The school year is about to begin, and whether that means homeschooling, distance learning, or sending your children to the physical school building, there are things you can do to help your child succeed this year. One of the best tools for parenting is the concept of building structure throughout your child’s home life.
The CDC lists three key ingredients to building structure, and how they help.
- Consistency – doing the same thing every time regardless of circumstances. This goes both for consequences and rewards. This helps kids discover the boundaries.
- Predictability – expecting or knowing what is going to happen. Once consistency has been established your child will know a negative behavior is treated as negative, and a positive behavior is treated as positive. This reinforces behavior patterns.
- Follow-through – enforcing the consequence/reward. If the follow through is consistent, and they can predict the reaction, they will be able to manage expectations. This aids in future decision making.
These practices can start at any age, and can be part of everyday routines, such as getting ready for schoolwork, having a meal as a family, or getting ready for bed. For more information and examples of how to create structure, please visit https://www.cdc.gov/parents/essentials/structure/building.html.
Our centers are open 8:00 am to 8:00 pm every day of the week, and we are currently testing for COVID-19 and performing antibody testing at our centers from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm daily- no appointment necessary! You can also use our Save My Spot program here. If you need us, we look forward to helping you Get Better. Faster!
