Supporting your Child's After School Learning: Practical Advice for Parents of Learners Disabilities.
In this article, we’ll explore practical, positive steps parents can take to support their child’s learning journey after school.
A parent guiding his child in doing school work at home (ChatGPT)
A good quality learning experience is a triangle between the child, parents and teachers. A learner with disability requires a quadrilateral approach including the occupational therapist and psychologist.
Firstly, we must demystify parents’ perspectives and attitudes towards their child's learning journey. Parents need to have hope in doses of reality. Parents recognize the need for the learner with disability to be cognitively stimulated and develop intellectual at the child's level.
Perceptions from society also affect your decision-making and effective support for your child in their learning journey. As a parent, it is important to understand what societal perceptions are worth imparting to your child.
Whether homeschooling or typical school, in boarding school or in day school,
Education for a child with a disability requires extra commitment and attention. It looks different for every child with a disability and so do the support strategies.
Extra support is required in school, whether the child is in a special school or mainstream school. The extra support does vary from designing individualized education plans, hiring shadow teaching, reasonable accommodation and more.
However, for a child with a disability, support at after school learning is also crucial in the child's educational journey.
This can be as simple as making the learning experience enjoyable and playful, scheduling learning into after school learning routines, using technology to amplify the content.
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Communication is important: the open line for discussion over the child's activities and behavior both at after school learning and in school. This can mean initiating a reporting/feedback way either through the report book or text messages to support in keeping tabs and encouraging follow through with the child. An example would be, “if the child is focusing on number work through visual instruction with the occupational therapist, this approach should be implied at after school learning and in school.
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Individualized session with the child with disability. As a parent, it is important to factor in time to catch up with your child's learning. Apart from awaiting progress reports from the teacher or occupational therapist, do after school learning work together, engage in extra work together, watch educational videos and gauge your children's learning capacity. Notably, it should position you to insightful work with the professionals.
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Supporting psychosocially. Learning journeys for children with disabilities is emotionally and relationally impactful. Discussing with your child - their strengths, their skills, their experiences in school and their challenges they may be facing as well as a parent - your expectations, needs, challenges and how you support your child's learning journey. Reassuring the child of his capacity and possibility to achieve their goals and always remember, you can seek psychosocial support from a professional expert.
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Make learning an experience and this encourages parents to take their child out for social events and activities. Learning about anything and Everything does support in learning schoolwork. Don't limit your child's exposure to life and the world.
Learning for a child with a disability is like a rollercoaster tycoon without the right support. It's a collaboration with the professionals involved in the child's educational journey. However, the most influential support that your child can get is at home. As a parent, equip yourself to enable your child with a disability.
All the best in your child's learning journey.
Article by: Maria Njeri