Once the teacher invites your child to continue the conversation, she can ask,
“Am I missing any assignments or projects?”
“How can I improve my grade in your class?”
“How can I challenge myself this quarter?” (An especially good question to ask if the child already has an A!)
The insight your child gains from these informal progress reports can be an invaluable part of her growth during the school year. Adolescents naturally yearn for independence. Taking responsibility for talking with teachers, particularly about academic achievement, gives adolescents a real opportunity to become more independent. Teachers begin to anticipate these informal conversations and provide more detailed feedback for your child. The ongoing communication with teachers helps your child develop greater confidence in her ability to talk with adults in authority positions, which feeds her ever-growing desire for independence. From a teacher’s perspective, your child’s initiating these conversations translates into a genuine interest in learning. Teachers love to work with students who show a passion for learning. Beyond the strictly academic information children receive, informal progress reports provide additional opportunities to build relationships with the valued members of their support team—a skill that will serve them for years to come.
COACHING TIP
The hours outside of school can be busy for teachers, so encourage your child to be persistent in efforts to find a time for a two-minute check-in with each teacher.
Put the tools we’ve talked about in this chapter to work, and you will be rewarded with strong teacher relationships that ultimately lead to a much easier trip through the middle school years. Much of academic progress is based on the relationships children have with their teachers. Everyone remembers a few teachers who didn’t rank very high on the likeability scale. It’s hard for a student to make progress in a subject if he has a strained relationship with the teacher. By contrast, the school years you spent with some of your favorite teachers were undoubtedly filled with highlights and marked by significant progress. Considering the academic rigor most kids find in their middle school curriculum, it helps to have a team of teachers who are personally invested in their progress.
Of course, relationships alone won’t make up for missing assignments or not preparing for the weekly math test. At some point your child must step up and take responsibility for putting in the effort necessary to learn and achieve. For kids new to the middle school routine, confronting a full backpack of homework can be overwhelming. Chapter 3 is focused on connecting you and your child with tested and proven strategies for getting things done in the after-school hours. We will look specifically at ways to sort through and organize what needs to be done, so when your child does sit down to begin the evening study routine she feels confident she can complete a list of assignments without taking the entire evening to do it. Let’s look at the ways in which you can help your child complete homework efficiently and effectively.
CHAPTER 3
Getting Ahead in Class
and Staying There
BUILDING STRONG TIES with teachers and connecting with a positive peer group set the stage for your child’s successful middle school experience. After the school day ends, kids face the reality of a full night of studying. Some middle schoolers report spending upward of five hours a night completing assignments and studying for tests. Creating a plan for tackling the rigors of a middle school day begins weeks ahead of ever setting foot on the school campus.
Mind mapping the road ahead
In the weeks leading up to school, find thirty minutes of uninterrupted time to share with your child in mind mapping. The goal of this activity is to create a vivid picture of your child’s year-long goals. Ask your child to choose a location for the mind mapping activity. A trip to the park or a favorite restaurant for lunch may set the stage for a productive brainstorming session.
A road map is most useful when you can identify two things: where you are and where you are going. Knowing what you have already accomplished is a valuable step toward achieving a goal. Most teachers, parents, and students focus on where they’re going, often beginning with the end in mind. However, there is great value in first thinking about where you are now, and then setting your sights on where you would like to be—the goal.
Choose the medium (talking, writing, or drawing) that best fits your child’s personality, then guide him through the following steps:
Step One: Ask your child to think about his experiences as an elementary school student. Brainstorm ideas in the following areas: learning strengths, weaknesses, challenges, interests, and dreams. When your child begins to run out of ideas, ask if it would be OK for you to share any additional ideas.
If the brainstorming format doesn’t produce any ideas, consider free-writing for five minutes, in response to the following questions. If talking seems easier than writing, consider recording your child’s ideas on a voice recorder.
1. What do I really enjoy about school? What do I like to learn about?
2. What has been easy for me to learn or do in school? What challenges me?
3. Where would I like to see the greatest change in my academic success?
4. If I could study anything at all, and learn about it, what would it be?
The ideas from your conversation, free-writing, or brainstorm will become the road map for defining your child’s year-long goals.
Step Two: Take all of the ideas from step one and suggest that your child choose one of the following activities: write a letter, create a collage, or draw a picture that includes her ideas. Encourage your middle schooler to post her mind map in a visible location as a continued reminder and source of motivation for achieving dreams and meeting challenges. As new ideas and achievements emerge, your child can add them to the map.
Step Three: At the end of each academic quarter, take thirty minutes to review the map with your child. Add any recent accomplishments as well as new challenges for the coming quarter. A mind map has incredible power to focus a child’s activity and achievement during the year, much as an atlas has the ability to guide us on a direct course toward our destination.
