8 Tips To Ensure A Successful School Year

For the majority of students, the carefree days of summer break are over; and another nine months of learning new topics in the classroom and new skills on the athletic fields/courts has officially begun!​

Here are some reminders that are valuable and easy to implement in order to help your child experience a successful school year:

• Establish a consistent age-appropriate routine. Posting it in a prominent place reinforces what needs to be done and when; and also takes you out of the role of reminding, debating, and nagging.
• Adequate sleep is vital to every person’s health – especially children. Not only is it the time that bodies require to heal and grow; but fatigue affects the brain’s function to learn and remember new information. 7 to 12 year olds need an average of 10 or 11 hours of sleep each night. 12 to 18 year olds need an average of 8 or 9 hours of sleep each night

 

• The National Sleep Foundation strongly supports imposing an electronic device curfew one to two hours before bedtime. According to their article, How Blue Light Affects Kids & Sleep, the blue light emitted from screens “can delay the release of sleep-inducing melatonin, increase alertness, and reset the body’s internal clock (or circadian rhythm) to a later schedule. This is an especially big problem for teens whose circadian rhythms are already shifting naturally, causing them to feel awake later at night.” As a result, “it takes them longer to fall asleep; plus, they tend to have less REM sleep (when dreams occur) and wake up feeling sleepier – even after eight hours of shuteye.” If there’s a mad rush to finish computer-based homework before bedtime, dimming the screen’s brightness or   getting a blue light filter is a good alternative. 

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• Breakfast really is the most important meal of the day! Suppose dinner was served at 6 p.m., as many 13 hours may have passed without eating; and without breakfast, it’s closer to 18 hours until lunch.

 

• To stay informed about what is going on inside and outside of the classroom, visit with your child about school and everyday happenings on a daily basis in a supportive, encouraging, and non-judgmental way.

 

• After school, allow your child a 15 or so minute break for a snack; and then have them complete their homework immediately afterward while concepts are still fresh in their mind.

 

• Provide a quiet, well-lit area where your child can concentrate without the distractions of music or the television.

 

• If your child has trouble completing a homework assignment, ask them to read the directions aloud to you, and review a similar example from their course material, which should clear up any confusion. If they are still having difficulty, ask open-ended questions that walk them through each step of the process without doing the work for them. If the topic is not your strong suit, a tutoring session would be beneficial before he/she loses confidence or gets too far behind in the material.

 

• Lastly, since sometimes homework problems can get skipped, or the wrong questions inadvertently answered, double check to make sure homework has been completed as assigned. (Don’t worry about whether the answers are correct, teachers need this feedback to make sure they’ve taught the topic effectively.)

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