Building Good Study Habits

Now that the first quarter of school is completed and Fall break is over, many parents review grades to look for ways to improve or enhance routines. This is the perfect time to evaluate what your children’s strengths are, and to build on them to help students be as successful as they can in school. Following are some strategies that families have found helpful. If your children feel ownership in the plan, they are much more likely to find success.  Allow them to help develop their academic plan, while you remain firm on the most important aspects.  

1. Designate Study Time.  Decide with your student(s) on an appropriate amount of time to devote to studying outside of school. Students who require medication to stay focused at school would likely benefit from studying the hours right after school. You may also have a child who has an abundant amount of energy (not on medication) who needs to have some down time before he or she sits down to focus on homework.  Spending an hour on homework/studying each night will foster healthy study skills down the road.

2. Have a set day of the week that you will check their grades online together.  If you have a student who struggles to turn in assignments on time, ask him or her what he or she believe appropriate consequences should be for missing assignment deadlines.  Of course, you as parents can decide on a more strict consequence, or you can see how that consequence effects your student(s) and decide together to change to a more strict consequence to encourage more motivation. Consequences that many families find effective include taking phones/iPods away for a day for each missed deadline, grounding for the following weekend, grounding from video games or assigning a chore for each missed deadline. Be creative! You know what motivates your student(s). Be careful to be appropriate with the length of time for groundings. If it is too long, you risk your student(s) giving up.  These consequences should be set ahead of time and written out together so they know what to expect and you respond with rational thinking.

3. Encourage consistent use of their agenda. Developing the habits of writing things down in their agenda(s) when homework is assigned in class and reviewing the homework written down in the agenda(s) before leaving school will set your student(s) up for organizational success and less stress.

3. Encourage your student(s) to communicate with teachers if they are struggling in a particular class. Conversations around what to study can prove very beneficial.  

4. If your students struggle with a particular subject, encourage them to begin reviewing notes and chapters every evening during which they do not use all of their study time for homework.

5. Look for improvements, and brag on good grades.  Your positive feedback will motivate them.  Help them set a goal for a small improvement each week.  

If the family can establish these guidelines and have them handy to refer to when necessary, the parent-child relationship should feel less stress. Many arguments are centered around grades.   The key is remaining consistent and maintaining a calm tone while enforcing the guidelines.  These steps should give your student(s) more academic success, and increased self-esteem and self-discipline. This leads to happier and healthier children and families, which are the foundation of future success.

Dassel is the Youth First social worker at Mater Dei High School.