“It is easier for a tutor to command than to teach.”
John Locke, Philosopher
Advantages & Disadvantages of Getting a Tutor
Hiring a tutor has become quite popular among parents in order to improve the grades of their kids.
Especially if you work in a demanding job for long hours, you may not be able to help your kid with your homework. Hence, getting a tutor can make quite a lot of sense.
However, apart from the advantages of hiring a tutor, there are also some issues related to it.
The pros and cons of getting a tutor are discussed in the following.
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Contents
Advantages of Hiring a Tutor
- Hiring a tutor can improve the learning experience of your kid
- Better grades in school
- Tutors can become a real attachment figure over time
- Tutors can give kids a different view on topics than teachers
- Especially important if teachers are quite bad in school
- Tutors can help to teach your child additional skills
- High level of flexibility regarding the duration of tutoring sessions
- Especially senseful if grades really make a difference
- More individual learning experience
- Hiring a tutor can help to concentrate on weaknesses
- Children can learn at their own pace
Hiring a tutor can improve the learning experience of your kid
One major advantage of getting a tutor is that the overall learning experience of your kid can be improved significantly.
In school, the teachers will not be able to answer all the questions on an individual basis simply since there will not be sufficient time for it quite often.
In turn, children may not understand the topics properly.
Thus, hiring a tutor can be a great way to cover all the topics and questions your kid might not have understood in class.
Better grades in school
If you hire a good tutor, chances are that also the grades of your child will improve over time.
Grades are closely linked to the motivation of children and if your kid becomes more motivated by your tutor, chances are that your kid will also put more effort into learning.
In turn, chances are that also the grades of your kid will improve over time.
Tutors can become a real attachment figure over time
Especially if your kid has the same tutor over a longer period of time, tutors can also be important for children as persons whom they trust.
Hence, tutors can be more than just teachers, they can also give your kid the emotional stability to master difficult tasks.
Tutors can give kids a different view on topics than teachers
Tutors can also give your kid a different perspective than teachers when it comes to teaching school materials.
Quite often, teachers have a rather one-sided approach towards education and children will often not understand the topics.
Hence, hiring a tutor can also help your child to get a different perspective on school topics, which is crucial to ensure the objectivity of the learning experience.
Especially important if teachers are quite bad in school
Tutoring can be especially important if your kid goes to a pretty bad school and the quality of teachers is also quite low.
In such a case, your child will often not learn too much in school and getting a tutor may be necessary to cover all the things that had been missing in school.
Tutors can help to teach your child additional skills
Apart from the topics that are taught in school, you may also make sure that your child gets the best education possible.
This is especially true when it comes to digital skills.
Our technology advances quite fast, yet many children still do not learn how to use these technologies in a proper manner.
In turn, this can lead to serious problems in the job market.
Therefore, if you really want to prepare your kid for the future, you may employ a tutor who can also teach those digital skills since they will be crucial for success in life later on.
High level of flexibility regarding the duration of tutoring sessions
Another advantage of getting a tutor is that you can choose the duration of a tutoring session in a quite flexible manner.
For instance, you can book more tutoring for the preparation for important exams while you can book fewer tutoring hours at other times.
Hence, this level of flexibility can save you plenty of money in the long run.
Especially senseful if grades really make a difference
Tutoring can also help your kid to learn. However, getting a tutor can especially make sense if your kid is in the final year of high school and needs good grades to get into college.
Thus, every time grades really matter for the future of your kids, you may want to get a tutor to make sure that you provided your kid with the best chances possible.
More individual learning experience
While teachers in school have to deal with many children at the same time and will not be able to answer all questions in a proper manner, getting a tutor can provide your kid with a unique and individual learning experience.
In turn, your kid will be more likely to understand the topics and may also be more willing to learn.
Hiring a tutor can help to concentrate on weaknesses
Tutors are also really good at figuring out the learning weaknesses of a kid.
This is crucial since only if you know in which aspects a kid is weak, you can the kid to progress in those areas and to get better over time.
Children can learn at their own pace
Another major upside of hiring a tutor is that your kid will be able to learn at his or her own pace.
Quite often, teachers in schools can’t adjust to the learning behavior of students since children are so different and their learning speeds greatly differ as well.
However, if you hire a tutor, he or she can teach your kid at the pace that is optimal for your kid and therefore, chances are that the overall learning experience will be much better due to that.
Moreover, this can also protect your kid from getting discouraged.
Disadvantages of Getting A Private Tutor
- Hiring a tutor can be costly
- Additional organizational efforts
- Your kid may not like the tutor
- Additional learning time
- Grades may not improve at all
- The quality of tutors greatly varies
- Some tutors just want to make money
- Some tutors may not be trustworthy
- Less time for hobbies
- You may have to leave your kid alone with a stranger
- Some tutors may not have a suitable qualification
- Lack of regulations regarding tutoring
- Your kid may feel lost without a tutor
- Some tutors do not offer home visits
Hiring a tutor can be costly
Although hiring a tutor has many benefits as we’ve seen before, there are also some problems related to it.
For instance, one downside of getting a tutor for your kid is that tutors can be quite expensive.
Especially if you want to have a quite good tutor, chances are that you will have to spend plenty of money on tutoring.
