I had always dreamed of being involved at my child’s school when they attended, however since starting Kindy this year I have to admit that the constant calls for parental help and involvement is overwhelming. Add that to a busy schedule of working, mothering and keeping house and no wonder it is a struggle for schools to get parents to volunteer. Being involved in your child’s school can be rewarding and offers a number of positive kickbacks for their schooling. Over a series of blog posts I a going to look at the range of benefits gained from volunteering and the ways that you can be involved in your child’s school regardless of whether you work full time or not.
Benefits of volunteering at your child’s school – For you:
- Learning more about your child. Being involved in their school activities can help you to learn more about your child, to better understand what they do, watch them interact with their classmates and get to know the other children around them.
- Bonding with their teacher. Being involved in their school activities provides you with the opportunity to bond with your child’s teacher in a non-obtrusive way. This can provide invaluable feedback and information on your child as well as give you the opportunity to ask any questions or provide feedback.
- Bonding with other parents. Developing relationships with other school parents is a great way to learn about what is happening at school (many mouths paint a better overall picture) as well as helping you develop friendships which could potentially help your child in forming friendships as well as possibly helping steer the direction of their friendships. It can also be handy to have a mum or two that you can turn to for help if you are running late, have an important meeting or just need a hand with school drop off, pick up or play dates during the holidays.
- Improving the relationship with your child. Knowing more about the children in their class, their classroom learning’s and understanding how/what they do better, helps you when trying to communicate with them. You can construct your questions better, giving you a greater opportunity to talk and learn more from your child about their school life.
- Improve/learn new skills. Volunteering at your school can help you learn new skills or improve existing skills, both of which will benefit you when returning to the work or on your current CV.
Volunteering for your child’s school also provides a number of benefits for your child which we will cover in the next post. If you don’t feel you have time to volunteer or that you can’t help, stay tuned as we will also cover making volunteering work for you and the different ways you can volunteer. Do you volunteer – what benefits does it give you?
This article was written by Lorraine Salvi; owner and Founder of MumsDelivery – providing solutions for Busy Mums. Lorraine is a Mum to 3 young children and a recent recruit to the joys of being a mum with school aged children.