Help Your Kids Focus on Their Homework

Everyone knows that if you want to get good grades, you got to brush up on your school performance. But no matter how many times you raise your hands in class, you might forget that more than recitation and exams, another determining factor of your grades is homework. And we all know how all that school energy dies down the moment we sit on the comfy sofa — add the TV sitcoms and the temptation of chatting over the phone or web, or even just the pleasure of sleeping early — all these things just stop us from being productive at home. Help your kids boost their homework productivity.

Follow these suggestions. Establish rules that will develop discipline. The old trick about NO TV still works. I’ve had colleagues whose parents imposed the NO TV policy when they were younger and most of them, if not all, have very good study skills. Give them a study room. You can study anywhere, right? But maybe not your kids. Kids can use all the help you can give them, especially in this age of PSPs and online gaming. Having a room which is conducive to studying (meaning, the room must not have the tiniest resemblance of a home entertainment area) will help the kid develop a focused study skills. What we said in the previous post about how having your own library can help your research is also true in helping your kids with their homework. Encourage them to have a regular study habit. Whether it’s a full hour or 30 minutes, regularity is vital to adopting a study habit. Buy him references and textbooks. Studying is much more fun if you have all the references you need, plus textbooks and maybe some additional readings. Students who are provided the essential references tend to study harder because they have all the support they can ever hope for. Another advantage of providing all these things to your kid is that his classmates might even want to come over for group study. Tested over time, a group study makes studying seem more fun and light.