Online learning at home has turned from a passive and confusing activity to a daily activity of children and parents, especially in the context of a complicated pandemic. Students and parents must have faced many problems with online learning activities.

Common problems faced by parents:

• Suddenly becoming the child's primary instructor, feeling a lack of skills to teach and guide the child's learning.

• Problems in allocating time for work, housework and children study guide.

• Too much information about homework that is sent to parents.

• Different instructions from the teachers in different subjects

Here are some tips to make online learning easier and more effective:

1. Understand the focused learning time in children

Children's attention span is often very short, but it will gradually improve as they get older. Therefore, understanding their focused time will help parents become more patient and arrange an effective study schedule:

Age	Focused time
3 - 5 (Kindergarten)	15-20 minutes
6-8 ( Grade 1-3)	About 30 minutes
9-13 (Grade 4-8)	About 45 minutes
14-18 (Grade 9-12)	About 1 hour

It can be shown from the above statistics that in order to learn effectively, there must be a break or change to other activities between parts of the lesson. When creating a timetable for children, paying attention to focus time is an essential factor to help lessen burdensome and stress in learning for them.

2. Have a logic activity schedule

Parents wonder why children staying at home with them often take more time for a routine activity, or why they quickly get bored when doing assigned activities. The problem is that children at home do not live on a consistent schedule like they do at school. At home, they can easily extend the time finishing tasks, which should have been done in a fixed time. This makes it easier for them to feel and lose concentration when studying in class. Therefore, establishing a clearly written schedule will provide them with an overview of their daily activities and what to do next. Children perform best in environments where they know what will happen.

Schedules help children understand when it is school time and playtime. This minimizes conflicts of priorities between chores and the child's whims.

Developing a child's schedule should include the following time frames:

• School timetable with online teachers.

• Time for independent learning activities (with online programs or with paper assignments).

• Break time.

• Physical activity time.

• Mealtime; family time, friend time.

• Time to wake up/ go to bed.

This also means you have to adjust your activities to fit your child's time.

3. Give children the right to choose

The fact that children know the daily schedule does not mean that they can perform all activities smoothly and positively. Being forced to follow rigid rules can lead to resistance. “Choice” here is making a choice of “this” or “that”.

We should give children 2-3 options with equivalent benefits. For example, “Do you want to read books online with me or use learning software in 20 minutes?”. This helps children feel comfortable and empowered to choose. This is a great way to reduce stress, which benefits both parents and children.

4. Positive Discipline (Encourage Reward)

If a day of online learning at home has turned out to be difficult and you have thought enough of scolding and intimidating your child to carry out activities smoothly, don't continue thinking about ways to take away your child's rights. That didn't work. Positive discipline always has a big influence on children's behavior. In addition to building a reward and punishment system, parents can always praise their children's behavior and reward them with simple and cute activities such as: watching favorite cartoons with dad, combing mom's hair, playing a game, etc. There are many ways to create surprising inspiration for children to live and learn better every day. Those are moments when parents and children get closer and understand each other better.

5. Discover new knowledge with children

Online learning is a precious opportunity for parents to understand and spend more time with their children. They can both improve their guidance skills and give their children the opportunity to discover new knowledge with online educational programs guided by native teachers having degrees and meeting international standards.

Specifically, online schools granting elementary - middle - high school degrees from the US in Vietnam are gradually becoming more popular. The opportunity to study abroad is right from elementary school and students receive a certificate recognized worldwide. With a reasonable cost equivalent to regular English courses, learning to become a global citizen will be the right choice in today's digital age.

Children can study at home and expand their background knowledge of Mathematics, Literature, Natural and Social Sciences, History, and Arts in English.

Indeed, learning during the pandemic presents more difficulties and obstacles, but at the same time bringing new opportunities and developments, contributing to expanding access to civilized education regardless of geographical distance.

For more information about Northstar American School, visit https://www.northstarschool.us

• Common Core State Standards learning program

• Online learning programs with teachers in the US who are certified specifically in the subject areas in which they teach and hold the appropriate level of certification required

• Elementary, Middle, and High School US degrees recognized in the US and around the world

• Study abroad at a reasonable cost, which is suitable for Vietnamese family conditions