How to Best Help your Son Succeed at School and Maintain Your Sanity in the Process! Tips for Year 10-11 Parents

How to Best Help your Son Succeed at School and Maintain Your Sanity in the Process! Tips for Year 10-11 Parents

OR What you can do to help your boy (a) Enjoy school (b) Succeed at school (c) Achieve his goals at school without having to be an expert in his school subjects, and without having to live with constant conflict and stress!

Tip No. 1 Decide what you really want for your son. This is the WHY question for all of us. What do you want to achieve as a parent? Same question for teachers What are you really teaching?

Tip No. 2 Help him find a reason to try. PURPOSE motivates. The purpose of school is to find out your strengths, and build on them. Educe means to draw out. Advise your son to try everything at school and see if you like it. Be the best you that you can be. No-one can be a better you than you.

Tip No. 3 Share the journey daily. Show an interest by asking open-ended questions that require analysis, evaluation and decision-making: What was the best lesson you had at school today? In which lesson did you learn the most today? What were the three most interesting things you learnt at school today? To whom would you give the Teacher-of the-week Award this week?

Tip No. 4 Encourage balance. Weekly planner needs to have allocated time for all aspects of life school, sleep, sport, music, friends, hobbies, own time. Boys are setting up habits that may last a lifetime. WHAT DO YOU REALLY WANT THEM TO LEARN?

Foundations of Your Life Begin by identifying the aspects of your life that form its foundations. For example: Family Friends Rest Entertainment Sport Hobbies School/Study Music Spirituality Eating

Setting Goals for Life Balance To keep our life in balance, it is important to set goals for each area of our life. Eg What is your rest goal? What goal do you have for hobbies, for family, for sport etc? Schedule your spare time.

Have SMART goals Every goal you set must be a SMART one. That is, it must be: Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic Time-constrained Write your goals.

Use a Weekly Planner Time Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday 0500 06:00 07:00 08:00 09:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 13:00 14:00 15:00 16:00 17:00 18:00 19:00 20:00 21:00 22:00 23:00

Tip No. 5 Manage anxiety. When your son is stressing, you hold an important key to managing that stress. Offer empathy & encouragement focus on the why Help with planning - the how to empower Discuss the big picture Don t enable beware learned helplessness Let the school sweat the small stuff

Tip No. 6 Sell the Big 4 Sanity-Saving Messages 1. Intelligence is not fixed. It can improve with effort. 2. With enough time, anyone can learn anything. 3. You will never do your best work. Just do the best you can. 4. There is a pathway for everyone who perseveres.

Tip No. 7 Organise time and space to study. Does your son display the semester planners for each subject? Are his goals written out and on display? Is his notice board full of affirmations? Does he have a dedicated study area? Consider lighting, temperature, notice board, distractions. HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH STUDY?

How much homework? Generally speaking, we recommend one hour of effective learning, per year level, per week. (Steven McCabe, Mighty Minds, Educational Consultant to Queensland schools.) That is, if you are in year 10, we recommend 10 hours of effective learning per week. Ms Jo Inglis (TSS Dean of Learning & Teaching) adds: Whilst Mighty Minds extend this rule to years 11 and 12, in my opinion, this would be a BARE MINIMUM in order to achieve satisfactorily in the Senior Phase of Learning. The recommended 18 hours (that is, 3 hours per subject) is essential for students who wish to reach their full academic potential.

Tip No. 8 Encourage active listening in class With notebook With ipad or Laptop

Tip No. 9 Help with assignments by helping unpack the Criteria Sheets. Students can most simply improve their grade by ensuring they do what the criteria sheet (or marking rubric) demands.

Tip No. 10 Negotiate rewards for effort. Rewards must be tailored to the individual. SIGN A CONTRACT!

Most importantly, as a parent Clarify his why and have faith in him to find his how. Help him identify his strengths and build on these, rather than try to be good at everything. Empower, empathise, encourage and expand, but never enable. Listen to his dreams and give permission.

Thank you for listening.