Step Four: At the end of the school year, take a few moments with your child to reflect on the many challenges, goals, and achievements that added up to a successful middle school experience.
COACHING TIP
Follow your child’s lead during this activity. If you sense he would rather write than talk, give him an opportunity to jot down his thoughts on paper. Even kids with a preference for talking about ideas need a chance to record their thoughts in writing or in pictures, so remain open to a variety of different strategies for collecting and recording the information.
Creating a plan for the future will help your child plot a smooth path to achieving her goals in the coming year. But plans alone won’t be enough to complete the journey. Move from planning into the action portion of the middle school year with an efficient and economical trip to the school supplies store.
Economical shopping
The annual shopping spree for school supplies signals the official return to school for kids and their parents. The average family spends upward of $500 a year on school supplies. Over 50 percent of school spending is thrown away on items that look necessary, yet often find their way into a drawer or trash can within weeks of the start of school.
The key to economical shopping is creating a list of what you need before the spending begins. Office supply stores are ready and waiting for the unprepared parent. You, however, will confidently stride past the suggested list of supplies at the storefront and begin the search for the necessary items on your list.
Creating a list
To avoid any uncomfortable arguments during the shopping trip, before you set out, take ten minutes to sit with your child as she assembles her list of supplies, using the following instructions as a guide.
Step One: Fold a piece of paper in half and label one side “Supplies for Sch
ool” and the other side “Supplies for Home.”
Step Two: List the following items under the “Supplies for School” heading:
One box of pencils (twenty-four pencils)
One box of pens (twelve to twenty-four pens)
Highlighters (four to six)
Three wireless notebooks with perforated paper (eighty to one hundred pages with three holes prepunched in the paper). These notebooks are different from the spiral-bound notebooks. Wireless notebooks have paper you can tear off along a clean edge.
Backpack (Look for a backpack with two to three pockets. Keeping your books and binders separate from your supplies makes it easier to find what you need when you need it.)
You can anticipate that most teachers will hand out a class syllabus listing any additional supplies students will need during the first week of school. Buy a binder and any remaining supplies only after confirming they are needed. Binders add extra weight to a child’s backpack that may not be necessary.
Some of your child’s teachers may require a separate binder for their classes. For classes with a lot of written assignments, look for the heavy-duty version or a zippered organizer. Binders take a fair amount of abuse during the year, and cheaper binders fall apart, usually at the most inconvenient times.
With the list of school supplies complete, focus your attention on materials that will be used at home. An important part of succeeding in school is creating a study space at home that has everything your child needs for completing homework assignments and projects efficiently. Homework takes long enough to complete when all of the necessary supplies are present. The key to saving time and minimizing frustration at home is stocking the study space with a complete list of supplies before the school year begins.
Step Three: List the following items under the “Supplies for Home” heading:
Two packs of loose-leaf paper (aka binder paper, usually found in packs of 100 or more)
One box of pencils (twenty-four pencils)
One box of pens (twelve to twenty-four pens)
Two packs of 2 × 1½ sticky notes
One stapler, desktop size (The mini-size version holds only about five staples.)
One box of staples
One box of large paper clips
One three-hole punch (Buy the heavy version—it will last for years to come.)
One file crate (The traditional egg crate variety will do the job.)
One box of hanging files (which fit neatly into the egg crate)
One desktop calendar (Check the range of months and get one that begins in the summer months and continues through the following year.)
One pack of index cards (3 × 5 or 4 × 6)
One pencil sharpener (handheld or electric)
Suggest that your child post the supplies list next to her study space and check the stock of supplies on a monthly basis; this helps to minimize the need for emergency trips to the store the night before a project is due. As items begin to run low, your child should be the one to suggest a trip to the store for restocking. Middle schoolers are ready to begin taking responsibility for their own supplies. Take advantage of this opportunity to begin slowly transferring responsibility for ongoing management of school to your child.
With both lists complete, you are ready to head to the store. At the store, shift the responsibility of locating all of the supplies to your child while you lounge in the comfort of an overpriced desk chair.
A word of caution: Before proceeding to the checkout line, take a thorough accounting of the items in your shopping cart. Be prepared for the addition of accessory items that were not a part of the original list. You can approach this challenge in a variety of ways.
Negotiation: “Before we leave the house I tell my daughter that if she wants anything that is not on the list then she needs to pay for those items out of her own money.”
—Pam, middle school mom, Tucson, AZ
Needs versus wants: “My standard response is, ‘If you don’t need it, I’m not buying it.’ ”
—John, father of two teenage boys, New York, NY
I’ll pay half: “We negotiate the purchase of things she wants to have versus what she needs to have. I agree to pay for half of what she wants.”
