Learning Guide: Sixth Grade

6 Ways You Can Help

1. Keep confrontations with your child to a minimum, especially over issues like clothing. Insist that homework and household responsibilities be completed, but allow freedom for self-expression.
2. Try to arrange a meeting with the teacher in which your child is present, too.
3. Broaden your child's view of the world. Take him to work with you so he gains first-hand experience of the working world; discuss other occupations.
4. Let him help manage the grocery budget for a month -- including how much to spend weekly, where to shop for what, and which items to purchase.
5. For a taste of competitive math, play the stock market at home. Each family member picks one stock and graphs its progress using the previous day's closing price. At the end of a quarter, see whose stock has performed best.
6. Teach your child how the emergency mechanisms work in your home. He should learn how to shut off the electrical power, turn off the water and how to contact the ambulance squad, police and fire departments. This knowledge will also help if he starts babysitting for younger siblings or neighborhood youngsters.