Time for Kids to Hunker Down!

Now that most kids have been in school for 6 weeks, and 6-week grades are released, it’s time to get serious about their studies.  Most teachers spend the first few weeks getting students on board with policies, rubrics, and review, so kids often claim that they have straight A’s at the start of the school year. Then, a few weeks later, you watch their grades slowly slip down to B’s, and then C’s… This is an easy fix if you can consistently insist on a routine. Yup!  That’s it!

As soon as the kids get home from school, have them open their Merit Planners (or any planner that has 7 columns for each day of the week and has rows that start at 6:00 am and end at midnight). Ask them to write down all of their homework assignments in their planners on the assignment due dates.  Then do the same for quizzes, tests, and projects.  NEVER PUT IT ON THE ASSIGNED DATE! By entering the assignment on its due date, they will begin to understand priorities.

Next, ask your kids to block off time to complete each step of the homework, study prep, or project. This also helps them guestimate how much time it takes to realistically complete each phase of the homework or study prep.  By blocking off time to complete each phase, your children (and you) will know whether or not they have time to watch TV or play video games.  Make sure that they block off time for each assignment, not one big block for all of their homework. This is important. A huge block in the planner to do homework can be daunting and may even contribute to procrastination.  By writing each task in the planner, they can highlight the tasks as they complete them. This gives them a great sense of accomplishment, which can motivate them to do more.  Success begets success!

Simply insist that they update their Merit Planners as soon as they get home, then do their homework and studying before they do anything else.  With a plan like this, you’ll never hear that they forgot about a test or ran out of time to get their homework done.  We still have time to bring up those grades and empower your kids to do the best that they can this term. Let’s get started now!