. On the other hand, the students with no parental attendance struggled to keep up with school and showed very little interest in education. One of the answers to my question was positive parental support because all support isn’t necessarily good support. The fact that a child knows there is someone supporting them and cheering them on in life makes all the difference in the world.

Showing support for a child starts at a young age. When we clap and say a word like yeah to a child, they feel important, loved, and desired. Going to school functions to watch them get an award, act out a role in a play, or sing in the school choir is our way of clapping and saying yeah as they grow and mature. Children still need to feel loved and supported as they grow older. Parents just need to change the way we show support for our children.

It reminds me of my grandson who is nineteen months old. Whenever he does something good, we praise him by clapping and cheering out loud for everyone to hear. This is our way of showing him we are supporting his behavior with pride. He enjoyed the behavior we were displaying so much that he started mimicking it for himself. When he cleans up his room and puts away his toys, he cheers for himself and looks to us for confirmation. Our actions taught him that we were proud of his behavior.

The point of this story is that all children want praise even when they become young adults. As parents, it is our responsibility to show them how proud we are of them for what they are doing.

Children learn from us. We are their first teachers in life. So let’s be mindful of what we teach them. We need to remember