Don’t Send Your Kids Back to School After the Holidays Without Having THIS Conversation

As the year winds down and a New Year begins, it’s a season of reflecting, goal-setting, and figuring out what you want the next year to look like. For kids, this transition happens mid school year, which makes it the perfect time to evaluate what’s working, what’s not, and what you all can do to work together to improve their performance.

Here’s an important conversation to have with your kids before they head back to school after the holidays:

First, reflect with them on the first part of the school year. 

It’s helpful to start with a bigger picture look at what worked and what didn’t. Ask your child questions about what they thought were successes from the fall semester and what they would change if they could go back and do it over again.

When you start from this point, you’re already starting to dig in to figure out the points of change that are really going to matter to your kids.

Second, ask them what they’re going to do differently.

Not what they’re going to do the same—you want them to identify 2-3 things they are going to change about their approach to school, studying, organization, or whichever sphere you’re focusing on. 

If your child says “I’ll study more,” don’t settle for that. Go deeper… How are you going to study more? When are you going to study more?

Don’t settle for their first ideas, either. Ask for a few more things so you all can work to identify which goals are achievable and relevant for the year you (and they) want to have.

Click here for more tips to help you set good goals with your kids.

Finally, end the conversation by asking what things you can do as a parent to help them improve on their performance.

You want your kids to own their goals and take the lead, but that doesn’t mean they have to do it on their own. Talk through what support looks like for them on the specific goals they are hoping to achieve. Some ideas of what this could look like are:

• Helping them structure their time to make sure they can study and have time for homework, extracurriculars, fun, and rest.
• Help getting started on assignments and accountability (without nagging or shaming them)
• Breaking down large assignments into smaller pieces so big deadlines aren’t so overwhelming
• Learning how to study actively so their time is more productive and effective.

If this sounds like something you still struggle with, our Study Skills program is a great option to provide outside support in not only study strategies and organization, but overall improvement of executive functioning and learning skills.

Why is the timing of this back to school conversation important?

If you try to have this conversation in the middle of a school week, your child’s brain is likely filled with the tests coming up this week, the assignments due tomorrow, the things they’re already behind on… and they feel stuck and overwhelmed and not in a state of mind to think creatively about what would actually help.

When you have the discussion in a time that’s not high-pressure, you will have more capacity to work together to troubleshoot what’s going on and come up with creative solutions that can carry them through the rest of the school year!