Lisa Gelman, Ph.D.
If you have kids in middle or high school, and if your
family is anything like mine, you know the start of the school
year means busy season is here. With kids coming and
going, activities to be organized, tests to be studied for, and
maybe even the college admissions process looming, it can seem
as though every day is like managing the invasion of
Normandy. Nothing can make this easy, but I do have a few
tips to share that may make things a little less frantic.
Get All the Key Dates onto a Single Calendar
To the extent that key dates for each child during the school
year are known in advance, it can be a great help to write them
all down on a single calendar, along with plans that involve
the whole family. It should include things like finals,
performances and recitals, application deadlines, athletic
meets, as well as vacations, religious holidays, and travel
plans. Once everything is in one place, it's time to take
some educated guesses about how much time (if any) will be
needed to prepare for each event. Some people like to use
colored highlighters - one for each family member - to indicate
the time for prep for each date. With everything in one
place, it's a lot easier to look ahead and see when several
events coincide, or come close to doing so, and create the
potential for a family logjam. Half the battle is just
knowing what's coming, and when. At the risk of sounding
old fashioned, in my experience it's still a lot easier to do
this with a good old paper calendar than with computers and
programs like Outlook, or with online programs like Google
Calendar. At some point I'm sure paper calendars will
seem hopelessly quaint, but as of 2010 I think we should give
the technologists a few more years to work the kinks out.
Set the Ground Rules
When trying to bring the rule of law to freewheeling towns in
the Old West, sheriffs often found that a lot could be
accomplished by just posting the rules in a public place.
It's no use trying to enforce the law if people don't know what
it is, or can at least reasonably claim not to know.
(Shootouts at high noon and fast draws in saloons weren't so
successful historically, but they make for much better
movies.) Households with middle and high school kids
aren't so different from those towns, and so like those
sheriffs, the first thing you've got to do is to post the
rules, I reckon. So sit down with the varmints, figure
out and agree on what time they have to get home, when the cell
phone has to be turned off, when the homework has to get done,
how much TV is enough, and write it down. Post that in
the town square (or the fridge) so that there won't be any
arguments about how many text messages you said they could
send. One other consideration is exceptions. There
will always be a few times when the rules will have to bend a
bit, because of special circumstances, and you may be better
off acknowledging than fighting it. You might decide that
each kid should get two exceptions per term to the homework
rule. But after that, they'll have to give up something
to get another get-out-of-jail-free card.
Check on Progress Regularly
Some of the challenges during the school year call for a long,
continuous effort and not just planning for and scheduling a
single, one-time event. For example, studying for the SAT
involves memorizing vocabulary and taking practice tests over
many months. It may not be important that your child put
in time every single day, as with homework, but rather that you
get a good five hours per week. It's important to keep
track of progress when it comes to these kinds of things.
It's easiest to keep that in the same place as the Family
Calendar.
I often ask students who come to me for help to tell me about their classes. I find that it's helpful for them to think through how each class works. What is the teacher like? What is her teaching style? What does she emphasize in class? What are her expectations? What are the homework assignments like? Will there be quizzes, exams and papers?
What will grades be based on? I then ask the student about what he hopes to gain from the class. Are there subjects he'd like to master? Is there a certain grade he hopes to receive? The next step is to come up with some concrete ways to connect how the class works to the student's goal. If the student wants to get an A, what will he need to do on a daily or weekly basis both in the class and at home to achieve his goal?
At one point or another your child is not going to have the assignment or the book he needs when he needs it. Begging the janitor to let you into the school so you can retrieve it from your child's locker is not a good back up plan. Instead, before you this happens, help your child identify one of his classmates, preferably a reliable one who lives near by, as his back up. When the need arises, it's his responsibility, not yours, to call his buddy for help. Spelling lists can be read over the phone, math sheets can be copied (assuming the answers have not already been written on them), and textbooks can be borrowed for a few hours.
I highly recommend buying your own used set of textbooks to be kept at home. It's easier to master material when you are able to highlight and jot notes down in the margins and having a set of books at home means your child's backpack will be lighter--it's supposed to be no heavier than 10% of your child's weight--and you won't have to worry about not having a book when you need it. Although the price of some textbooks is exorbitant, you can often find reasonably priced used textbooks online.