Online tutoring has become a popular alternative to traditional physical courses. Often used to supplement traditional education, online learning offers a host of benefits and tools to provide the best possible education for a student.

While online tutors are very convenient and often quite effective, parents still play a vital role in a child’s education during online learning. It’s easy to think that children are provided with everything they need when they take online tutoring, but nothing could be further from the truth.

Parents are a Necessary Component of a Student’s Online Education

It may be surprising to some, but a child alone at a computer is not always motivated to pursue their education. Without the physical presence of a teacher, kids are likely to become distracted and take their attention away from their work. In some cases, it may be necessary for parents to sit with their children during tutoring sessions until they prove that they will complete the work on their own.

Being as involved as possible will show young students that the tutoring is worthwhile. Since the work can be done at home at any time, it’s easy to hang out near your kids while they work, while you make dinner or do housework. It’s the parent’s job to set a schedule for the tutoring work to be completed by, and make sure that the student sticks to it.

Online Tutoring Gives Parents A Better Perspective on their Children’s Education

In most traditional classrooms, parents have about four different ways to understand their children’s progress – by seeing their children’s knowledge increase day to day, by looking at returned assignments, by being given progress reports, and through parent-teacher meetings.

With online learning, parents have all of these outlets and more. Conferences between parents and online tutors should be scheduled more frequently than in physical classrooms, because the overall experience is more abstract and this is needed to bring some concreteness to the relationship.

Since the relationship between child and tutor is digital, all work and communications can be tracked and analyzed to show the nuances of the child’s development. Parents can get a bird’s-eye view on their children’s education with digital reporting methods that can clearly outline a child’s strengths and weaknesses, and what they need to do to improve.

When searching for online tutors, it’s important to go with a name you can trust. Check out Growing Stars.com, a live online tutoring service with the professional tools and experience your child deserves.