Darling Steps

How to Help Your Daughter Succeed in School

Education is important for every child, but girls learn differently than boys. If you have sons already, you might be accustomed to their learning style, but it is possible your daughter learns differently. That is why you should follow these tips for helping your daughter succeed in school.

Give Your Young Daughter Educational Toys

While your daughter is young, find some toys that will help provide more educational purposes. Depending on her age, this might be a puzzle, activity books, or even blocks with different shapes. If you continue giving her things to play with that will help with her growth and development and provide her with a way to expand her intelligence and memory, you will soon find out that she excels when she gets to school age.

Work On Your Daughter’s Self Esteem Issues

Girls tend to be more distracted by her emotions and self-confidence in school, which can then cause her to suffer as a result of her school work. If it looks like your daughter is lacking in self-confidence, it may be that certain people or situations are affecting her self-esteem. No matter how old she is, it is not too soon or too late to help her have better self-esteem. Remind her of all her abilities and talents, and don’t let anyone judge her, degrade her, or talk down to her. Try to engage her in new activities that you believe will improve her confidence and self-esteem.

Encourage Her to Try STEM

STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. This is really important for any child or teen to become involved in. It might be that your daughter excels in one of these areas, but she needs the opportunity to give it a try. See if her current school, whether private or public, offers a STEM program. If not, try to get her into individual classes that will let her learn science, technology, and mathematics. Teach her these things at home or find her a decent STEM program outside of her main school environment. Regardless of what her abilities are or what career you think she is headed toward, this can help tremendously with her education.

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Don’t forget to expand on your daughter’s natural abilities. She might be more of a creative type, so you can enroll her in dreams, art, or writing. If she seems to be really good at math, try to find classes involving mathematics that will help her with her school work.

Here’s Why You Need to Read to Your Older Children

 There are many reasons why school-aged kids still need a bedtime story. Some are to do with sleep, and others to do with their educational achievements and laying the foundation for a life-long love of books.  

Setting a Sleep Routine

School-aged children need about ten to eleven hours of sleep per night. The trouble is that school work, TV, and electronics can get in the way. However, even small amounts of sleep deprivation can lead to big problems.

Studies have shown that a lack of sleep results in lost productivity, emotional issues, and even accidents – sometimes serious ones. A daily routine you stick to every day, even at the weekends, can go a long way towards having productive days and getting your child ready for sleep at night.

Evenings should be set up in such a way that they signal the lead-up to sleep. A good dinner, homework, and a small amount of TV or gaming will let them know the end of the day is near. However, they should not watch or do anything over-exciting for at least an hour before bedtime.

Having a bath or shower, getting into sleepwear, brushing one’s teeth, and so on, are all signals for your child that sleep is drawing near. But the biggest lure of getting in bed might be the bedtime story.

Reading a bedtime story is a shared activity that can create close family bonds. Also, stories are ingrained in our culture. We share them all the time in different forms, such as movies and TV.

However, books will also help your child improve their reading skills, add to their vocabulary, and capture their imagination. They can learn about history, art, nature, science and more through the books you and they choose.  

Educational Achievements

Studies show that parents who read to their children regularly are making a significant impact on their child’s educational achievements. Every subject, even math, relies on your child having good reading and comprehension skills. Even ten minutes of reading six nights a week can add up to an extra hour of teaching and learning. Just think what you would have to pay a tutor per hour these days, and you can see the time spent reading can be well worth it.  

A Love of Books and Learning

  One study argues that parents should continue reading to children up to the age of 11: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/11864664/Children-tell-parents-please-dont-stop-bedtime-stories.html

Other studies have shown that 66% of six-year-olds who were read to express a love of books, but the same group of children one year later whose parents had stopped reading to them showed that only 44% expressed an appreciation of books.

In addition to the educational boost, bedtime stories are a great way to lull your child to sleep and to share experiences and quiet moments with each other, without being on the go all the time.

Chances are children who won’t remember every toy you gave them or every video game they played, but they will remember you reading to them every night.