Strategies to Help Your Child Achieve Academic Success
By Meghan Vivo
School is a breeding ground for all sorts of successes and failures. Doing well in school not only makes it easier for teens to succeed in college and a career, but it is also tied to self-esteem, social skills and overall happiness.
And though parents can’t attend school with their teen or hold their hand every step of the way, there are ways parents can help their children reach their full potential at school.
Carol Ranstad, the Academic Director at New Leaf Academy of Oregon, a private all-girls boarding school, has spent many years figuring out how to help tweens and teens succeed in school and how to guide parents to best support their child’s development. She offers the following strategies to parents who want to help their teens make the most of their school experience.
Establish Realistic Expectations
Parental expectations have a significant impact on teens’ academic performance. If parents fail to set goals and expectations for their child, they deprive their child of the opportunity to feel successful. A recent study published in the Journal of Research on Adolescence found that teens are more likely to engage in risky behaviors if their parents expect them to. On the other hand, when parents expect their teens to behave well and resist peer pressure, teens are less likely to engage in negative behaviors.
While it is healthy to have expectations of your children, setting goals that aren’t attainable sets children up for failure.
“Realistic means achievable,” advises Ranstad. “Parents’ expectations shouldn’t be based on what they were good or bad at when they were young, or what they hoped their child would excel in, but rather on their child’s unique strengths and weaknesses.”
When a teen achieves success (which should be based on effort rather than ability and defined as small, incremental improvements), especially in areas of weakness, parents should offer praise and encouragement. Although small successes should be celebrated, parents do their teen a disservice if they embellish or over-inflate their child’s ego.
“We advise parents to offer hope and encouragement, but never lies,” says Ranstad. “Every child is born with certain aptitudes, and when they do their best, it is cause for celebration.”
Ranstad also warns against comparing your child to other children. Because every child has their own strengths and weaknesses, it can only do damage to assume they should excel in the same subjects you did or be a sports star like their brother or sister.
“In order to set realistic expectations, parents have to understand their child’s capabilities,” notes Ranstad. “If you’re not sure what those are, ask your son or daughter - they probably already know.”
If your teen shares their struggles with you, your first response shouldn’t be, “Just try harder.” Instead, affirm what your child is saying, become part of their team and help them solve the problem with as much caring as possible, advises Ranstad.
Get Involved at School
If your child is struggling in school, get involved. Parents can advocate on their child’s behalf by speaking with teachers and school staff about their child’s special needs (for example, asking for handouts if the child is an auditory learner so they can focus on listening in class).
“Sit in on a class once in awhile, wander the halls, e-mail teachers if your child has questions about assignments - in other words, become one of those parents the teachers know by name,” says Ranstad. “When the teachers know you’ll be watching, there’s more accountability.”
Parents should also consider setting up an arrangement whereby the teacher informs them if their child is starting to fall behind rather than waiting until the report card comes, advises Ranstad. It can be discouraging for a child when the damage can’t be undone.
Provide Structure in the Home
Parents can help their children achieve academic success by establishing clear rules, rewards and consequences.
“Structure creates predictability, and predictability makes kids feel safe,” says Ranstad. “Of course, structure also means less freedom so teens are likely to resist, but this is one area where parents must hold the line.”
Ranstad recommends that parents set a specific homework time, and be around when homework is being done in order to hold their teens accountable. Some reasonable rules to set are:
- Teens can’t watch TV, e-mail, text or play video games until their homework is completed.
- The computer must remain in a common area of the home so that parents can monitor what their teen is doing.
- When homework is completed, parents will go over the assignment with their child. This is an opportunity to show interest in your child’s work and offer positive feedback while also holding them accountable for getting their work done.
- If you catch your teen in a lie, or if your child is trying to manipulate one parent by pitting them against the other, there will be a negative consequence such as no going out with friends for a week.
Since every child has their own learning style and preferences, these rules should be adjusted to suit each family’s particular needs. For example, some teens work best with music in the background while others need silence; some focus best when sitting on the floor while others need to sit at a desk. Find out what your child needs and help them create an appropriate learning environment.
Although it is important for parents to be available to help their child with homework and show an interest in what they’re learning, parents must be careful not to give their child the answers or do their work for them. “All parents want their child to do well, but genuine success only comes when children use their own brains,” notes Ranstad.
Maintain Parental Authority
Teenagers need to know that parents are the ones who set the rules and boundaries. But many parents end up giving up their authority, sometimes because they want to be liked by their child or simply because they get tired of arguing and negotiating. As a result, teens develop a sense of entitlement.
“There are certain non-negotiable decisions that inherently belong to parents,” says Ranstad. “When parents let their teens make those decisions, they feel entitled to make the decisions all of the time, which sets parents up for more arguments, demands and boundary-pushing.”
Although parents can listen to what their teens have to say about non-negotiable issues, teens have to understand that there are some areas in which parents maintain the power to say no because it’s in the best interest of the child, even if it makes the parents unpopular. For example, one non-negotiable rule could be that your teenager isn’t allowed to go to a party unless you talk to the parent in charge first in order to confirm that an adult will be present and alcohol won’t be served.
Because teens naturally push boundaries, parents will often hear, “Don’t you trust me?” or, “Everyone else’s parents are letting them go.” At this point, it is the parent’s responsibility to explain that this is a rule to ensure their child’s safety - and because they are the parent and they love their child, this is an issue they aren’t going to argue about.
The more parents are willing to argue about an issue, the more likely teens are to change their parents’ minds, explains Ranstad. Teens know this, which is why parents must limit the amount of time they’ll entertain an argument. The longer an argument continues, the more heated emotions become. The end result is often an all-out battle where someone’s feelings get hurt or parents are worn down.
If there would be a better time to discuss the issue, parents shouldn’t hesitate to say, “We’ll talk about this later,” or, “I want to discuss this with your mother/father and then we’ll make a decision.”
Teenagers need to know both that mom and dad are in charge and that they are being seen and accepted for who they are. It sounds simple, but parenting a teenager never is.
“Parents and teenagers both make a lot of mistakes,” says Ranstad. “But if the general principles are in place, they can learn together - that’s called family.”
