Helping your teenager’s performance in school can be a challenge! It involves considerable patience, oversight, and perseverance. Supporting your child’s physical and mental health so she or he can do their best at school is essential, and often paves their way for future successes in college or in the workplace. Here are some strategies to consider as you seek to help your teenager.
Develop and Support Study Habits
Intelligence is not unalterable and the idea that a person’s ability to succeed (or fail) is predestined is simply not true. Help your teenagers to apply themselves and to learn that hard work and self-disciple leads to success and rewards. Help them to tackle the subjects that provide them with the most difficulties and show them how improvements can be made.
READ MORE: Find a great school for your kids
Create the Right Environment
Teenagers need their own office space that provides some kind of privacy and is free from distractions. Make sure their space includes a desk that has enough space for spreading out their homework materials and drawers for storing frequently-used items. The entire room should be well lit and the desk chair should be comfortable, but also provides good back and neck support. Although a private area for homework is best for your teen, you also want to make certain that any work that involves a computer happens under your guidance.
Help Them…Don’t Do it For Them
Teenagers learn by simply asking for help so it’s important to encourage them to do so. It’s unreasonable to expect they can master all of the various topic matters equally. Even adults at work often need to ask for help from colleagues. That said, don’t cross the line of actually doing their work for them – the goal is to help them achieve similar results later without any assistance from you.
Create the Right Time
Create a schedule for when your teenager needs to do his or her homework and try to make it as regular as possible. For many teenagers, late-afternoon hours are filled up with extracurricular activities or part-time jobs and, therefore, many parents focus on evening hours. If you’re realizing your child is often running out of hours – and staying up too late – consider asking the school to include a study hall in your teenager’s day.