How Much Help Should You Give Your Child?

Your child needs your help to succeed in school and in life but you need to do it right.  Too much support and your child will feel that you are pushing too hard and begin to lose confidence in his or her ability to learn.  Too little support and your child will miss out on learning opportunities that lead to success.

Knowing how much support your child needs is as important as knowing exactly what type of support he or she needs.

The answer is — it all depends!

You can only judge the amount of support you should give your child when you understand your child’s learning needs.  It’s like making dinner.  You don’t know how much to cook until you know how many people will be eating it!  Cook too much and food goes to waste, cook too little and everyone is hungry!

Look at the photo above. The child is happy, he feels secure because father is holding onto one arm and one leg yet he has the freedom to point out something that interests him.  The father looks happy, his son is not a burden, he is interested in what his son is pointing to and he knows his son is safe.  He is giving his son just the right amount of support.

That is because he understands his son’s needs.  He needs to enjoy the ride, to describe things that interest him, to feel safe, to be comfortable and to have fun.  So everyone is happy.

You can use this photo as a guide to understanding how much support your child needs.

Does your child feel safe, or are you making him or her feel insecure or pressured?

Are you happy to be involved and to offer help?

Is your child pleased that you are offering support, or would he rather you did not interfere?

Is your child open to sharing things with you or does he do this with reluctance?

Do you know what your child needs to learn so that you can help him learn it?

Do you help make learning fun and exciting?

If you can give positive answers to these questions you are providing your child with the support he needs, answer otherwise and you may be giving your child too much support or too little.  In either case your child, and you, will suffer.

How much dinner are you going to make tonight?

Once you discover what your child needs to learn, and how he or she needs to learn it, then you can decide how much support your child needs.