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Kids More Likely to Succeed in School If Teachers Have Positive View of Their Parents, Study Says

A new study points to the importance of teachers developing good relationships with all parents, and of parents being as involved as possible in kids’ school lives.

We know that parental involvement in kids’ lives is essential for their overall sense of well-being and self-esteem, and even their academic performance. Now new research out of the University of Missouri-Columbia, which is set to be published in School Psychology Quarterly and the Journal of School Psychology, has proven that how teachers perceive parental involvement in kids’ academic lives makes a difference, too.

As lead researcher Keith Herman, a professor in the MU College of Education and co-director of the Missouri Prevention Center explained in a press release, "If a teacher has a good relationship with a student's parents or perceives that those parents are positively engaged in their child's education, that teacher may be more likely to give extra attention or go the extra mile for that student. If the same teacher perceives another child's parents to be uninvolved or to have a negative influence on the child's education, it likely will affect how the teacher interacts with both the child and the parent.”

Researchers looked at 100 teachers and more than 1,800 students. The teachers were randomly assigned to a professional development program created to develop effective relationships with parents and students and improve classroom management skills. Teachers were also asked to complete surveys about the students and their parents, at the beginning and then the end of the academic year. The final consideration was researcher observation of student behavior and academic performance.

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When Your Child Doesn't Want to Go to School

If your child suddenly begs to stay home, here are a few ways to find out what's really going on.

A few years ago, a mom came to me because her daughter, Lola, was having tantrums and refusing to go to school. She couldn’t understand why—Lola seemed to love her teacher and friends and had been enjoying first grade. After some digging, I found out that Lola had recently been home with the flu, where she got extra TLC from her mom and watched as much TV as she wanted. When she had to go back to class, she started throwing fits—she’d realized it was more fun to stay home!

Trying to avoid school by faking sickness, crying and clinging to you, or protesting getting out of pajamas, is very common at the elementary school age. It’s often just a small step backward in your child’s natural progression toward independence, but it can sometimes be a sign of anxiety issues. Whatever the cause, there are many strategies you can use to get her back to school.

Recognize his fears.

We think kindergarten and the early grades are low-key, but for kids, school is hard work! Following rules and practicing new skills takes energy and effort. So if your child just had a relaxing winter break, when he got to eat his favorite foods and cuddle all morning with you—or even if he was home sick, like Lola—he may decide that he’d rather be at home than work hard back at school.

Also, starting at age 5, there’s a natural spike in anxiety as children begin to understand that we are vulnerable. No matter how stable their life is, kids may develop fears about death, injury, or losing a parent—especially if something scary is on the news. They may worry while at school that something bad can happen to their parents—or to themselves—and they won’t be there to protect each other. Kids enjoy their new independence at this age, but they’re also scared of it.

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Rules for Hosting a Holiday Party with Kids

Forget everything you know about throwing parties and learn the real-mom rules for having a successful bash that includes the kids.

Before I had children, my husband and I threw the best holiday parties. We’d head out on field trips all over New York City, where we lived at the time, to hunt down finger foods and festive garlands. Weeks before the big night, we’d have menu-planning sessions and discuss pressing issues: knishes or empanadas? Pinot noir or Châteauneuf-du-Pape? Store-bought pita chips or homemade cheddar-Gruyère crackers we’d read about in that gourmet-food magazine? (Unthinkable to my current mother-of-two self, the freaking homemade crackers won out.)

When we tried to throw our first party post-kids (“Hey! And bring your kids too!” we told everyone), we didn’t have the energy or the time to do any of that, and as a result, it was a disaster. Instead of ending the night with our customarily glowing postmortem, “I’m so glad we do that every year,” we looked at our toddler-decimated house and said, “Welp! Never doing that again.”

We took a few years off. Then, as parents are wont to do, we came back with a plan of attack, which is broken down into the following rules, but which can be summarized in this single philosophy: Dial it back and remember why you’re doing this—to celebrate with the people you love most.

Rule #1 Choose your own adventure.

You can have a holiday dinner party with four of your closest friends and their kids. You can have a party where you invite 15 to 20 people and limit it to neighborhood friends (or work friends, family, or whatever crew seems manageable and thematically cohesive). You can also move all your furniture to the perimeter of the house, throw the doors wide open, and invite everyone on your Facebook feed.

