Education in the New Normal: The Experience of Parents in Mentoring their Children

Abstract

This study provides descriptive narration of the parents mentoring their children in the new normal education. It sought to know the strategies and their effects, challenges, coping mechanism, and realizations of parents in their involvement in their children's education. The results were based on the interview of ten purposively selected parents of primary grade children for the school year 2020-2021 from different places in Negros Occidental, Philippines. An interview was conducted with ten participants using open-ended questions to gather first-hand information about their experiences as mentors of their children. The parents taught their children through conditioning, observing time management, and engaging them in the learning activities. The parents used various strategies such as offering rewards, imposing punishment, and praising to encourage their children to engage in learning. Their children's lack of attention and temperament and conflict in their work and mentoring schedule were the significant challenges they encountered as mentors. The parents created a favorable learning environment to deal with the challenges, set schedules, designed interesting activities, observed good time management practices, sought assistance, and spared time to relax. The parents realized the crucial role they played in their children’s learning and discerned that modular learning is not an easy job. They gleaned that face-to-face learning must be preferred more than modular learning.