Our beliefs can limit us: Do they stop you giving your child study skill support?

What we think influences what we feel and what we do. Our beliefs are what help us or stop us from achieving our wishes or goals.  This is the first of two blogs on changing your beliefs so you can give your child the study skills support they need at home.

Here are 4 common beliefs I meet when coaching families:

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 When giving study skills support to teens – be respectful and firm

Teens might still need support to develop useful study skills, but for study skills support to be effective – it is crucial to develop a mutually respectful relationship with them. Previous posts talked about why and how you….

CHECK that your teen fully agrees with the study agreements made together. EXPECT them to honour their agreements and if they don’t, expect them to explain what went wrong and what they will do next time to honour that agreement. CHECK the agreed-upon consequences happen!

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Offer study skills support assertively, not aggressively, and your teen is more likely to respect and keep study agreements with you.

As their study skills support person, you have the final decision about  what is acceptable or unacceptable study behavior. Create a shared understanding of study expectations as soon as possible.   Encourage discussion with your teen until you both come to an agreement on what is acceptable and unacceptable study behavior.

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 Study skill support: Monitoring your teen’s study skills respectfully.

New habits can be hard to begin! As your teen’s study skill support you can help them develop new study skill habits by monitoring them regularly. My other three posts on study skill support for your teens helped you create exciting, challenging goals and a water-tight study skill support agreement. This post gives you ideas on how you can monitor  your teen respectfully so they learn to study regularly.

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Study skill support. How to stay firm but fair when they stop working with you.

Keep your teen to the study skill agreement and its consequences – in the face of their opposition.

Check out my last 2 blogs which covered negotiating the study deal with your teen.  Don’t renege unless some part of the study deal agreed with your teen needs renegotiating because it was clearly unfair.

If you decide to renegotiate study skill support with your teen, check out my first blog on deal making here so your child won’t hold you to ransom. Check out this post for more ideas on negotiation so that you both win.
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Study skill support: Respectful give and take.

Develop a respectful give-and-take study skill support agreement with your teen.Young adults remind me of a toddler on restraining reins. As they grow they wander further away from you, but you still hold the rein. Decide on clear expectations about study with them, and agreed-upon negative consequences for if they break the agreement.
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Your teen may still need your support to develop their study  skills.

Many of my students are teens. Teens often still need study skill support to succeed at school, but they need to be study skill support that respects them as young adults, or you may find they won’t co-operate willingly with you for long. Creating a respectful coaching relationship  as for younger children, but concentrate more on developing a respectful adult relationship with them, so you can continue to give them the study skill support they need to succeed at school.

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 The role of association: Making LOTS of connections when learning and remembering.

The previous post discussed how learning and remembering is easier and faster when you associate new knowledge with old. This enables the brain’s memory pathways  to anchor onto established memory pathways and become more stable.

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Learning and remembering faster and more easily through association.

Learning and remembering becomes much faster and easier when we connect old information and skills, to the new information and skills we want to learn and remember. This is because new memory pathways stay stronger and more stable when connected to our established memory pathways  about ‘doing’ a similar skill. (more…)

An important key to learning and remembering new information is to give it your attention!

The human brain may contain up to one trillion neurons. These nerve cells are interconnected, as shown in this microscopic image, so that they can transmit electrical impulses—and information—to other cells. (more…)

The importance of practice when learning and remembering new skills

Your children often need more practise in learning and remembering knowledge and skills than school timetables allow for.

Is your child:

• Having difficulty remembering particular skills?
• Not understanding some new knowledge?
• Hating or not confident in certain subjects?

Perhaps they have issues with all of those?

Revise, revise, revise to make learning and remembering effortless.

It is vitally important your child practise key reading, writing, and Mathematics skills and knowledge until learning and remembering them is effortless and automatic.  The brain’s memory pathways grow physically larger when they are regularly used. When your child does not get enough practise in learning and remembering new skills and knowledge, those memory pathways fade away easily, especially when they are not connected to other memory pathways so they are anchored and strong.

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Learning and remembering: With or without your mind.
You might have found that your child finds learning and remembering some reading, writing, and Mathematics skills nearly impossible, and that it eats up your time and energy trying to help them, let alone your patience. (more…)

Holidays can be a time of arguments, hurt feelings, and frustration, where no-one is happy. This can change with the use of the goal-setting process where you create a shared agreement together. 
Have a lovely time with your family over the break. (more…)