Pick your party style, then embrace it, keeping in mind that when there are young kids in the mix, there’s a fine line between “good energy” and “total mayhem.”

Rule #2 Commit!

Send out the invitation one month before the date, and don’t spend hours on Evite or Paperless Post shopping for the best design. This is where the concept of “First idea, best idea” comes in: Don’t overthink color scheme or the lyricism of your words. Make sure you have the correct date, time, and address, and be done with it. The important thing here is the act of committing—you are signing a contract with your future self and that future self now has no excuse.

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The Smart Way to Talk to Teachers

She may not have great news -- schoolwork struggles? behavior blunders? -- but we've got savvy strategies to fix the problem.

Schoolwork Struggles

When your child's teacher calls you, chances are she's worried about your child's behavior or schoolwork, so it's tempting to panic, get defensive, or fly off the handle before you've even heard everything she has to say. How can you stay calm? The key is to ask the right questions so you and the teacher can create a plan to help your child. We asked teachers for the four most common reasons they call parents and the best way to handle each situation.

The teacher says: "Your child is having trouble with his schoolwork."

School struggles can be a symptom of a wide variety of issues. "Your child could be distracted by a family problem, or maybe he's just not getting enough sleep and can't pay attention," says Marian C. Fish, PhD, professor in the school-psychology program at Queens College, in Flushing, New York. "Or he missed learning something the previous year -- he was out sick when the teacher introduced subtraction -- and he's never gotten the hang of it."

The right response: Ask the teacher for specifics so you can judge what kind of help your child needs: Is he having trouble in every subject or just one? Did he score poorly on a couple of tests or many? Is he not doing the work, or is he frustrated and can't handle it?

Creating a plan: Always get your child's take on the problem. Say, "Your teacher is concerned that you're having a hard time with subtraction. What do you think?" Ask him how you can help, and brainstorm solutions with the teacher too. She may be able to recommend flash cards or work sheets your child can do at home, or maybe she can fit in extra-help sessions with him during lunch or free classroom time. You should check over his homework to discuss mistakes with him and work closely with the teacher to make sure he's improving.

Following up: Meet with the teacher for a progress report after your child has gotten a few weeks of extra help. If there's been little or no improvement, consider getting extra tutoring or consulting with a counselor or the school's psychologist to make sure he doesn't have a learning disability.

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Home Safe Home: Childproof Your Home Room by Room:

Even if you feel pretty confident that you've done a thorough job of childproofing, chances are you've missed something. In fact, in a study from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), when first-time moms of kids ages 12 to 36 months were taken through a model home and asked to point out potential hazards, they could identify fewer than half of them.

You may also be overconfident about your own child's understanding. In the UAB study, when researchers asked the moms to point out items that would be hazardous for their toddler, they made statements like, "My child isn't curious about the toilet" or "my child knows not to play with matches" and flagged only 40 percent of the real risks.

But the truth is, household injuries are one of the top reasons kids under 3 visit the E.R. each year. And it's smart to be prepared for the worst. So we've shown you many of the hidden risks for young children -- as well as pointed out the safe spots -- and provided expert advice on how to childproof your home.

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The Fun Mom's Guide to Discipline:

"Freeze!"

I don't remember what lapse in judgment led me to take my two young children to a store that featured hundreds of breakable knickknacks, a pinch-faced clerk, and a "You Break, You Buy" sign. What I do remember is grabbing my 3-year-old Charlie's hand at the tail end of an expansive gesture and rescuing several glass dolphins from certain extinction. Desperate to escape the store without any accidents, I told Charlie and his 6-year-old sister, Kyla, to "walk like Grandpa," a man who never takes a step without his hands clasped behind his back. Why he does this we have no idea. Improbably, the "Walk Like Grandpa" maneuver worked -- and helped us survive many more shopping expeditions or, more accurately, helped many shops survive us.

That day, I realized some of Kyla and Charlie's worst behavior could be avoided with a few fun games. None of the ideas I came up with needed rule books or fancy equipment. But they worked, and they elicited plenty of giggles along the way.

