The biggest way that parents can help children is to provide assistance with homework and everyday life issues. This means that parents should help their children when they can, sitting down with students to work with them on their homework and assisting them with projects for class. Parents can help to educate children on a wealth of topics, including those they learn in and out of school. They can play different roles in students' education, acting as a friend when young people need help with a problem, serving as a teacher when they need one-on-one help with schoolwork and making sure that they get their homework done and fulfill other obligations, according to Math and Reading Help for Kids and the American Library Association, organizations dedicated to getting children interested in reading. Parents can also help teach their children by regularly taking them to educational places, such as museums, historical sites or performing arts centers.
Parents often provide assistance to teachers and coaches by serving as volunteers. Parents can serve as teacher aides, assistant coaches, coordinators, chairs or everyday volunteers inside or outside the classroom. Volunteering at school or after-school functions allows parents to serve as good role models for their children as well as provide support for and spend time with their children. Sometimes parents can also teach their children while they are volunteering at school-related or after-school events. For example, they could teach their children new techniques for playing a sport or an instrument or help educate their children on cultural practices or scientific principles. When parents serve as volunteers, they often mentor not only their own children but other young people as well.
Parents can support young people with school-related and after-school activities, either directly or indirectly. They can help to build young people's confidence and help them to develop sound moral values by offering encouragement, support and advice on their children's academic, athletic, artistic and social endeavors. Parents can assist their children in a variety of ways, including driving them to in-school and after-school functions; helping them to work on sports drills, lines for a play or art projects; or providing financial support for school-related and after-school endeavors.
Parents can also get directly involved in their children's education by serving on a school board. As school board members, they help to make decisions about aspects of children's education, including the curriculums that schools follow and the programs they adopt. To serve on school boards, parents usually have to be voted into the positions by the community. Serving on a school board or regularly attending school board meetings can allow parents to have some influence over what materials their children learn while they are away from home.