home school

Are you a pushy parent?

I used to think that 'pushy parenting' was a fallacy and that all parents shouldpush their children to succeed academically.

Nowadays however, my perspective has started to change.

I was recently teaching a lesson when a parent interrupted and started to moan endlessly about how lazy their child was.

As I nodded my head in approval, something hit me.

I realised that whilst some children are genuinely lazy and really don't care about their learning, this child wasn't one of them. This child did work. They worked incredibly hard and deserved a 'well done' or 'keep it up darling.'

I left the lesson and began to ponder:

Is it okay to constantly criticise children?

Is it okay to push, push and push your child in the bid for academic excellence?

Will constant pushing lead to success or will it just result in broken children who don't feel as if anything they do is good enough?

As a private tutor, is my role to simply nod in acknowledgement or to interrupt when parents are criticising their children?

What do you think?

Is pushy parenting acceptable or is it borderline abusive?

I'm starting to agree with the latter.

Leave a comment below and share your thoughts.

The Tutoress.

Are All Tutors The Same? 4 Signs Your Child's Tutor Is The Wrong Pick

Bad Tutors These days it seems as if everyone (or every child) has a private tutor.

In fact, research shows that 25% of children living in London will receive some form of tutoring during their academic lifetime.

That means that 1 out of every 4 children are tutored in some way or another.

It's no wonder why tutoring is a £100 million industry (in the UK) and a multi-billion dollar industry globally.

With so many people offering tutoring services, how does a parent know whether a tutor is wrong for their child?

I've personally observed that many parents are focused on the wrong things when it comes to choosing a tutor for their child.

Here are four clear signs that signal that a tutor isn't the right fit for your child.

Pay careful attention to them because many parents miss these vital things.

Sign 1.

They are clueless about the curriculum. It doesn't matter if your child

is learning algebra, Shakespeare or calculus, their learning needs to fit around

some sort of curriculum especially if the child is sitting an exam on the subject.

Ask your tutor during the first meeting whether they are well versed on the relevant

curriculum for the subject they're teaching in.

Sign 2.

They're a know-it-all.

Remember those teachers at school who just rambled on and on about random things that were in hardly relevant to the subject?

The teachers who just went on and on and on and on but didn't actually break down a topic into bite sized chunks? Those types of 'teachers' aren't really that great.

In fact, they'll usually just chatter away for an hour or two talking about something that's irrelevant to your child's learning and will bill you for all that talk after!

Make sure you either sit-in on the first lesson or have a mini-interview (or even a casual talk) with your child's tutor so that you can decipher whether they're a chitter-chatterer or a genuinely great teacher.

Sign 3.

They are money-greedy.

Notice that I didn't use the word money-hungry? Money-hungriness in itself

isn't a bad thing (we all need to earn a living don't we?)

However, money-greedy tutors usually only care about one thing-

earning more money without proving a service that is valuable to their clients.

Signs that your tutor is money-greedy include things like not turning up to lessons whilst expecting to be paid, constantly increasing their prices without proper notification and

sending invoices for lessons that didn't take place (yes some tutors do that!)

The fourth and final sign is that they're not passionate about teaching!

Good teachers and tutors love educating others and genuinely gain at least a sprinkle of joy from their jobs.

Bad tutors hate their jobs and are only in it for the money or because they have nothing else to do or can't be asked to find another job.

Have you ever come across or hired a bad tutor? What did they do that was wrong? What signs did you notice that weren't great? Leave a comment below and share your experience.

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