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Benefits of Music Lessons:

Learning to play an instrument can help your child fine-tune her ear and enhance skills needed for education and social interaction.

Between soccer and scouts, your school-age kid's schedule is loaded with fun activities. If you're on the fence about adding music classes to the list, take note of the benefits that come with signing your little one up for violin or piano lessons. Maybe she won't be the next Beethoven, but she may have an easier time learning math, practicing good manners (including patience!), and becoming a team player. Read on to learn more about the benefits of music education.

It improves academic skills.

Music and math are highly intertwined. By understanding beat, rhythm, and scales, children are learning how to divide, create fractions, and recognize patterns. It seems that music wires a child's brain to help him better understand other areas of math, says Lynn Kleiner, founder of Music Rhapsody in Redondo Beach, CA. As kids get older, they'll start reciting songs, calling on their short-term memory and eventually their long-term memory. Using a mnemonic device to do this is a method that can later be applied to other memory skills, says Mary Larew, Suzuki violin teacher at the Neighborhood Music School in New Haven, Connecticut. Musical instrument classes also introduce young children to basic physics. For instance, plucking the strings on a guitar or violin teaches children about harmonic and sympathetic vibrations. Even non-string instruments, such as drums and the vibraphone, give big kids the opportunity to explore these scientific principles.

It develops physical skills.

Certain instruments, such as percussion, help children develop coordination and motor skills; they require movement of the hands, arms, and feet. This type of instrument is great for high-energy kids, says Kristen Regester, Early Childhood Program Manager at Sherwood Community Music School at Columbia College Chicago. String and keyboard instruments, like the violin and piano, demand different actions from your right and left hands simultaneously. "It's like patting your head and rubbing your belly at the same time," Regester says. Instruments not only help develop ambidexterity, but they can also encourage children to become comfortable in naturally uncomfortable positions. Enhancing coordination and perfecting timing can prepare children for other hobbies, like dance and sports.

It cultivates social skills.

Group classes require peer interaction and communication, which encourage teamwork, as children must collaborate to create a crescendo or an accelerando. If a child is playing his instrument too loudly or speeding up too quickly, he'll need to adjust. It's important for children to know and understand their individual part in a larger ensemble, Regester says. Music Rhapsody offers general music education classes, in which teachers split students into groups and assign each child a task. Whether a team is responsible for choosing instruments or creating a melody, students work toward a common goal. "These are the kinds of experiences we have in society," Kleiner says. "We need more group interaction and problem solving."

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Dealing With Separation Anxiety

Does your little one cry or cling to you or both as you're leaving the room or heading out the door? Your toddler may be experiencing separation anxiety. At this age, your child doesn't have a strong sense of time, so he doesn't know when you'll return. Learn how to identify signs of toddler separation anxiety in order to soothe away the tears.

By Mali Anderson

For some toddlers, goodbyes are full of tears, screams, and outbursts. Young children form tight relationships with their parents, so it's natural that as a child grows, she'll be hesitant to let go of feelings of familiarity and security. Learn more about separation anxiety to ease your little one.

Why Do Toddlers Experience Separation Anxiety?

Children go through feelings of separation anxiety for different reasons, but on a basic level, they believe their survival is dependent on having a primary caregiver close by. Toddlers are also still too young to understand the concept of time. Leaving them in a room for a few minutes or with a babysitter or at day care for a few hours feels like the same amount of time for them. So instead of sneaking off, which a toddler can interpret as leaving forever, be sure to say adieu, but keep the parting simple and short. Try to convey that the time apart is temporary and is not a cause for alarm. Also, "somewhat ironically, anxiety can be a sign of the child's increasing autonomy," says Miranda Goodman-Wilson, assistant professor of psychology at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida. "They have their own opinion on the situation -- that Mom shouldn't leave -- and want to exert control."

What Are the Signs of Separation Anxiety?

Erin Boyd-Soisson, Ph.D., associate professor of human development at Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania says separation anxiety is "typically most prevalent between 8 and 18 months or so." Indications of separation anxiety are usually present while a caregiver is departing or has left. Children may cling, throw a tantrum, or resist other caregivers in an attempt to convince the parent not to leave, whether for work or to run an errand. A child can also show signs of fear and restlessness when a parent is in another room, when he's left alone at bedtime, or is being dropped off at day care. The outbursts usually subside once the caregiver is out of view. "This anxiety serves to keep the child close to the caregiver, who is their source of love and safety," Dr. Boyd-Soisson says.

