Every parent wants to help, and most of the help parents give is the wrong kind: more hours, more pressure, more homework supervision. The research on what parents do that actually improves children's results is clear and a little surprising, because the things that work most are small, daily and not about homework at all. Here are the twelve, the five that do not work, how the job changes with age, and a routine that takes twenty minutes a day.
The twelve things that work
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Read with your child every day until about 10, and keep talking about books after. The single best-evidenced thing a parent can do. Not teaching reading; reading together, taking turns, talking about the story. The gap between children who are read to and those who are not shows up in every subject, not only English, because every subject is read. How to do it with a child who resists is in how to make reading fun for kids who struggle.
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Talk about school every day, in a way that gets detail. Not "how was school" (fine). "What did you do in maths today?" "What was the hardest thing?" "What did the teacher say about…" Children whose parents talk about school in detail do better, partly because the parent hears about a problem in week two instead of at the report.
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A fixed homework time and place. The same time, the same table, every school day, with the phone elsewhere. The routine does more than any amount of nagging, because it removes the daily negotiation.
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Protect sleep. Nine to eleven hours for a primary child, eight to ten for a teenager, and the screen out of the bedroom. Tired children cannot hold working memory, and working memory is what maths and reading comprehension run on. More sleep raises results more reliably than more study.
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Praise effort and method, not cleverness. "You kept going on that one" and "you checked your answer" rather than "you're so smart". Children praised for being clever avoid hard tasks, because a hard task might prove they are not; children praised for effort take them on. This is one of the best-replicated findings in the psychology of learning.
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Know the teacher and the curriculum. Which topics this term, what the test is on, what the teacher thinks the child's weak point is. One email or ten minutes at a parents' evening. Parents who know what is being taught can see a gap when it appears.
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Catch a gap early. School problems are nearly always one specific gap that grew: fractions never secured, reading comprehension a year behind, the first algebra not understood. A child who was "fine until this year" has a gap that this year exposed. Find it while it is small, with the teacher, a quick check at home, or a tutor's first class. The signs that mean a tutor is needed, and the ones that mean wait, are in signs your child needs a tutor.
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Let them struggle before you help. A child who is stuck and given the answer learns nothing; a child who is stuck and asked a question ("what is the question asking you to find?") learns to get unstuck. Count to twenty before helping. The struggle is where the learning is.
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Model it. Children of parents who read, who are curious, who say "I don't know, let's find out", read more and are more curious. Children of parents who say "I was never good at maths either" believe maths is inherited.
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High expectations, said calmly. The expectation that the child will do the work and do it properly, communicated as a matter of course, not as pressure. Parental expectations are one of the strongest predictors of achievement in the research; parental pressure is one of the strongest predictors of anxiety.
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A morning routine. Breakfast, bag packed the night before, out of the door on time. A child who arrives late, hungry or flustered loses the first lesson every day.
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The right help at the right time. When the gap is found and the parent cannot close it (most parents cannot teach Algebra 2 or IGCSE chemistry, and should not have to), get a teacher who can, early, for a few months, rather than waiting for the report and then paying for a year.
The five that do not work
| What parents do | Why it fails |
|---|---|
| Doing the homework for them | Hides the gap from the teacher; teaches the child that the parent will finish it |
| Paying for grades | Moves the motivation from the learning to the money; the effect fades and then reverses |
| More hours of study | Past about an hour of focused work a day for a primary child, the return is nothing and the cost is sleep and play |
| Pressure | Produces anxiety, and anxiety uses the working memory the task needs; the pressured child performs below what they know. What it does in maths specifically is in math anxiety in kids |
| Comparing | With a sibling, a cousin, a classmate. The child hears "you are the one who is worse", and acts on it |
How the job changes with age
| Age | The parent's main job |
|---|---|
| 5 to 7 | Reading together every day; number talk in daily life (counting, sharing, time); sleep; the routine |
| 8 to 10 | Still reading together; the homework routine established; the first gaps caught (times tables, fractions, reading for meaning); praise for effort |
| 11 to 13 | Step back from the content, keep the routine; know the curriculum; talk about school daily; watch for the first subject the child "hates", which is a gap |
| 14 to 16 | The exam years: the timetable, the sleep, the teacher's view of the weak subjects, help found early; expectations said once, calmly, and then trust |
| 16 plus | Logistics and support; the work is theirs; the parent's job is to notice when something is wrong and ask |
The mistake most parents make is to do the 8-to-10 job (close involvement with the content) at 14, when it produces arguments, and to skip the 5-to-7 job (reading together) because the child can read. Reading together until 10, and stepping back from homework at 11, is roughly the right shape.
A twenty-minute daily routine
- Five minutes, after school: the detailed conversation. One subject, one specific question.
- Ten minutes, at the homework time: the start. Sit nearby, help them begin, then leave them to it. Return only to check it is done.
- Five minutes, at bedtime: reading together up to about 10; after that, a question about what they are reading.
That is the whole routine. It is not much, and it is more than most children get, and it is nearly all of what the research says matters.
If something is already wrong
Find the specific thing. Ask the teacher what, exactly, the child cannot do: not "struggling in maths" but "cannot add fractions with different denominators". Check it at home with three questions. If it is one gap, a few weeks with the teacher or a tutor closes it. If the child has decided they cannot do the subject at all, the gap has been there for a while and the confidence has gone with it; that takes a term, with a patient teacher who starts where the child is. Either way, the earlier the better, and the first step is always the same: name the thing.
Where to get help
A free 30-minute 1-on-1 class with a tutor who holds a master's in the subject, which is a diagnosis: the gap named in writing afterwards, with a short plan. For maths, the sciences and English from Grade 1 to the final exams, in the child's own curriculum, at a time in your time zone, with you in the room. The same tutor every week, the recording of every class, and the tutor never contacts the child outside the class. The team page says who the tutors are.
Questions parents ask
1What can parents do to help their child succeed in school?
2How can parents help their child do better in school?
3Does parental involvement improve academic achievement?
4How much should parents help with homework?
5What should parents not do?
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Shobha
Founder and lead tutor, Science with Shobha
Teaching maths, science and English to children online since 2018. 500+ students, 20+ tutors, families in nine countries.