Online Learning Is A Good Judge for College

Online learning can help give you insight on how your child will approach college.

Online learning isn’t easy and it’s not for everybody, but since we are being thrust into online learning, it is a good opportunity to see how your young person would do in college. I’m not talking about the actual classes because most classes are in a classroom, but how your kid goes about his/her college experience. When you go to college, there’s independence and what goes with that is self-motivation. If, during this time of forced online learning, you have to get your kid, or they’re playing video games, then what do you think will happen when you can’t barge into their room to remind them that this is school time? What about the kid that’s sneaking playing video games with their phone under the table? Is he/she going to be motivated to put that controller down when you’re nowhere around? Do you find yourself going into his/her room and finding your kid staring off into space, not looking at the computer screen? Do you think that won’t happen in college? And don’t sleep on the kid staying in the bathroom, probably using his/her phone. Kids are creative and very few are excited about school, even when college is on the line.
Parents don’t look at this in such a negative way because this may be your first look into how motivated your kid will be on his/her own. I am writing this blog because my grandson is in the 11th grade. I asked my daughter this morning how he was doing. She said that he has to be pushed; he’s a daydreamer. So, I said to her, “This is a good judge of how he will do in college.” Though he’s not going to college next year, she can now try to do something about his bad habits. We are not rich and can’t afford to send him to school to play video games or daydream through college or to pay anyone at a college to falsify his academics. He wants to be a chef, so I’m like, “Give him some recipes and let him cook!” Parents: You have to be proactive in this lockdown learning environment. Kids look at college as a way to get away from the rules and parental interference, but the actual work and focus can be a different thought. You have to go back to your 11th and 12th year in school and how you felt about school to relate to a kid today.
I personally want to see my grandson go to a trade school because his grades won’t get him a scholarship. I only can see him going to community college and letting him see if college is really for him. My daughter could just ignore the signs she sees now and go into debt to see the writing on the wall. Don’t ignore this chance to see what your kid will be like in college, if you can take this time to duplicate the college learning experience as much as you can. This opportunity may not (we hope) come around again. If you are like my daughter, start trying to emphasize the importance of college now. Let your kid know college is x amount of dollars and after bills I have x left. Let your kid know college is not party time 7 days a week. The good thing is that my family has one more year to reach him, but from what I see now, a trade school is his best bet to make a decent living in this work. I hope this blog will help some parents realize that this situation of online school is not a bad thing at all.