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Understanding Your Child's Personality:

Shy, exuberant, intense, or laid-back—what kind of child do you have, and where did these traits come from? By figuring out your child's temperament, you can better understand what he's all about.

By Claire Lerner and Amy Laura Dombro

What's Temperament?

Temperament is something we're born with—it's a set of traits that makes each of us unique, and it's a powerful factor in determining how we react to the world. The way a child approaches a new situation is one example of temperament at work.

Consider, for example, three 2-year-olds entering their classroom on the first morning of daycare. Rahim and his mother open the door and scan the room. Within minutes, Rahim rips off his coat and abandons his mom to join the other kids building with blocks.

When Frank and his dad arrive at the classroom, Frank spends a long time leaning into his dad's leg and refuses to take off his coat or hat. After watching the other kids for a while, he inches away from his dad to get a closer look at a table where kids are working on puzzles. At that point, Frank's dad suggests that he join them. Frank takes his dad's hand, and they walk together to the puzzle table. Frank sits down next to another child and gets to work.

Carlos speeds into the room ahead of his grandmother—no time to waste looking around to check out what's going on. He charges up to two boys who are crawling on the floor, grabs one of the trucks, and yells, "Mine!"

Different Kids, Different Reactions

Why do these three children react so differently to the same situation? Each of these three boys was born with his own temperament. How your child reacts to everyday routines, transitions, unfamiliar situations, and new people is influenced by his temperament.

Although there are many ways that temperament can be defined, we focus here on five traits that represent the range of inborn characteristics: intensity of reaction, activity level, tolerance for frustration, response to change, and reaction to new people.

Each of these is present in every child—what differs is how they're expressed. For example, when it comes to reaction to new people, one child might cheerfully greet a cousin he's never met, while another may not even make eye contact.

How can you tell what your child's temperament is? Between 6 and 9 months, most parents begin to see patterns in their child's behaviors that give them clues, but temperament becomes more apparent in the toddler years, as your child becomes more verbal and social.

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How to Help a Child With Separation Anxiety Before Preschool:

Separation anxiety disorder in children who are heading off to preschool is extremely common. If your tot is struggling with the new routine or feeling anxious, follow these strategies for saying goodbye without tears.

The start of preschool is a milestone that's often anticipated with great excitement and joy, but also with lots of crying, uncertainty, and heel digging—from both kids and parents! "For children, the main source of anxiety around entering preschool is that they have absolutely no idea what to expect," says Katrina Green, a certified early childhood and early childhood special education teacher at the Just Wee Two program in Brooklyn, New York.

"They have spent the first three to four years learning the rules and routines of their family life and they are completely unfamiliar with the new rules and routines they will encounter. For parents, the main source of separation anxiety is worrying that their child will feel abandoned."

Read on to learn the best ways to help a child with separation anxiety and to successfully start this new school adventure—together and apart!

Be Consistent

Many moms may see their child have a bad first reaction to preschool and immediately decide to pull him out of the classroom. But that's a bad idea: "It denies the child an opportunity to learn how to work through negative feelings and sets a precedent of not having to face problems," Green says. Instead, consistency is key when it comes to making preschool a part of your child's new routine. Simply going together on a regular basis will provide your little one with a strong sense of anticipation. Keep your goodbyes short and sweet so that your child knows what to expect but doesn't prolong your departure. When you pick him up at the end of the day, reinforce the idea that you came back, just like you said you would. This way, each day's drop-off won't feel like you're both starting teary and upsetting goodbyes all over again.

Get the Teacher Involved

Ideally, your child's preschool teacher will be a warm, caring, and experienced individual who can anticipate her students' needs. But since she is new to you, too, brief her with necessary information that will help her and your child get to know each other better. "It's helpful for me to know as much as possible about a child's home life in order to ease their transition into preschool," Green says. "Their eating, sleeping, and toileting patterns are just as important as knowing their favorite color, what games they like to play, or what songs they like to sing. It also helps to know what techniques the family uses to calm a child down when she is feeling upset or anxious [so I can] try to replicate those techniques in the classroom." Be sure to let the teacher know about any medical issues, such as food allergies.