Hence, make sure that you can financially afford to get a tutor before hiring one.
Additional organizational efforts
Even though tutors are meant to take some work away from you, you will still have some additional work when it comes to organizing tutoring ours and to figure out when the tutor has time to tutor your kid.
Your kid may not like the tutor
Another major problem of hiring a tutor is that your kid may simply not like the tutor at all.
People are different and while some people like each other, others just hate each other and are never able to get a connection to each other.
Thus, make sure that the chemistry between your kid and your tutor is working in order to ensure good learning results.
Additional learning time
Getting a tutor for your child may help to improve grades and the overall learning experience, yet it also implies additional learning time for your kid which will be missing for other things.
Hence, make sure that your kid is also mentally willing to spend this time learning.
Grades may not improve at all
If the tutor is quite bad or if your kid simply does not want to learn at all, grades may also not improve at all through tutoring.
In fact, they can get even worse in case your kid doesn’t like his or her tutor at all.
Therefore, make sure that your kid is really willing to learn and that you get a good tutor in order to avoid wasting money.
The quality of tutors greatly varies
In general, the quality of tutors out there greatly varies and while some tutors are quite good at what they are doing, others are rather bad.
Hence, make sure to read reviews and to interview your tutor in order to ensure the best education possible for your kid.
Some tutors just want to make money
Let’s be honest. Everyone wants to make money from this or her job and there is basically nothing wrong with that.
However, in order to be a good tutor, you also need the motivation to improve the learning experience of a kid.
Yet, some tutors are solely in the business for making money and do not care about the learning experience of kids at all.
Hence, make sure that you get a good tutor who really cares about improving the learning experience of your kid.
Some tutors may not be trustworthy
Another problem of hiring a tutor is that some tutors are simply not trustworthy at all.
In fact, some tutors may even steal things from your home and therefore, you should vet a tutor quite carefully in order to make sure that you can really trust him or her.
Less time for hobbies
If your kid spends additional learning hours with a tutor, this also implies that your kids will have less time for hobbies.
However, in order to stay healthy, kids should also exercise and do other things apart from just learning.
Thus, make sure that you don’t get too much tutoring for your kid so that your child can still enjoy his or her childhood.
You may have to leave your kid alone with a stranger
If you work in a regular job for long hours, you will also have to leave your kid alone with the tutor.
Leaving your kid alone with a person you don’t know well is generally not a good idea and therefore, you may really want to make sure that you get to know the tutor quite well before leaving him or her alone with your kid.
Some tutors may not have a suitable qualification
There are even tutors out there who basically have no qualifications at all.
For instance, from time to time, you see tutors who not even finished high school.
Do you really want such tutors for your kid? I don’t think so.
Hence, also make sure that you check the degrees of tutors to make sure that they have a minimum level of qualification for this job.
Lack of regulations regarding tutoring
There are many unskilled tutors out there and this is due to the fact that the regulations regarding tutorship are quite lax in many countries.
In turn, tutors often do not need any formal qualifications.
In these countries, governments should really set some minimum standards for tutors so that parents can hire better-qualified tutors for their kids.
Your kid may feel lost without a tutor
Another issue of getting a tutor for your kid is that your kid may get quite used to having this assistance.
However, this also implies that once the tutor will be gone due to various reasons, your child may feel lost.
Therefore, make sure that the dependence on the tutor never gets too strong in order to avoid any problems in this regard later on.
Some tutors do not offer home visits
Also make sure that the tutor you hire also offers home visits.
You often will not have time to bring your kid to the tutor’s home and therefore, make sure that the tutor is willing to come over to your home in order to minimize the time and organizational efforts related to getting a tutor.
Top 10 Hiring a Tutor Pros & Cons – Summary List
| Hiring a Tutor Pros | Hiring a Tutor Cons |
|---|---|
| Hiring a tutor can improve grades | Getting a tutor can be expensive |
| Getting a tutor can motivate your kid | Hiring a tutor can reduce leisure for your kid |
| Your kid may learn important skills | Some children don’t want tutoring |
| Can improve learning experience for your kid | Lack of chemistry between tutor and child |
| Different views on certain topics | Organizational efforts |
| May improve confidence of your child | Grades may not necessarily improve |
| Flexibility regarding when to book a tutor | Many bad tutors out there |
| Important when grades really matter | Lack of regulation regarding tutoring |
| Focusing on weaknesses to remove them | Your kid may feel lost |
| Children can learn at own pace | Some tutors are rather dodgy |
Should You Get A Tutor?
We can conclude that there are several advantages and disadvantages of hiring a tutor.
Make sure that you check out all the pros and cons of getting a tutor mentioned before in order to make a profound decision in this regard.
Moreover, also make sure that your kid is fine with getting a tutor.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutor
https://tutornerds.com/history-tutoring/
About the author
My name is Andreas and my mission is to educate people of all ages about our environmental problems and how everyone can make a contribution to mitigate these issues.
As I went to university and got my Master’s degree in Economics, I did plenty of research in the field of Development Economics.
After finishing university, I traveled around the world. From this time on, I wanted to make a contribution to ensure a livable future for the next generations in every part of our beautiful planet.
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