Using a private tutor with your child

Your child’s school activity is falling behind other classmates, his/her grades aren’t high anymore, or your child is just not coping with teachers’ requirements. All these represent valid reasons for you to get a private tutor for the child. The private tutor will help your child with difficult homework assignments, will explain him/her different concepts or ideas, and will teach him how to study efficiently for tests.
If you hadn’t had a private tutor for your child before, it would be good to know what to bring to a tutoring session. Your child should bring the textbooks for certain subjects they will be studying, notes from classes, previous tests, assignments, workbook problems, class syllabus etc.
The tutoring activity is not the private tutor’s exclusive responsibility. In order for the tutoring sessions to be successful, you, as a parent, share a great deal of responsibility. You have to keep an eye on the child when he/she is not at school, to make sure he/she is studying enough. Parents, child and private tutor have to collaborate together for achieving best results. Therefore, here are some things you should do as part of your role.
Before the tutoring session you ought to make sure that your child is familiar with the material the private tutor will be working on. You should encourage your child to make a list of questions on things he/she didn’t understand during classes. Also encourage your child to ask questions whenever a problem arises. Instruct your child to share with the private tutor his/her preferred method for studying. Make sure the child is behaving respectfully towards the private tutor. And always supervise your child’s studying activity; make sure he/she is studying thoroughly.
Your child’s most important responsibility is to study. But, apart from this, he/she also has to retain himself/herself from doing some prohibited things. Here are the most common mistakes the tutored children are doing. Children expect and even ask the private tutor to do the homework for them. They start studying for a test when it’s too late and they don’t have enough time to learn. Or they ask for the private tutor’s help in case of a test when is too late. And, the worst mistake of all, they don’t study for the tutoring sessions, therefore the parent’s financial effort and the private tutor’s activity become useless.
In conclusion, the learning process is an effort that requires commitment on behalf of parents, students and private tutors. All these factors have to cooperate and act responsible for best studying results.