Making It Through May and June
When I read the title of Danielle Braff's April 21 column in the New York Times, "How to Get Your Kids to Treat You Like Their Teacher," I chuckled. "Does she realize how poorly some kids treat teachers?" I marveled, flashbacking to the mid-90s when I was a young and inexperienced teacher. "Who'd willingly want to be treated like that?" Chuckles aside, Braff's piece was intended for an audience of parents with elementary school-aged children. But it still contains some great advice that, when tweaked, can help your middle and high school children to keep (or start) getting their schoolwork done. As a tutor and time management coach, I regularly advise students to take the following steps:
Set up a private study area.
Just as it’s tough for you to get your work done in the middle of the kitchen, your teen’s going to be too distracted by family life to work in a highly trafficked area of your home. Her bedroom is the ideal spot for completing schoolwork, especially if it’s not shared with a sibling and has a desk (though neither’s essential).
Make sure your child’s turned her phone to “airplane mode” while she’s alone in the bedroom. Pop in periodically to make sure she’s not texting or Snapchatting. If she can’t handle studying with the phone in the bedroom, invest in a simple timer (more on this in #4) and take the phone away till assignments have been submitted (see #3).
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“Create a schedule,”
Braff advises. I heartily concur. But parents should be doing the creating only for elementary school kids. By middle school, students should be able to check their Google classroom page, email, or wherever their teachers list assignments for the day to create their own daily schedule.
First, estimate the amount of time it’ll take to complete each assignment. Then, beginning with the hardest assignment, list start and stop times for each based on their estimates (e.g., 10-10:30: Spanish). Include a thirty-minute break for exercise and another for lunch around midday, as well as shorter (5-10 minute) breaks between assignments. Students can handwrite a list each day, crossing each item off as they go, or create their list on an app like Google calendar.
Most important for the habitually time-challenged: set an alarm for waking and another for creating the schedule itself, Monday through Friday, at the same time, in order to establish a routine. Of course, if all this sounds easier said than done, set up a complimentary 20-minute consultation with me. I’ve been coaching several middle and high schoolers since the onset of distance learning to do exactly what I’ve described here.
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Discourage Whining, Encourage Winning.
Braff counsels parents of younger children against giving in to crying. As a tutor of tweens and teens, I’d recommend that you steel yourself against the whining more common to this age. Letting the child shirk out of the assignment when she whines reinforces the behavior. Likewise, don't take privileges (like phone use) away when bad behavior occurs. Instead, Branff advises allowing children to earn these privileges with the desired behavior. I get that it's really easy for a tutor to preach, tougher for a parent to execute, so if you need help, feel free to contact me.
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Invest in a Timer.
Middle and high school students’ lives before Coronavirus revolved around bells that signaled the end of one activity and the beginning of the next. Why should distance learning be any different? Invest in a simple timekeeping device (I’ve got a bunch listed on the Resources page of my website), especially if your child cannot handle the distraction of working alongside his phone. Teach him how to use it. (Yes, one of the college students I coached didn’t know how to set an analog alarm clock!) Then, he can sync it up with the daily work schedule he creates in #2. (Again, if you need a tutor to do any of this, you know who to call!)
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Ensure Your Child Sees Teachers Face-to-Face At Least Once Per Week.
Unfortunately, the amount of face time via Google Hangouts, Zoom, or other platforms has varied widely from school to school and even teacher to teacher. If your child’s teacher holds regular office hours open to all students, make sure this event makes it onto your kid’s schedule. When a teacher doesn’t hold office hours, your child should request a 15-minute face-to-face consultation via email and at a time of the teacher’s choosing.
Maintaining contact with the adult in charge of the course is vital not just for your child’s emotional well-being, but also for her academic development in that subject and beyond. For sophomores and juniors, this initiative might also be so unique that it’ll stand out in the teacher’s mind and serve as a perfect anecdote for a letter of recommendation to college next year or the year after. While it’s not fair that the children often have to take charge of maintaining their relationships with these adults, it’s a crucial step that will pay off academically and emotionally for years to come.
How has your middle or high schooler been handling the transition to distance learning? Through thoughts and questions in the Comments below.
Wishing you and yours good health in the weeks to come,