Help our children study
Student life is not easy, although it may seem like it. It is a long road full of troubles in which only effort and determination fit. Some children find it much harder to study than others , but what they all agree on is that we, as parents, need support in both good and bad times. Sometimes we can make small gestures for them that can serve as a stimulus to continue fighting to achieve their goals. Today we cover some methods that may be useful to help you make better use of your study.
It is a crucial moment for them because, although it cannot be said that in an exam they risk everything, it is no less true that its result will mark the end of a term and that it can partially weigh down the rest of the course if it does not end well.
If the suspended ones arrive, they will have to face a greater effort to recover that or those subjects that are most difficult for them to learn or in which they tend to be more confused.
What can we do?
It is just as important that we become involved in the evolution of their academic learning as that we worry about teaching them to take responsibility for their studies so that they are the ones who take the initiative and set their own work guidelines. And one of the keys is not to do like them, we cannot take the reins at the last moment, since it could be too late. It is advisable to be attentive to their progress from the beginning of the school year.
Help them study
It is in our hands, as parents, to provide them with some tools to optimize their study time, and to guide them properly so that they adopt good habits from a very young age. Our advice will be of great help to them when they grow up and face more complex school cycles. We are going to see how to accompany them from the beginning of their student stage and to learn how to lay the foundations for a profitable study.
- Check that they comply with a minimum daily study time . And it is that at home you not only have to do the work that they are sent in class, you also have to study. Although we believe that they are still very young (because they are in primary school, for example) it is crucial that they learn to see the importance of spending a little time every day studying and reviewing what they have learned in school.
This will not only help them to detect the doubts that may arise and ask them the next day, but also to understand that in this way, when the time comes, preparing for the exams will be much easier since it will cost them less to assimilate all the concepts at once. .
- Be attentive to your school agenda . Now it is fashionable for children to have among their study material an agenda in which they must write down their pending tasks. This tool is a good way for us to find out what is the rhythm of work that is set for them from class and to check if it is really being met.
Most of the centers usually enable specific sections in their agendas to make specific notes on aspects that parents should know about the academic evolution of their children, or on any other matter related to their behavior, so it is necessary to review periodically that there is no data that can be useful to us. Catching a little difficulty early can prevent it from becoming a bad habit in the future. Although it has become a very valuable information channel, it must be understood that the school agenda never replaces the periodic meetings and tutorials that are convened precisely to establish direct and personalized communication.
- Encourage them to use diagrams to extract the most important from each topic. If they manage to get used to its use, they will learn to condense a lesson into a hierarchy of elementary concepts, organizing it in a logical and easily understandable structure. Making a good outline will not be an easy task at first, but with a little practice you will squeeze all your possibilities. To simplify this task, there are even a variety of computer programs that can help you create schematics quickly and easily.
- Review the lessons with them . This is something that we have all done at some time, we have always turned to someone close to ask us the lesson and thus understand what our level of knowledge of the subject in question is, detect faults and delve into concepts that we have not studied well .
Well, that is what we must do with our children, especially at an early age (in the first cycles of primary school), in this way we help them gain fluency and confidence so that later on they can evaluate themselves.
- Insist that they read well . One of the keys why a subject tends to fail is the fact that when children read a text they do not know what it really means and cannot explain it later. It is crucial that they constantly rehearse the reading, that they learn to interpret the different orthographic signs to make sense of each sentence and understand what the author wants to tell us. We will know that they read well, and that they understand what they read, not only when their rhythm and intonation are adequate but when after reading any text they know how to explain it later in their own words.
Rest is important
During exam times it is also vital to take special care of their rest, that they are relaxed and distracted. Having multiple exams in a week is no reason for them to be stressed and unhinged. Nothing to play the brave and spend the night awake studying and without sleeping, there are other times of the day when you should focus on studying and leave the night so that your brain processes all the accumulated information and for your body to recover from the working day. Not sleeping enough hours will only help them lose focus more easily and notice greater physical fatigue. During the day they should also clear their mind with activities that amuse them and with which they can spread themselves. Practicing a little exercise in the open air , helping Mom and Dad in the kitchen, doing crafts or playing a video game with friends is sure to encourage them and make studying more bearable. But for our part, we must not forget to recognize their effort, and that is because studying is constant, hard and rarely recognized work.
When good results come, and especially when they are the result of effort and determination, we must make them see that they are doing well and how proud we are of them. It is not about showering them with gifts but about fulfilling a little dream and doing something that makes them happy, no matter how small it is for sure that they appreciate and value it. Although we do not believe it, with our gesture we will be helping them to feel valued and helping them to have enough encouragement to continue exceeding small goals.
What are the methods that you use with your children to stimulate them and help them study?
I want advice on how to be patient and control my anger when my children do homework and tantrums. Thank you.