Preparing For A Successful School Year
By Troy L Parrish, MA LCPC
Struggle with getting your boy through the school year last year? Find it difficult to keep track of the work he was to be doing or even knowing if he had work at all? The ability of parents to stay in touch with the school work their children are doing (or not doing) can mean the difference between a successful school year and one that is fraught with the typical struggles over assignment completion and homework. What can you do to make this school year different?
If your experience is fairly typical, your son starts the school year off with a good attitude with every intent of doing well and keeping up with his work. After all, he really doesn't like failing at anything and doesn't like all the hassle that he gets because of his school work. It is at the beginning of the school year that any structure you are going to use be established. Because your child is going to be at the height of motivation, they are most likely to buy into the system that you create to help him succeed. Selling him on the structure by pointing out that it will help him be more successful as well as avoid all the trouble he saw last year can increase motivation.
You really want to create a fairly structured schedule for dealing with school work. This usually involves work being completed at a particular time at a particular spot. Typically, this works best shortly after returning home from school. A short break is acceptable, but longer breaks have a tendency to pull children away from the focus of school work and with children who have problems with this issue it can be particularly difficult to get them going again after a long break. You can point out to your boy that after he completes the ½ hour to 1 hour of homework, the rest of his day is his to do with as he sees fit. If your child has more than that amount of homework routinely, check with the school as there is most likely other issues going on.
You want to establish some way in which you can evaluate the work your child is performing. Having them leave their work in a predetermined spot for you to check later works well. Your ability to visually see the homework cuts out the need to track them down, have them track down their work or worse simply ask them if they did their work and then have to trust they are being honest when historically this has been a problem. It is at this time that you can also evaluate the quality of their work. Making a child do homework over again really should be reserved for situation in which it is clear that little to no effort was made and they do not comprehend the work. Making them correct every incorrect answer will only frustrate them, particularly if you are striving to change from a fair amount of noncompliance to willful completion of their schoolwork with acceptable quality.
You may need to create a system to regularly communicate with the teacher about your son's school work. This will facilitate the tracking of assignments, making sure that you are aware of what your child needs to do and if that work is being turned into the teacher. It is advisable that any system that you use be simple for your child to use and quick and easy for the teacher to use. The least amount of effort to use this system increases its likelihood for success. More complex systems can offer many intricate benefits but if it requires too much from a child who is not highly motivated in school or too much of a very busy teacher, it will not be used. Systems that can be varied from a high degree of accountability to allowing the child to be responsible for himself is ideal in that it can be adjusted according to need.
Finally, you will need to evaluate progress on a regular basis. Don't wait until interims are presented or until you get some kind of notice from the school. If you wait this long the problem may have already established a pattern that is resistant to change. Evaluation for very young children may need to be daily or every other day. The older the child the longer the periods between evaluation but the idea is to keep motivation high and head off problems early. Don't be afraid to attach some incentive for success, giving it liberally early on can help to establish new, more productive patterns of behavior.
Good luck with your new school year!