Vocational School of Justice
ALLOW CHILDREN TO DISCOVER THEMSELVES
Almost 18 million students in pre-schools, elementary, middle, and high schools are going to receive their report cards. The experts strongly argue that parents should not focus on the grades, that a report card is a good source for children in terms of informing them about areas that need to be improved. They also recommend that parents need to make a holiday list with their children in order to get their children away from becoming slaves to technology during long summer break.
Ezgi Oral, Lecturer at Child Development Program, Vocational School of Health Services, Izmir University of Economics (IUE), stated that report card reflected the performance of the student all throughout the year, and that was an indicator of a child’s output of academic development, not his/her personality. Parents needed to lower their expectations of their children’s academic capacity, reported Oral and she said, “Each child has different areas of interests and skills. They may not be able to display the same performance in each class. Parents need to appreciate the areas their child is successful at. This would make the child feel precious”.
Oral said that parents needed to stay away from displaying a punitive attitude and labeling them as ‘lazy’, ‘unsuccessful’ which would harm their personality. Children should be allowed to express themselves, pointed Oral and said that parents needed to make a holiday list with their children in order to get their children away from becoming slaves to technology during long summer break.
Oral stated that students should head toward activities and art they are interested in, and that would open up doors to new worlds. Oral made the following recommendations to parents:
“Go out and explore the city you live in. You will be surprised to find out there are many topics to talk about, discuss, observe. Do something together in the kitchen. Bake cookies, cakes, etc. together. Let your child experience and create. Tell stories about animals. Plan trips to museums. Go buy new books together. Then talk about the book with your child. Play games together. Set a specific time for homework. Remember that they are on holiday so keep that time short.”