—Lisa, eighth grade mom, Dallas, TX
Each of these strategies comes with its own set of challenges. The “Negotiation” method leaves the door open for a shopping cart full of accessories that might add more clutter—and therefore less organization—to a child’s year. The positive side of negotiating purchases is that your child may begin to appreciate the cost associated with school supplies. This increased awareness could translate into a higher level of care and personal responsibility for the items you have purchased. Using the “Needs versus Wants” strategy may be best if your child has already become accustomed to budget-based shopping. Before embarking on your shopping safari, consider creating a budget of expected expenses with your child’s help. This team-based approach to building a budget adds a layer of challenge and excitement to your trip. Will you be able to stay under the estimated budget? Or will the allure of scented markers put your final bill over the top? Working together may alleviate the desire to add unnecessary items to your bill. The only downside to eliminating additional items comes when trying to implement this strategy with a child who enjoys the extras. If your typical shopping experiences include the occasional discretionary item or two, then consider the third strategy—“I’ll pay half.” A mom of two shared this strategy with me years ago after I asked for some sage advice about parenting adolescents. For me, what started as a strategy for school supply trips has become a standard for most of the nonessential items my children want. Paying half of the bill encourages kids to think about which purchases really warrant spending additional time working around the house to earn the needed money. One note of caution: this strategy can prove challenging for the parent whose child earns a significant allowance. Expenses may begin to creep up when these same kids see the opportunity for frequent shopping trips on which Mom pays half.
Whether you decide to opt for the proactive process of negotiation or the “I’ll Pay Half” arrangement, arrive at the store with a commitment to one of these strategies. Arguments over nonessential items can leave you and your child feeling embarrassed amidst the crowd of other shoppers. Locating and purchasing the right supplies is the first step toward becoming more organized. A little extra effort to organize the supplies before the school year begins will pay off later when teachers begin to heap on assignments and projects. While other kids are spending time looking for materials, your child will be completing assignments. That organized study space you’ve created together can lead to more efficient, effective study sessions.
Creating study central
Building a house requires a specific set of tools and materials; tackling the academic challenge of a middle school day takes a specific set of tools and materials as well. Designating a specific location for all school-related activities is the first step in a series of tasks designed to bring organization to your child’s year.
Kids can (and do) study in a variety of locations. The traditional desktop setting may not be the best location for your child to get things done. The kitchen table, family room, or the back seat of your car are other likely candidates. When scouting out the ideal space with your child, consider the following as optimum conditions for completing homework activities:
1. Is there adequate lighting?
2. Are electrical outlets within reach?
3. Does the space have a hard flat surface?
4. Are there any distractions?
5. Is there space to house supplies?
If your child appreciates the structure that a desk can provide, you’re in luck. All of the supplies you purchased can live happily within a few desk drawers. But a growing percentage of middle schoolers have become mobile, opting to change study venues on a regular basis. Changing locations can eat up valuable minutes unless each stu
dy location has a full set of supplies. Creating multiple sets of supplies can be a costly alternative. Consider, instead, the mobile supplies station. Large lidded plastic containers can house all of a student’s supplies for easy transport around the house or in the car if need be. An alternative to carrying large tubs around the home is a moveable cart.
The goal of any study space is to provide a comfortable environment with quick access to supplies. With comfort and accessibility, the task of getting things done becomes more efficient.
Milk crates: America’s premier filing system
With six or more teachers to contend with, it’s only natural to assume that there will be a substantial increase in the volume of paper that travels home with your child. Plan to cope with this influx of paper by setting up a filing system before the school year begins. The milk crate has evolved from its humble roots as a multipurpose carrying case to an economical filing solution. You can find office versions of the milk crate stacked high on the shelves of most office supply stores, waiting to be filled with a set of hanging files. At a retail price of just under $5, there isn’t any reason to opt for a highly stylized $20 version. With your child, retrieve the plastic tabs that came with your set of hanging files. Label each folder with the name of one class.
COACHING TIP
Attempting to organize your child without her direct participation will ultimately result in frustration (both yours and hers).
Using the filing system
Learning to use any organizational system takes some time and energy. The good news is that the time and energy are relatively minimal in comparison to sifting through a semester’s worth of paper in your child’s backpack. The key to maintaining any filing system is creating a regular schedule for moving papers into the file folders. The typical middle schooler can hold out for a month before moving papers from his backpack and binder into the file crate. Every two weeks may be a more realistic interval, depending on the flow (or flood) of paper your child brings home. At the end of each grading period, take some time to reevaluate how the filing system is working.
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