Creating conducive home study ENVIRONMENT

With the new academic year all set to begin this month, PW presents a comprehensive child development guide devised by experts to enable parents to better prepare children to achieve their academic and extracurricular goals of the next year

- KIRAN BALIMANE & CYNTHIA JOHN

The end of the summer vacation and start of the new academic year evokes mixed sentiments in parents and children — melancholy, relief, anticipation and excitement. It’s also a hectic time of planning and preparing to-do lists from buying school text and notebooks, arranging for children’s daily commute, signing them up for co-curricular and sports activities, to drawing up school lunch-box menus.

To this routine list, latter-day parents are adding home study timetables, daily routines and deliberating good home study habits in children. With a plethora of research studies indicating that children who follow structured study programmes experience less stress and anxiety, a rising number of educators and parenting coaches are advising parents and children to collaborate and coplan school and home study schedules to make learning an enjoyable and fulfilling experience for children.

“Apart from shopping for school books and stationery, planning meal menus, the beginning of the new academic year is the best time for parents and children to draw up mindful home study routines and habits to supplement in-school learning. A structured academic plan for the whole year reduces children’s stress and anxiety, and contributes to improved learning efficiency,” says Lavanya Parashar, a Delhi-based special educator.

With the new academic year set to begin next month, PW presents a comprehensive child development guide devised by experts to enable parents to better prepare children to achieve their academic and extra-curricular goals of the next year.