✕
☰

Back-to-School Best: Equip Your Kid for Success

by

Nothing throws a wrench into the family routine as much as the end of summer vacation. As back-to-school time approaches and brings the lazy days of summer to a jarring halt, parents can help their kids absorb the shock of homework and activity crashing into free time. With enough guidance during this transition, children can master important life skills: organization, time management, setting priorities. Nurturing an environment that contributes less to stress and more to academic success begins at home, and KC Parent has the tools and strategies proactive parents need to set their kids on the road to their back-to-school best.

 

ORGANIZATION

The old adage “a place for everything, and everything in its place” is where we begin, because a cluttered and unfocused environment creates a cluttered, unfocused mind for adults and children alike.

 

Assign a particular spot for the massive amounts of paperwork that will soon be piling into your home in need of sorting. Designate a bulletin or magnetic board for schedules, invitations and important flyers, and keep a calendar for all family members in a central location to minimize scheduling conflicts.

To get in and out the door without hassle, put a coat hanger low enough to be a catch-all for kids’ backpacks, coats and sports bags. If your home is two stories, consider keeping an extra set of grooming supplies (combs, hair bands, gels, tooth brushes and paste) in a downstairs bathroom for last-minute hair preening and tooth cleaning before kids dive into the carpool.

 

Enhance study time by creating a quiet, well-lit area for uninterrupted homework completion. Desks are good, but a spacious dining room table can be ideal: its proximity invites parental help and encouragement, especially during the hours of dinner prep. Keep a storage container nearby with homework supplies so that everything can be quickly stowed away before the dinner table is set.

 

TIME MANAGEMENT

Be selective about the number of activities your children commit to. “A difficult scheduling maneuver may be something the parent can pull off; however, continuous shuffling from one activity to the next can be unnecessarily stressful for many children,” says Patricia Davis, family therapist at Children’s Mercy Hospitals and Clinics. “Unscheduled time, even boredom, encourages creativity, self-calming skills and certainly enhances a child’s imagination.” Disciplines have their place too, but balance is the key. Guard Saturdays or Sundays as a time to recharge and spend sacred time together as a family, and consider implementing a “Family Meeting” on Sunday nights to discuss and plan the week ahead. This is a time to scribble plans in the family calendar, coordinate transportation, talk over issues affecting family members and generally rally together.

 

Some kids may do fine putting off homework until after dinner, but others need the structure of an afterschool routine. Consider your child’s input when creating a routine, then write it down together and post it in the homework area. A sample routine for a second grader, according to Maureen Howell, a teacher in Blue Valley Schools, might look like this:

SETTING PRIORITIES

Children who resist a strict routine, or need some wiggle room within one, might do better setting simple priorities. To keep first things first after school, consider creating “Pencil in Priorities” Jars.

 

You’ll need: two canning jars, a label maker, pencils

 

Ask kids which activities (instrument practice, chores) and homework (include all subjects) should be completed before other things, like screen time. Print out a label for each activity and subject, and affix these labels to the eraser ends of pencils. Place all the pencils in a jar labeled “TO DO.” Once an activity is completed, that pencil transfers to the other “TA DA” jar. When the “TA DA” jar is full, the rest of the day is free to be savored.

 

Teaching delayed gratification in small things can form a habit that spills over into bigger things later in life. Dr. Daniel Goleman, in his bestselling book, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, cites the ‘Marshmallow Experiment’ as proof. In this experiment, 4-year-olds were given the option of eating one marshmallow now, or waiting while the researcher performed some tasks, earning two marshmallows later. The ability to delay gratification for the extra marshmallow not only correlated with higher social competence, it was a better predictor of S.A.T. performance 10 years later than early IQ scores.

Wendy Connelly, Overland Park, created the “Pencil in Priorities” jars with her two kids, who are learning that putting first things first can be fun.

Back to topbutton