Prepare a Comfort Object

Have your child bring a little reminder of home to the preschool to ease his separation anxiety and reassure him. If he doesn't have a favorite doll or blankie, even a beloved book or a sippy cup filled with his favorite drink can do the trick. "I had a child enter my preschool program who was experiencing major anxiety," Green reveals. "In the beginning, we encouraged him to bring photos of his family and items from home. He filled an entire Whole Foods bag with toys from home!" Comfort objects may seem like small stuff to you, but they can provide a real sense of security to kids in an unfamiliar environment. "Children almost always outgrow the need to bring a comfort object to school," Green says. "However, children may feel the need for comfort objects at school (even if they are separating with no problem) when transitions are happening at home (such as a new baby, a move, or Mom or Dad starting a new work schedule)."

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Your Baby from 16 to 18 Months: Baby's Language Development

Once toddlers figure out that everything has a name, they want to label their world.

First Words

Ask your toddler to bring you her favorite toy, and she'll cheerily oblige. Tell her you're off to the playground, and she'll dash to the front door. Remind her that it's bedtime, and you may provoke an opposite -- but equally definite -- response, as she runs to hide.

By 16 months, it's abundantly clear that your child understands most of what you say, even if her own conversation still relies on gibberish. This ability to grasp spoken language -- a skill experts dub "receptive language" -- is the first crucial step toward the gift of gab. Your baby has been honing her receptive language skills since she first heard the sound of your voice in the womb. Now she'll devote much of her second year to perfecting this receptive language ability, storing up vocabulary, and absorbing the many slippery rules of grammar.

Why does language take so long to learn? It's no small feat to go from a conversational crawl to the linguistic leaps necessary for putting ideas, observations, and emotions into words. Plus language acquisition demands sponging up the rules of syntax and grammar and figuring out how to apply them.

As with most developmental milestones, "there's a wide spectrum of what is considered normal in a toddler's language development," says Greg Sonnen, MD, a pediatrician at Baylor University Medical Center, in Dallas. "Some toddlers may say only two words, while others speak a dozen or more by 16 months. Their articulation skills aren't great, though, and many times a word means something only to Mom and Dad."

Labels

The first words your child learns will almost certainly be labels for the people, animals, or other things in his world. He'll learn single words or short phrases, accruing an average of one or two new ones each month. Then, quite suddenly -- typically at 18 months, though it may happen sooner or later -- your toddler will experience what experts call a "language explosion," the bubbling-over point when he's banking as many as 10 new words a day.

Once your child has mastered a few words, he'll start struggling to communicate his thoughts more accurately. At first, he'll do this through inflection. For instance, he may yell, "Cat!" when the cat starts digging in your flowerpot, because he's seen you do the same.

Growing Vocabulary

Eventually, your toddler will figure out how to string his ever-growing vocabulary into short sentences, says Stephanie Leeds, PhD, director of education and child studies at Cazenovia College, in upstate New York. Your child won't bother with inessential words like prepositions or articles. Those will come later. Now, for example, the toddler who catches the family cat digging in the flowerpot might say, "Bad cat!"

These early sentences are what experts call "telegraphic speech," and they usually consist of two words. Despite their brevity, these sentences represent a new level of communication between your child and others. For instance, he may run to the window and call out, "Daddy home!" when he hears his father's car in the driveway, or yell, "Go swing!" when he sees the playground.

Given the egocentric nature of most toddlers, early sentences are often commands. Your little dictator will yell, "More milk!" or, "Find Teddy!" as he tests his newfound ability to make his every need known. Some words might not be accurate at first -- your child might call a lion or zebra "doggie" because they all have four legs, fur, and a tail -- but the word order will almost always be correct. If your daughter says, "See bus," that probably means she's excited about having seen a bus. But if she calls, "Bus, see," it most likely means she wants you to come see the bus.

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Ways to Raise a Science-Lover:

Schools still aren’t devoting enough resources to this critical subject, but you can bring science to life with these hands-on ideas.

