When we have kids, it is a miracle of mother nature and can change the way we are profoundly. Parenthood instils a powerful sense of nurturing in both parents as well as a surprisingly strong physically protective drive that you may have never experience before. These feelings are inbuilt natural drives that help us to be both caring and protecting towards our offspring.

As our children reach school age however, some parents develop an entirely new drive. The drive to make sure that their child is extremely successful at school and that they will go on to university and become a doctor or a lawyer. It is an inescapable drive that many parents experience which is becoming fairly natural as competition for university places and eventually jobs increases every year. Survival of the brightest now seems to be the slogan of the day…

So what can you do to give your child an edge as they go into education?

French

If you want them to be good at languages like French from an early age, why not get a French ‘au pair’ from France to come and look after your child in the summer so that you can still go to work and so that they can help teach your child some of their language.

Maths

Maths is a tricky one as children generally don’t like learning straight forward maths. But if you want your child to pick up maths then you can try getting them to enjoy playing games like chess or bridge which require math skills that they won’t realize they are picking up until it’s too late.

PE

For most boys this will be quite easy. Take them out to the park and play some football or rugby and be sure to talk to them about stretching their muscles so they don’t get damaged.

English

To help them with their English classes the simple answer is to read to them childrens books when they are small, talk to them about literature as much as possible and of course encourage them to read books they are interested in at every opportunity. Set a good example and they will follow suit. Pop up books are helpful for initially sparking your child’s interest in books as they are so accessible.

Science

If you are keen to get your child into science then there are so many wonderful science programs on television at the moment that you can easily get them to sit down and watch them with you. David Attenborough for natural history and Brian Cox for physics is a good place to start.