Raising kids in the 21st century can be a herculean task, especially in making sure they perform excellently in their schoolwork. Some subjects, for them, might not be as easy as others.

An Imo State-based father-of-four, Mr Oluwatomisin Ajao, said he had to put in the extra job for his four kids to make sure that they perform well in their academic pursuits.

Ajao’s first child, Tobi, according to him, was good at mathematics but performed poorly in English Language, Literature and other art-related subjects.

“Since he was still in primary school where there was no way for him to make choices about his career, we knew we needed to help him with those subjects that were difficult for him.

“His problem, we found out, was that the words were just too much and he was already too used to figures. So, it stressed him to comprehend all of them at a go.

“So, we reduced his pace to one page at a time and increased it as he improved,” he said.

This was not the same for the other three children Ajao had. He said they were all bad at mathematics at first, and his first child could not understand how something as simple as math was hard for his siblings.

Now, Tobi, who was done with secondary school, devoted extra time to coaching his siblings in mathematics but it was not done at their pace.

“We knew some adjustments needed to be made so we involved other measures. These things are not as easy as they come. But, every child is unique and needs special treatment especially as regards their academia,” Ajao added.

Here are five ways parents can help their kids improve in their academics.

Be attentive!

Most parents are often too busy to even notice that their children are struggling with a topic, an entire subject or with a teacher.

A Lagos-based educationist and International Admissions Officer of The 16 Plus School, Mr Aniedi Akpan, said parents must take their children’s educational pursuits as part of their own lives so that they can follow the kids up to become better persons.

“Parents need to be attentive when the kids do their homework. They have to see what they spend more time doing and why they sleep off when they begin another subject. Staying with them and asking them questions is one step to identifying that the child is having difficulty in a particular subject or set of subjects,” Akpan said.

Another educationist based in Rivers State, Mrs Sowanari Jumbo, said although there are children who are specially gifted and behave as though they have it all together, parents must be part of the educational journeys of their children.

“When parents pay attention to their children’s educational needs, it makes the job easy for the teacher. This is because the parents are the first teachers any child interfaces with before they get to formal schools,” she noted.

Listen to feelings, give space for feedback

When it comes to listening to their feelings, parents must learn to ask the right questions so that their children do not feel they are becoming a burden to them.

For instance, Mrs Mabel Tuotamuno, said her second child, Tombra, who struggled with mathematics, refused to tell her she had issues or was facing challenges.

“She would do her English Language assignment when I am there and sneak her mathematics notebook to her room to struggle with it. One day, I noticed and went to her room to ask her and she opened up that she was having some issues understanding some topics in mathematics,” she said.

Jumbo said listening to the feelings and nonverbal cues of a child gives the parents a clue into what may be going on in the child’s head and ways to help.

For Akpan, listening to the kid’s feelings is only validated when they are given avenues to speak up and share their problems.

“This is why that enabling environment must be there. Do they like the school? Do they like the teacher? Is the class friendly enough? Are they being bullied? Is the pace of the class, teacher, or school too fast for them? All these questions if well asked would be the next steps to helping that child become better in their academia,” he said.

Give additional homework

After school, most children get home and do nothing academic all through the rest of the day. Experts have stated that when a child continuously focuses on what they learn at school after school, they become better.

Who better to drive this than the parents who should be at home to see how the process works?

Speaking on this, Akpan said one of the best ways to help children conquer their fears over a subject is to encourage them to keep working at it and practising even after they have left the formal class.

“It is like doing your bodily exercises, sharpening your knives and other war tools before a battle. When the day of the battle eventually comes, you are better prepared,” he added.

Jumbo noted that a chat with the teacher to give the child extra work would be a good way to start.

“The goal is to get your kids to sit down to practice some exercises and work out the techniques while you join them. This would help them to gain more confidence and become stronger in that particular subject area. Revision books, sticky note packs, and notecards are some tools that can help.

“The child could even colour code their learning and create a series of images to help them become familiar with the subject,” she said.

Ask the class teacher for support

Every child’s improvement should be a parent’s concern, and if it means paying extra to the class teacher or school for extra lessons, then that would not be too much to give.

Akpan said some kids may need that extra coaching, adding that different schools run different coaching models even for children with special needs.

“Approach the school and ask questions to know how it works, and enrol your child. It could be a personal lesson (i.e. on a one-on-one basis) or on a class basis with members of his class. Again, asking the child for their schedule and pace is important,” she said.

