How To Deal With Your Children’s Failures Before The Summer Holidays
The arrival of the summer holidays is usually a very satisfying event for children and adolescents who see several weeks of plenty of free time ahead of them and even the possibility of seeing friends from town.
However, at the same time it presents the opportunity for those who do worse in their studies to “get their act together” and stop hating everything related to exams, homework and textbooks. Both things are perfectly compatible.
Therefore, in this article we will see different tips and strategies for, as parents, face the failures of our children in the face of the summer holidays and the preparation of the new course
What should I do during the summer holidays when my son fails?
Each case is unique, obviously, but there are several techniques and strategies that usually help to enhance, from home, the ways of parenting that will help our children stop failing subjects and even motivate themselves to study. Here you will find several of them.
1. Be interested in how they feel about studies
The first case is not to throw out the anger right away, but to try to know the main causes of those bad grades. And for this A climate of trust must be maintained, not opposition or conflict Ask him about his way of experiencing studies in general or those subjects that he finds difficult in general, what he doesn’t like about them, etc.
In addition, this way it will be easier for you to find out if there are other problems as serious or even more serious than bad grades that are interfering with their school performance. For example, it is very common for victims of bullying to perform worse in school due to the anxiety or fear they feel about something as basic as being in class paying attention to the teacher (since this makes them vulnerable).
It is important to have a conversation in which you see that bad grades are not just a number, but rather reflect the existence of a problem that can and should be overcome. For it You may need to help him let go of certain dysfunctional beliefs like “many other children get bad grades and therefore it is normal” or that “not being a good student has no consequences in real life.”
We must explain to him the importance of doing well in his studies beyond the exams, and the benefits that this has in the long term, but especially in the short term, in what he will notice immediately: stop feeling bad when studying, notice the admiration from others and being someone you ask for advice, etc.
The objective is to ensure that you can reach an agreement on what their academic performance should be for the next term. These goals should be somewhat ambitious, but also realistic so that you don’t stay in your comfort zone and yet don’t see it as something impossible and end up getting frustrated quickly and throwing in the towel before making significant progress.
3. Teach him study techniques that make it easier for him
If you teach him the basics of the most effective study techniques, it will be easier for him to stop fearing those sessions in which he has to do his homework or “kneel his elbows”, because he will obtain better results by investing the same amount of time or even less. In fact, these techniques can be so useful that in many cases they turn the act of studying no longer into a fun activity, but into a stimulating and motivating challenge, a source of satisfaction and good self-esteem when seeing rapid progress.
In this sense, A technique that has proven to be very effective is spaced repetition It consists of replacing long study sessions with much shorter ones that repeat the syllabus to be studied (or the type of exercises to be performed) as a reminder. The first appearances of these “repetitions” occur with a relatively high frequency, for example, two or three days after having studied it for the first or second time, and as the days go by, these repeated appearances become more and more spaced out. .
For example, if one day it is time to study a certain section of the History book, the student must review that part of the syllabus again (and/or test himself with questions that could appear on the exam) on the third day, then on the seventh day, then allowing another seven days to pass, etc. These moments of review or evocation of the previously studied subject should be combined with other minutes dedicated to studying a new part of the syllabus. In this way, the student creates connections between what he had already memorized and what he is learning for the first time, causing the knowledge to be consolidated in her memory.
A study session following this technique can perfectly include 10 minutes of review or testing, and another 10 minutes of studying the new material Although this involves studying almost every day, these sessions are so short and have such an ability to “engage” through moments of testing themselves that many young people who used to hate studying become fond of it.
4. Respect their free time
No matter how bad your grades are, it is very important that children and adolescents have free time to socialize, play, etc. Punishing them with long periods without doing any type of fun activities is, in general, counterproductive, and not only fuels conflict at home, but will also contribute to associating school in general with a source of harsh punishments, ruining any possibility of really getting involved with the studies.
As we have seen, spaced repetition allows young people to have a lot of free time, and since these study sessions are short, they do not prevent them from going out with friends on hangouts and other key moments: they just have to “move” punctually in the schedule the time to start reviewing and practicing with the syllabus.
Besides, In this way it is possible to combine study sessions with leisure, making the latter used as a “prize” for having done things well. In the end, since the ideal is to study very frequently and not punctually but for many hours in a row, it is easier for them to feel like not breaking with that dynamic of studying a little almost every day, and the fact of maintaining that “ streak” makes them feel that they have earned those hours of fun, enjoying them more and not suffering from stress or anxiety due to procrastination.
Do you want to have psychological assistance and support in raising your child?
If you are interested in having professional advice to help your child in their studies, or you are directly interested in psychotherapy services for children and adolescents, contact me.
As a psychologist with more than 20 years of professional experience, in my office you can find both individualized psychotherapy and family therapy and support for fathers and mothers with difficulties in raising and educating the little ones in the house. You can come to my office located in Seville or ask me about the online sessions by video call.
