A Mom's Back-To-School Guide For Children's Success

As the back-to-school season approaches, parents want their children to start the school year on the right foot. It's important for parents to prepare their children by offering advice and tools that will further their academic careers. Texas Instruments and Working Mother Magazine have teamed up to offer busy moms tips and guidance to help their children make a successful transition into the new school year and beyond.

Today's economy makes a solid high school education critical to ensure children can successfully compete for jobs in the real world after high school and college. In particular, strong math skills are increasingly important for a student's future success. Research shows that by the time today's high school students graduate from college, more than six million jobs will require a strong background in math, science or engineering -- 24 percent more than just a few years ago.(1)

"The importance of parental support hit home for me when both of my children were completing high school and my oldest was applying for college," said Carol Evans, CEO and founder of Working Mother Media, including Working Mother magazine. "I learned that it is critical to use every tool and resource available to motivate and help children gain a strong educational foundation, especially in math, that will further their success."

Parents like Evans know that every student needs a comprehensive education to be successful after graduation. The following are tips parents can use to get ready for back-to-school for their tweens and teens.

• Take advantage of available educational tools and resources for your
  child
• Make sure your child has the right tools in math.
• Unlike the calculators we grew up with, graphing calculators are math learning tools used from middle school through high school. Research has shown that students who use a graphing calculator at home and in class do better in math(2), like the TI-Nspire
  graphing calculator from Texas Instruments designed with computer features that help students better visualize math concepts for a deeper understanding.
• Ensure your child is prepped for the SAT* or ACT exams that are so important in today's competitive college admissions.
• Many parents are not aware that graphing calculators such as the TI-Nspire graphing calculator can be used on college entrance exams and students who use these calculators on tests can have a huge leg up.
• Students should check out The Princeton Review for test prep resources that can prepare them for college entrance exams. They even offer free test prep questions that can be downloaded to students' Texas Instruments graphing calculators.
• Take advantage of homework help.
• There are many study group and tutoring options to help your child. Online resources, like Tutor.com, are available any time our child needs help -- on their schedule, not on yours. You should also check with your child's school for more options.
• Communicate the value of math education: Math is important regardless of what your teen wants to be in life. In fact, studies show that people with strong math backgrounds are more likely to be employed and earn more.
• Get to know your child's guidance counselor and teachers: At the beginning of the school year, become acquainted with your child's guidance counselors and teachers and stay in touch -- they're a wealth of information and can ensure that your child is taking challenging classes in order to be prepared for a successful future.
• Set education and life goals with your children: Before school starts, work with your child to create a list of goals they want to accomplish during the coming semester, school year and beyond. Discuss careers and make sure they're choosing the courses they need to achieve their goals. Make it a priority to set goals and to help them succeed in school, not just for good grades but also for the fulfillment of their dreams. Post them in a visible spot and review them with your child regularly to ensure you are both on track.
• Make their knowledge applicable to the real world: Help them see how what they learn in school is important in real life, like how they can use math skills every day to make better financial choices and even budget their allowances.

"An understanding of math prepares students for the future and encouragement from parents is vital," said Melendy Lovett, president of TI's Education Technology business. "In joining forces with Carol Evans and Working Mother, Texas Instruments is excited to provide parents the tips and tools essential to guiding their children to a successful school year and a rewarding future." - Adapted from http://www.newscom.com

Ways For Kids To Earn Money

Thinking of ways for kids to earn money before they are old enough to have a regular job can seem like a challenge.

Years ago, before child labor laws, it was so normal for kids to be working alongside adults that the very thought of looking for ways for kids to make money would have been ridiculous! Sometimes, the money earned by kids kept a family from starvation.

We live in better times now. There is usually plenty to eat, and we expect our kids to focus on their education, not support the family.

However, the school system in the Western world is highly geared to producing good employees. There are real risks if you leave your child's financial education to the so-called "education experts". Remember that the teachers, the inspectors, the administrators, the people who write the curriculum guidelines, and the politicians who make the laws about education are all, themselves, employees. Many of them have never been anything else.

It's up to parents to instill that good old-fashioned value of self-reliance, and encourage kids to get out and make money for themselves.

Kids can do all sorts of things to earn money. The only limit is your imagination.

• Babysitting
• Baking for busy working mothers
• Collecting aluminium cans
• Cleaning swimming pools
• Gardening
• Letter-box leaflet drops
• Running errands
• Dog washing
• Selling things on eBay
• Making jewellery
• Making My Space backgrounds
• Busking
• Collecting for charity on commission
• Buying bulk candy and selling individual pieces
• Entertainers at kids' parties
• Exercising horses
• Breeding rats (or other pets)
• Comic book rental library
• Toy rental library
• Collecting lost golf balls
• Washing cars... and hundreds more!
  

Not so long ago, kids didn't need to look for ways to earn money, because 95% or more of the population were self-employed. People worked on their own farms, in retail, or in cottage industries. Kids grew up surrounded by commerce, watching the exchange of valuable services for money, and inhaling the principles of adding value and making a profit with their every breath.

These days, the majority of people depend on someone else's entrepreneurial spirit to generate revenue and pay them a wage directly, or they are indirectly relying on those same business owners because they work for a government funded by taxing the private sector and its employees.

With this shift from enterprise to job-seeking has come a corresponding shift from self-reliance to dependence. We have almost lost the ability to take care of ourselves financially.

Most people are expecting an employer or the government to take care of them when they can no longer work. Or, worse, they aren't even thinking about how they might survive financially beyond this year, this month, or even this week.

Basic entrepreneurship should be part of every child's education. But we can't expect the employees who teach in schools to pass on skills they don't have. As with the other crucial life skills like dental hygiene, eating right, and avoiding poisons, teaching the skills of money and business is very much the parent's responsibility. Help your kids to find ways to earn money, and build their skills for life. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com