6 Challenges Met By Parents in Their Child’s School

Many schools don’t just challenge the kids. Sometimes, parents meet challenges in their children’s schools, too.

We send our kids to school because we want them to learn and make something out of themselves when they grow older. And while many studies talk about the challenges kids face in school, there are some met by the parents, too! Because of the pandemic, both schools and parents had to adopt new strategies and technologies to make sure their children get the best education. Here are some challenges parents meet in school that we need to talk about:

1. When a basic topic becomes more complex

Especially when our kids tackle higher-level math, a lot of us are left scratching our heads about what x and y are. Back in the day, it was just one plus one equals two. Then, there’s Singapore Math which uses images to help kids solve word problems. What we knew as PEMDAS (Parenthesis, Exponent, Multiplication, Division, Addition, and Subtraction) suddenly turns into BODMAS (Bracket, Orders (Exponents), Division, Multiplication, Addition, and Subtraction).

Some parents hire online tutors, but others are surprised that their kids just get it and press on.

2. Increasing tuition fees

One of the greatest challenges met by parents in school, most especially by single parents, is the increasing tuition fee. Alongside inflation and other improvements the school wants to do, parents are always pressured to find more ways to pay for tuition. They sacrifice their dreams, let go of some of their cherished items (i.e. cars), and even take on work during the graveyard shift to make sure that they have enough money to pay for their children’s quality education.

3. When the school does not meet the child’s needs

These needs are not always learning or psychosocial disabilities. Some of them are auto-immune, which needs us close by in case our kids need to be rushed to the hospital. Not all schools are equipped with the tools and skills to handle cases like that. Most especially when kids suffer from learning delays, many teachers in traditional schools barely have a background in Special Education.

Unfortunately, this makes the school’s culture appear more ruthless, which is why some of us prefer a more student-centric and age-appropriate approach.

4. The school’s parent community differs from our own

Kids are not the only ones with peer problems. One of the most unspoken challenges for parents, when they enroll their kids into a particular school, is becoming friends with the parents in that community. A lot of times, there’s a language barrier, especially when kids are enrolled in Chinese schools. Most of the parents there speak Chinese or Filipino, leaving most English-speaking parents at a loss on how to enter the community.

5. Bullying

Parents often prefer not to involve themselves in bullying cases. Because when they do, it usually escalates to the principal and creates unnecessary drama. But as parents, we always want to protect our children. Especially when the bully is the teacher, we refuse to back down. We send our kids to school to love learning, not fear it.

Our being “indifferent” or “inactive” in our kid’s bullying cases is not because we don’t care. It’s more that we’re restraining ourselves from dishing out the punishment ourselves.

6. How the school’s prestige looks at a college application form

We look for excellent schools because we know it may affect our kids’ chances of attending a good college. While admissions committees say they don’t discriminate, it often happens subconsciously. We see this often in companies when they hire fresh graduates. Each school has an existing stereotype which is what human resource departments use as a reference to see if the employee is a perfect fit.

The same goes for schools and their selection of students. They usually base it on grades, which is why many of us are quite grade-conscious.

We meet our own set of challenges when we enroll our kids in a school

When we enroll our kids in a school, we consider it as a long-term investment. Sometimes, we even plan their careers as early as nursery because we want them to have the highest chances of succeeding. But if there’s one thing we learned as parents, it’s that not all plans happen the way we want them. We don’t know exactly the challenges that our kids also face in school. Some of those challenges may be the life-changing moments our children face to become the person they’re meant to be in the future.

More about the challenges kids, and parents face in school?

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Why Schools Are Pushing to Restore the Old Calendar
How a School’s Culture Can Make Or Break Your Children’s Future