If you have a child of school age there are many things you can do to help her or him do well in school.  The first and, in my personal experience the most important, is for you maintain a positive attitude about the experience.  My father had a completely negative attitude about school and it didn’t take me long to pick up on that.  I used his success as an excuse for my low grades.  He’d quit school after the eighth grade to help his family during the depression.  Then he worked his way up to a supervisory position in an auto plant despite his lack of education.  It never occurred to him that he should go back to school.  His attitude was that it was a waste of time.  Ditto mine at the time.
My children were never exposed to that kind of attitude at home.  They don’t think that way and have done very well in high school and college.  I firmly believe that my bad attitude concerning  school was inadvertently given to me by my father.  Be very careful not to pass on the same problem to your children.
Once the attitudinal hurtle is behind you there are still other problems to contend with.  I had teachers in high school that could make any subject BORING.  I was also taught by people who did not understand the subject matter themselves.  Talking with my children does not make me believe that either of these situations has improved since I graduated.  According to them there is a new problem as well: Teachers who do not care about anything except getting paid.  I don’t remember that from my school days but perhaps the fact that teachers could be, and were, fired then had something to do with it.
If the teacher doesn’t understand the subject material and could make any subject boring and just doesn’t care what can a parent do?  If you happen to know the subject, have the time and the patience perhaps you could teach your child.  If so congratulations, that happy combination is rare indeed.  If that’s not the case in your house consider letting the computer you are sitting in front of help your child.
There are computer programs available that teach all levels of school.  There are even some designed for pre-school.  The programs are normally sold on CD’s or USB drives.  The advertising I’ve read claims that the programs make learning a game and thereby interesting.  I know that works.  We used to have classroom spelling bees in the dark ages.  They were fun and we learned a lot.  If you’d like to learn more about these grade aids feel free to visit our eBay store.