5 Ways to Make Your Kid Enjoy School
Holidays are over, and working days are coming. What are parents worried about before school? Research shows that adults are increasingly concerned about the quality of education, children’s grades, and their motivation to learn. Moreover, the quality of education is on top of everything else. According to parents, deep knowledge and the ability to apply it in life give the child a chance for success.
Other stress factors include the amount of homework and future exams. How will the child cope with the curriculum? Will it be too difficult for them? Will they get on well with the teachers? These are the main questions to which adults are trying to find an answer.
Unlike parents, children themselves are more worried about their relationships with classmates. The older the child, the stronger the experience is. Negative emotions in children cause pressure from the school and family members. How can you help your child adapt to school?
Help your child cope with stress during the first month of school
Any change that occurs in life – both good and bad – is stressful for our psyche. Therefore, the main task of the parent at the beginning of the school year is to help the child quickly adapt to school and switch from the relaxed summer to a working autumn mode more easily. It is at this time of the year that children have to get up earlier and go to bed earlier, and parents have to change the schedule so that their kids will keep up with school and attend extra-curricular clubs.
Younger children quickly get tired of repetitive homework and lose interest in learning. Most often, this happens during adaptation, when the memories of a carefree summer are still alive.
Try to conduct learning in a playful and funny way. Interactive lessons are often more effective than boring repetition of the acquired knowledge.
Don’t overwhelm your child and don’t plan many new interest clubs
Children adapt in different ways – some quickly merge into school life, while others suddenly become more capricious. Some kids may have problems with sleeping or eating. During the adaptation period, it is important not to burden the child with interest clubs and not to plan a lot of new activities.
When the child comes home, do not rush to immediately make him do the homework, let him eat, and take a break for games.
Don’t worry much about the grades
Both parents and children are worried about academic performance and future exams. Many parents believe that school performance affects the child’s success in adulthood. This approach only adds stress to schoolchildren.
If parents did well at school, the expectations from the child are usually even greater. Parents worry themselves, and children start to get nervous with them. In this case, the parents perceive bad grades as a personal defeat. This is not the most productive strategy.
Try to withdraw yourself from this race more often. Pay more attention to the values that you want to instill in the child, to the main tasks that are ahead of them.
Is it really the most important thing now – to get nothing but an “A” and attend the maximum number of clubs? Or is it more important to maintain an interest in learning?
Let the child have failures, but if he comes back to study with interest every time, this will be the main victory. Perhaps the most important thing for your child now is to arrange the learning process – to learn how to pack the schoolbag, do homework, and listen to the teacher.
Pay attention to the child, to their desires and aspirations rather than to formal indicators such as academic success or the effort, money, and time you have invested. Look at the real load – whether the child copes with it, how happy he/she is, where their interests lie, and what gives them motivation.
Such things are much more important than the grades or the anxiety that follows. After all, anxiety affects the cognitive processes (memory and attention) negatively. Any development stems from a state of rest. Therefore, it is more difficult for an anxious child to learn and develop.
Sometimes children are too bored. They find it difficult to learn and lose motivation. This is worse than bad marks.
The grades can be improved, but where can you get the desire to study if it has disappeared?
Give your child some private time
It often seems to parents that the child should not have free time, that it is wrong to do nothing or procrastinate (in the opinion of the adults, of course). Everyone needs a break from intense activities and the opportunity to be alone with yourself and with your thoughts for some time.
It is important for a child to be bored sometimes, to try new things in order to feel what he likes and what not, what he would like to do. This is how creativity and interest are born.
In order not to burn out, you need to maintain a balance. Interest clubs and sections shouldn’t be draining. It’s great if the child chooses their own activities and has the right to terminate them.
For example, if a child is indifferent to music, do not put pressure on him. Try looking for another hobby together. Instead, it’s better to save a few hours a week for idleness.
When loaded with activities, children do not have the opportunity to get carried away with something because they are always built into the schedule. They are always busy with something. Sometimes it is much more useful for a child to play on the playground with peers than to rush to another robotics class.
Choose additional activities wisely – only the ones that the child will like or that will obviously be useful for him in the future. For example, karate is for the soul, and a foreign language is for further study and life. Moreover, some classes can be conducted online so as not to waste time on the road. Or even use smart gadgets and special programs – and save your family budget.
The English language can be trained easily through language learning apps, many of which have free versions. Buy flashcards with words matching your level of language proficiency or watch cartoons and films in a foreign language with your child.