My three kids are natural-born scientists. They’re full of questions, always experimenting to see how things work, and mesmerized by watching a tiny ant carrying a morsel of food. So when my daughter, Stella, started kindergarten, I was shocked to hear that her class studies science for only one hour each week. When I searched for stats to make the case that this wasn’t as much as other schools, I pretty much came up empty. Surveys show that science instruction in elementary schools averages around two hours per week, and in some districts it isn’t taught at all until middle school. “The intense focus on math and reading in recent years has crowded biology, chemistry, and physics out of the grade-school classroom,” says Janice Earle, former program officer at the National Science Foundation. Even when these subjects are taught, teachers tend to have little training and lack the resources to lead experiments, which are crucial for sparking interest in science. No wonder only about a third of fourth-graders have a solid grasp of scientific principles, according to the most recent national assessment.

If that doesn’t concern you, it should. A report by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology found that we need to increase the number of students who receive science-related college degrees by 34 percent annually during the next decade simply to keep up with economic demand. Encourage your child’s teachers and principal, as well as district leaders, to add more science instruction to the curriculum. Since budgets are likely to be an obstacle, you’ll boost the odds of success if you can offer a solution that’s cheap—or, even better, free. Maybe you can find a geologist who’s willing to lead field trips, or organize parent volunteers to help run workshops. If lobbying and organizing aren’t your style, there are still plenty of ways to inspire your own child to fall in love with science. Follow these steps to help unlock her inner Madame Curie.

Go Beyond the Classroom

Three out of four Nobel Prize winners in science discovered their passion outside a school environment, according to an analysis published in Education Week. So seek out extracurricular activities with a focus on scientific exploration. Many elementary schools offer afterschool opportunities to delve into subjects such as robotics and forensics. Check out the offerings at your local YMCA, 4-H organization, or recreation center. Coding classes and clubs are also sprouting up around the country as educators and parents realize that coding promotes analysis, problem solving, and creativity.

If you can’t find anything near you, consider doing it yourself. That’s what Ana Mosser did. An environmental engineer, she approached the after-school coordinator at her son’s school in Thermopolis, Wyoming, who invited her to run a science club. “I’d go online and find experiments,” she says. The club wound up being so popular that the school district made Mosser’s workshops a regular part of the curriculum.

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Why Toddlers Always Say "No!"

Suddenly, your child has opinions about everything. Find out why that's a good thing.

Saying "No" Is Normal

Three-year-old Max Colby doesn't like to wear underwear or short-sleeved shirts. His mom, Andrea, would love to know why -- but Max can't quite explain his objections. "All he does is rip his clothes off and yell 'no, no, no,'" she says. "I have no idea how to handle it."

If you think that you and your defiant toddler are constantly sparring like this, you're right: A recent study in Child Development showed that 2- and 3-year-olds argue with their parents 20 to 25 times an hour! You may get exhausted just looking at those numbers, but there is an upside to all the showdowns. "Kids this age are realizing that they can assert themselves, and arguing with you is one way they gain confidence," says John Sargent, MD, a child psychiatrist and professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Baylor College of Medicine, in Houston. Remember: The world is still a big, mysterious place to your toddler, and he feels pretty powerless in it. Saying no is a normal, healthy way for him to feel as if he has some control.

Still, constant conflicts aren't fun, and they're often tricky to solve. Giving in sets a bad precedent, while being too strict or forcing your child to do what you want can make him feel helpless, scared, angry -- and even more defiant. Try these strategies to turn your talking-back toddler into a "yes" kid.

Focus on the Positive

Your toddler doesn't like hearing "no" all the time any more than the rest of us, but think about how many times you say it to her every day ("No pulling the dog's tail!" "No standing on the chair!"). It's enough to put anyone in a crabby mood. "Tell your child what you want her to do rather than what you don't want her to do," says Angie T. Cranor, PhD, assistant professor of human development and family studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. For example, "Don't roll on the floor in your new dress" is more likely to start an argument than "Please sit on the couch in that pretty dress so it stays clean." Tone is also important. Of course you're going to yell if your child is about to run into traffic, but she's more likely to do what you ask when you use a calm, firm voice.

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