If you are a primary school teacher...

[Yoyotent]

....what is the best advice you can give me to help raise a happy, well-rounded, successful (however you chose to define it) son?

What have you learnt about young children that helps them? What should I avoid / keep in check?

What (metaphorical) seeds can I sow now?

He is 5.

Actually all advice/hints/tips (teachers and non-teachers) welcome!

Resilience resilience resilience.

The current trend to helicopter parenting is so damaging to children. They need to pick their battles and learn to fight them on their own!

Boundaries. Empathy and understanding that everyone has different needs. Equity vs equality. Exercise and time outdoors. Limit (a lot) screen time. Kindness. How to wait.

Oh, and it always stands to reason, lots of hugs and tell them you love them every day.

Cultural capital, cultural capital and cultural capital!

Oh and sport and fresh air to build resilience and mental wellbeing.

Teachers don’t know any more about parenting than anyone else although some of my colleagues think they do!

I’m not a teacher but I volunteer at a local primary, reading with Year 6 (and I have DS17). Mine would be -

Sleep - the foundation of everything else - routine for this is super important

Limit screens - not a complete No but with supervision and an eye on how long

Time outdoors - helps long distance vision, light sets the body clock, fresh air, kids run around and get naturally tired etc etc

And read, read, read, and talk about what you are reading together. I see so many kids who don’t read enough so aren’t confident, or who have real reading difficulty but it’s never really been picked up and addressed (Covid had a lot do with that too), or who are reading competently but have no real understanding of the words they are saying or the context, background or history of the story. Only this week I’ve explained what old money and decimalisation was (shillings), the civil war in Syria (story about a refugee boy), and how tides work and how the moon influences them. I keep an Atlas by me and open it and show kids where countries are - at least half the time they don’t know, and that opens up tons of conversation too. Teachers just don’t have time to do this in depth, the detail and nuance comes from time with parents (or other care givers). It might sound superfluous but do it for years and it opens up the whole world. And at a basic level, if your kid turns out to hate English and literature, he’ll still have to be a competent reader to understand exam questions, even for maths papers. Reading is super important.

I agree. Teachers are not one thing as the thread assumes. I have come across teachers at my children's primary schools whose children I feel incredibly sorry for because they were horrible, shouty, grumpy people. Some teachers aren't remotely interested in how well a child does and are doing the job because they get long school holidays.

Some teachers are the opposite of course - I've also met teachers who I would have loved to have been my mum.

Independence (including the getting self dressed and ability to entertain themselves and come up with their own suggested solutions to problems)
kindness (including standing up for others)
resilience (including the being able to lose)
critical thinking (nothing formal just overlaying common sense!)
Curiosity
openmindedness
love of learning and reading especially

Read together every day.
Support him with his homework.
Show him that failure eventually leads to success. Failure means you’re trying something new and you won’t always succeed first time. Resilience.

This is all hugely helpful (and reassuring that no one is saying extra homework / tutoring / structured activities from dawn til dusk).

I wondered what teachers mean by "scaffolding" - am I right in thinking that this is asking follow up questions, thinking what might happen if one variable in the problem changes slightly, encouraging child to think through problems from a different perspective etc?

Would anyone be able to give me an example of a scaffolding in practice?

Thank you for all your time!

Scaffolding is basically the amount of prompts on a piece of learning. So scaffolding letter writing might mean providing a page with

Dear ……..,
Thank you for my…………
Love,
Your name

the more reduced the scaffold the more expectation on the child. So asking for a thank you letter and providing a blank sheet of paper will get you a different result.

Thank you!

Just keep well connected with him by spending time with him, show him he's loved and valued but also being firm about things that matter like behaviour, bedtimes, activity and eating well. These all contribute to wellbeing.

Spend lots of time outdoors. There is massive benefit to being outdoors and can help with wellbeing, moods, confidence and resilience.

Keep reading and learning. Learn with him.
You might be surprised at how much you don't know about sharks, birds of prey and ww2.

lots of conversations, and doing things together - strict limits on screen time, socialised, see lots of friends, except nothing but high standards of behaviour, sharing, obedience, etc. Activities and outings and down time without screens