What are the best years of your life?
For many of us, it’s probably our years in school where life went on a routine, minus the ever-hanging sword of responsibilities and bills. My early years in school were good too until things started getting complicated during adolescence.
I was always a bright student. My father and mother both took an interest in what I studied. They would help me revise what was taught in the class at home. They would ensure that I cover all my chapters before exams. After exams, we would always discuss the question papers.
However, after around the 6th grade, my parents started having some financial difficulties and became all consumed by them. They consequently started becoming less and less involved in my studies. Also, my studies were getting more complicated now. Sometimes they genuinely wanted to help, but failed to do so as they were themselves not knowledgeable about many things.
By this time I had established my credentials as an academically bright kid. My parents therefore let me be more independent in my studies. They would sometimes check in but trusted me to keep at school.
This is the time when the difficulties started. I was always more inclined towards humanities and literature. So, while I spent hours with my English and History textbooks, I started neglecting Science and Math. I wasn’t very concerned as I felt that I would be able to manage as I always did. But things were getting more complicated with these subjects now. Every concept that I didn’t understand clearly kept piling up and affecting my progress in the next. A lot of learning gaps were getting created in the process. I was too young to understand the gravity of the situation.
Things reached a point where I failed my Science terminal exams and barely passed in Math. At the same time, I scored well in History and English.
It came as a rude shock to my parents. They had never expected their child to perform so dismally, let alone fail. I was very embarrassed of myself. I was also very confused at the same time. This severely impacted my confidence levels and I started lagging behind academically as a whole. Adolescence is already a period of storm and strife. I still remember those days as full of anxiety, shame and stress.
My parents finally took matters into their own hands. They hired a few private tutors. With their help I managed to overcome my gaps. But it took a while. Thankfully, by the time board exams arrived in my life, I was back to being my confident and bright self again.
I was saved.
This might sound like a familiar story to many of you.
Our parents did what they could to help us, according to their understanding and experience. But now it’s our turn to ensure that our children don’t go through something similar. We have a responsibility to keep track of what and how much they are learning, and take steps at the right time to help them overcome challenges. In today’s world, when we are infinitely busier and more occupied than the earlier generation of parents, it is all the more important to ensure that we track our kids’ learning progress.
Thankfully, technology has made it easier for us today to keep track of our child’s learning. We need not be ignorant any more till the report card came in to know if they are lagging behind. Learning applications today make our parenting tasks much easier.
These applications offer a personalised learning environment to children where they can learn at their pace and as per their learning styles in a non-judgemental environment. You can keep track of what your child is learning. There are also comprehensive and detailed progress reports that can be downloaded from these applications. Practice tests and immediate feedback reflect areas that require more work.
It’s almost like having a personal tutor for your child.
Our parents did their best. Now it is our turn to become smart and tech savvy parents and be aware of what and how our children are learning. While we may all complain about our kids’ addiction to smartphones , we can also find solutions to deal with the same in technology itself. It is our responsibility to ensure that screen time is also learning time for our children.
