Give Your Child Time, Not Just Money: Education Begins at Home

This article explores the essential role of parents in a child’s education, emphasising that time, attention, and active involvement are more valuable than financial support alone. It highlights the importance of creating a peaceful home environment, learning together, encouraging reading, assigning age-appropriate responsibilities, and teaching compassion, wisdom, and communication skills. True education begins at home through shared experiences, meaningful conversations, and positive parental example.

Give Your Child Time, Not Just Money: Education Begins at Home

In today’s article, I would like to discuss children’s education and the role families play in this process. In my view, one of the most important things for a child is how much time their parents spend with them, how often they play together, and how genuinely interested they are in their life.

A child does not care primarily about how much money their parents earn or how much money they give them. In a child’s world, something else is far more valuable: knowing that their parents truly care about them.

For this reason, a child’s education should not be left entirely to schools and teachers. Education, in fact, begins at home.

Creating a Home Environment That Supports Education

It is important to create a peaceful family environment in which arguments and noise are kept to a minimum. A child should also have a suitable place to study, and the family should establish an atmosphere that supports their education.

There is a simple but significant situation that we encounter in many homes: the television is on while the child is trying to study. The family continues watching television while expecting the child to concentrate on their lessons.

There is a serious contradiction here. We expect great sacrifice and self-discipline from the child while the family makes no sacrifice at all. We cannot expect a young child to display the same level of discipline as an adult or to devote their full attention to studying while the television is on.

Therefore, when the child is studying, the television should be turned off if necessary. Family members might even pick up books of their own. In this way, instead of feeling, “Everyone is having fun while I have to study,” the child sees that learning and reading are natural parts of life in that household.

Learn Together with Your Child

From time to time, we hear some fathers say:

“I gave my child money, but they still did not study.”

However, simply providing money is not enough. If you want your child to study, you may sometimes need to sit down and study with them, taking a genuine interest in their lessons.

Imagine, for example, that you are working on mathematics with your child. Perhaps you cannot solve a particular question, or you solve it incorrectly. Do not think of this as something negative. On the contrary, it can become a wonderful learning opportunity.

The next day, your child goes to school, learns the correct method from the teacher, and returns home eager to explain it to you:

“Dad, look! This is how you solve the question!”

For a brief moment, the roles are reversed. While you usually teach your child, your child suddenly begins teaching you. Together, you learn something that neither of you understood before. Your active participation in your child’s education may also strengthen their interest in learning.

In my opinion, one of the most beautiful environments a family can create is this: a family that learns together.

Helping Your Child Appreciate the Value of Books

Books are immensely valuable because producing a book may require many years of effort.

I can give an example from my own experience. Before writing a Hebrew textbook, I studied Hebrew for approximately three or four years. Preparing the book itself then required several more years of work. Therefore, a book we hold in our hands may represent five, six, or even seven or eight years of accumulated knowledge and effort.

Children should also be helped to appreciate this value.

Today, we can order almost any book online within a matter of seconds. This is undoubtedly a great convenience. Nevertheless, I believe that occasionally visiting a bookshop with your child is an educational experience in itself.

You can walk to the bookshop together. You can browse the shelves and choose books together. You might let your child carry some of the books you purchase, and then you can walk home side by side.

In this way, a book ceases to be an ordinary consumer product that simply arrives in a parcel. The child becomes involved in the process of selecting and bringing the book home. As a result, a personal bond begins to form between the child and the book.

Difficulty Can Sometimes Teach the Value of Education

We often see that some children who grow up under difficult circumstances develop a strong commitment to education. A child who cares for animals in a village, assumes responsibilities at an early age, or helps support their family may become familiar with the difficulties of life much earlier than others. Having fewer distractions may also make it easier for such a child to concentrate on their studies.

For this child, education may become one of the most important paths towards building a better life.

This should not be understood to mean that we ought to make life deliberately difficult for children. However, protecting a child from every challenge and raising them without any responsibility may not be right either. Giving children age-appropriate responsibilities can help them understand the value of effort and hard work.

“What Did You Learn at School Today?”

I once heard about a mother who used a wonderful educational method. Whenever her child came home from school, she would ask the same question:

“What did you learn at school today?”

The child would then explain what they had learned that day. Years later, the child realised that the mother had actually been encouraging them to review their lessons without making it feel like formal study. The child also understood that this simple practice had played an important role in their high examination scores.

It is indeed a very simple yet highly effective method.

Asking your child, “What did you learn today?” does more than encourage them to review their lessons. It also communicates an important message:

“What you learn matters to me.”

Collecting your child from school can be approached in a similar way. Whenever possible, waiting for them at the school gate, walking home together, and talking along the way can become a precious form of shared time.

Turning Every Moment into a Small Learning Opportunity

A child’s education does not take place only at a desk.

For example, if a young child is learning numbers, you can count the steps together while climbing a staircase:

“One, two, three, four, five…”

In this way, an ordinary staircase can become a small classroom.

In fact, nearly every moment spent with a child can offer an opportunity to teach them something. Sometimes you teach them a number, sometimes a new word, sometimes a form of behaviour, and sometimes a moral value. What truly matters is being genuinely involved in the child’s life.

Teaching Virtue and Wisdom Alongside Knowledge

Education is not limited to teaching mathematics, language, science, or a foreign language. Children must also be given a moral framework that enables them to distinguish between right and wrong.

We often say, “As the twig is bent, so grows the tree.” Yet the real question is: In which direction should the young tree be guided?

We should teach children goodness, beauty, positive thinking, an appreciative outlook on life, a love of living, and a willingness to help others. We should encourage them to approach animals, other living creatures, and human beings with love, tolerance, and compassion.

After all, raising a successful but merciless person cannot be regarded as an educational achievement.

When We Say “Don’t Talk to Strangers,” Let Us Not Isolate Children from Society

Another matter we should consider when raising children is socialisation.

For reasons of safety, we repeatedly tell our children:

“Don’t talk to strangers.”

Of course, children must be taught safety rules concerning their interactions with people they do not know. However, teaching this as a command to avoid people altogether may create another problem.

Today, I observe that people who do not know one another often struggle to communicate. We may sit next to someone for hours on a bus, a train, or in another public place without exchanging a single word. Meeting new people or beginning a conversation is becoming increasingly difficult.

Yet human beings are social by nature. Throughout our lives, we need to communicate with others. Communication skills are extremely valuable in education, professional life, and everyday relationships.

For this reason, rather than teaching children, “Do not speak to anyone,” I believe it is better to teach them, “Learn how to communicate with people safely, respectfully, and appropriately.”

It is important to raise children who are sociable, able to connect with others, capable of listening, and willing to approach different people with understanding.

Conclusion: Your Child’s Greatest Need Is Your Attention

Spending money on a child’s education is undoubtedly important. A good school, books, courses, and various educational opportunities can offer children significant advantages. Yet none of these can entirely replace the attention and involvement of their parents.

Sometimes, what a child needs is much simpler:

Walking to a bookshop together, solving a mathematics problem side by side, collecting them from school, talking on the way home, counting the steps together, asking, “What did you learn at school today?” or turning off the television and sitting beside them while they study…

Educating a child is not simply about telling them what to do. It means sharing life with them, learning alongside them, and setting an example through your own behaviour.

Perhaps the most important question we should ask ourselves regarding our children’s education is not:

“How much money have I spent on my child?”

but rather:

“How much meaningful time have I spent with my child?”

Ozan Dur