Jumbo said extra lessons can come at higher costs, but noted that when children see their parents taking the extra steps to help them improve, it pushes them to want to do better in order to make their parents proud.

Keep the door open

When the child begins to improve – if they do – make sure the door of conversation is open.

Jumbo said that sometimes, even after taking all the steps above some children seem not to have improved. She advised parents to, at that point, seek the help of developmental educationists and psychologists to help them.

According to her, the situation may just not be academic alone; it may also need psychological help.

Akpan, on his part, added that no child should be written off for whatever reason.

“Some children take more time before they are able to learn. Give them the time. Don’t rush them. They would eventually become better. If they are not good at math, maybe they are just not cut out for that. Look for alternative ways to make them move to more inclusive settings where they can focus on what they are good at.

“Also, some may just not be cut out for school at all. It is that consciousness to see and identify what they are good at before it may become too late. It could be computers, tech, music, painting, or anything else. It is your job as a parent to find this out and walk the journey with them,” he added.

[Punch]

Liatou Habila, a 26-year-old Nigerian refugee in Cameroon, has a broad smile after shaking hands with Emtithal “Emi” Mahmoud.

“I am surprised that she came to see us,” Habila says of the Sudanese-American poet and goodwill ambassador for the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR. 

“She is so humble and so nice and everybody likes her,” Habila tells RFI. 

The two women met at the Minawao refugee camp in Cameroon’s Far North region, which Mahmoud recently visited. 

The activist, who fled Darfur as a toddler and then grew up in the United States, was in the region to speak to displaced people ahead of the Cop28 climate summit, which starts on 30 November. 

She says she will be at the talks in Dubai “to lift the voices of refugees” – who have long been left out of discussions on climate change, but increasingly find themselves on its frontlines.

Climate displacement

“You see other refugee situations where climate disasters did lead to displacement, because 70 percent of refugees actually come from climate-vulnerable settings, in different countries including Afghanistan, the DRC, Yemen and Syria,” Mahmoud says.

“But from my context specifically, I have experienced that kind of environmental loss at many different levels and many different climates, both in the States and in Sudan and many different areas.” 

In Cameroon, the Far North region hosts thousands of displaced people, some from Nigeria and others forced to flee from within the country. Some have fled extreme weather events or conflicts over land and resources aggravated by climate change. 

But they can’t escape climate pressures at the Minawao refugee camp.

• Forced to flee or too poor to leave: how climate change affects refugees

Drought, deforestation

The camp spans some 623 hectares, with temperatures sometimes reaching as high as 40 degrees Celsius. The area has seen regular droughts in recent years, much like many other regions of the Sahel, the semi-arid scrubland that borders the Sahara desert.

This has been made worse in Minawao by the loss of trees, which both refugees and the local population depend on for firewood. 

According to the Centre for International Forestry Research, an estimated 80 percent of Cameroonians rely on wood for all their household energy. It estimates that 2.2 million metric tonnes of firewood is burned annually throughout the nation. And with electricity in short supply and domestic gas practically unavailable in remote places like Minawao, firewood is the camp’s primary source of fuel. 

The rising demand for firewood is adding to the pressure on Cameroon’s forests, which are already threatened by logging, farming, mining and construction.

• Desperate hunt for fuel threatens a once thriving forest reserve in Cameroon

Even as refugees like Habila go further afield in search of firewood, they face the prospect of sexual violence. 

“They are sexually abused. They are raped almost every day they step out to look for wood,” said Luka Isaac, a spokesperson for Nigerian refugees at Minawao. 

The refugees therefore initiated a tree-planting campaign – not only to help provide fuel, but also to provide shade from the searing Sahelian heat. 

Over 50,000 new trees

“We started with just 500 trees,” Luka tells RFI. “With the help of the Cameroon government, the UNHCR and other aid agencies, we are now on more than 50,000 trees.” 

Mahmoud sits in the shade of a neem tree taking in the breeze. 

“I think what’s so brilliant about the climate solutions here are that they weren’t just offered or led by refugees, they were created by refugees from the outset,” she tells RFI. 

• Cameroon's indigenous Baka sing to save their vanishing forest home

She says she performs her spoken-word poetry because she believes that “if one person hears it and it makes a difference in their lives, if it shifts their perspective about a refugee or a vulnerable person or it makes them see us as more human, if it just makes one person listen a little bit better or see the humanity a little bit more, that makes a huge difference for me”. 

The same mission will take her to Cop28, where she hopes to ensure that refugees’ long-ignored voices are heard. 

[rfi]