Kindergarten support meetings establish and encourage parental involvement. Asking that parents are involved in the meetings with teachers and school staff ensures that the student’s education is priority. Parental involvement means that parents are learning what is expected from their student’s teachers and are aware of how their child is doing in school at all times. This type of involvement benefits children because their parents are more apt to encourage the same types of behavior and study skills at home as the teacher in her classroom. Parental involvement encourages children to perform and behave better in school.
Support meetings create camaraderie between parents and teachers, and kindergartners will take notice. Meetings allow parents and teachers to discuss their opinions of how children are behaving and performing in class, which enables them to discuss how to handle certain behaviors. When a parent and a teacher approach a child’s situation on the same page, it teaches children the value of teamwork and offers a positive example of how to handle the situation because she is being encouraged the same way in class and at home. When a teacher and a parent work together as a team, it benefits students.
Teachers and parents both go into kindergarten support meetings with a list or mental note of things to talk about regarding the children. When a teacher has ideas regarding learning and education and the parent is privy to those ideas, the student has a better chance of developing faster learning skills because she is being taught the same way at home as she is at school. For example, if the teacher is teaching a child to spell her name, it helps if the teacher and the parent are using the same method of writing practice and letter recognition. Going from one learning method at school to a different method at home is a fast way to confuse a small child.
Not all children have a natural ability to get along well with others or to handle themselves in certain social situations, which leads to problematic behavior. However, when a parent and a teacher are together for regular support meetings, it gives them the chance to discuss these problems and create a plan of action to help the child. Problem solving is an effective way to improve your child’s classroom experience and prevent education from becoming something a child associates with negative feelings.