We all want our kids to become better students and succeed in school, and parents have more power to help than you may know. So here are 4 things you can do to boost performance and personal growth.

1. Engage in your child’s school work every day.

The single most important factor that is predictive of student success: daily parent engagement. 

Check in with your kids every single day. Look over their assignments, read their papers, review their tests. You may get some resistance at first, but it doesn’t take long to make it part of your family’s daily routine.

2. Hold your kids accountable for their performance.

Your children need to be accountable for both their successes and failures. Students are often too quick to blame their teachers for bias or bad teaching. 

Don’t side with your kids to blame teachers! Instead, help them learn how to navigate challenging classes by giving the teachers what they are asking for. Learn to play the game. Don’t blame the game.

And don’t be afraid to let your kids fail at something. From failures come the greatest lessons.

3. Encourage your kids to take advantage of office hours (virtually or in-person).

All students should take advantage of teacher office hours on a regular basis for a variety of reasons: it shows the teacher they care, they’ll get tips on upcoming quizzes and tests, they’ll learn to build meaningful relationship with teachers, and more.

If a student is struggling, it is absolutely mandatory that he or she go see their teacher regularly until they are up to speed in the class.

4. Build your kids’ executive function and independence.

Students need to learn how to organize their time, how to study effectively and efficiently, how to plan ahead to reach a goal, and how to make smart, well-reasoned decisions. Building these skills is an important part of growing up, and you should be helping. 

However, you also need to know when to stop micromanaging and trust that your child is building his or her own set of executive skills. Don’t stop your daily engagement, but let your child do the work.

Keep up the good work!