3 Hacks to Teen Success
Following a tentative start to 2021 where people cautiously made their resolutions and hoped that this year would be better than the last, families have once again been thrown the curve ball of lockdowns and having to supervise their children’s schooling at home.
As a former high school teacher and lecturer turned homeschool mother for six years, I have nothing but respect for teachers and parents alike. Whilst I took months to research how homeschooling would work for my family, parents today have had it thrust upon them with little to no notice. This responsibility, along with their own erratic work situation, can create a perfect storm of frustration, stress and tension in the household.
Managing schooling at home is challenging enough with primary schoolers. When your children are teens, however, they are already juggling hormones, technology, the shifting sands of peer relationships, their own academic abilities and self doubts. Having their school routine upended can feel like the straw that breaks the proverbial camel’s back.
At this stage of the game, most parents aren’t looking for educational theory. They are looking for practical hacks that can be implemented right away to support their teen and save their own sanity.
#1 Get Family Buy-In
In my book, 21 Hacks to ROCK Your Life! – the TEEN Edition, I list numerous hacks that families can implement to support their homeschooling teens. There is an extra one, however, that I have been recommending ever since the first lock down: Sit the family
down and get their buy-in.
Letting your teen have a say in how they would like to school at home will give your family a far better chance of being on the same page. If mum’s expectations are that her teen will sit in silence in a bedroom for eight hours straight, whereas the teen’s ideal work day consists of going hard until 1:00 pm, followed by kicking a ball and catching up with mates over the X-box in the afternoon, there will be guaranteed conflict. Having a family meeting at the beginning of term to discuss how you will all manage possible stints of schooling at home will empower your teen. They will have a plan to help them manage their education at home that they helped create, instead of being caught out and wasting days to adapt when they suddenly find themselves in lockdown once more.
#2 Create a Distraction Free Zone
There’s no getting around the fact that high school work requires concentrated effort and your teen will need a physical learning zone in your house that supports this. There are numerous studies that show when a person’s focus is broken by a text or someone else talking within earshot, it can take up to ten minutes to regain their concentration on the task they were originally working on, which can make for a long, frustrating day.
Help your teen by removing all phones and technology that are not necessary for their work. Keep younger siblings away, the TV out of sight and take your work calls out of earshot. It might be challenging in a house where everyone is home, however creating a distraction free zone – even if it means creating a small work area in the corner of their wardrobe – will go a long way toward helping your teen focus and get their work done.
#3 Work in Bite Sized Chunks
When teens are at school, they are not sitting in silence for eight hours straight. In fact, their time of undistracted focus in a class may often only be 15 – 20 minutes. By the time the class has lined up, sat through a roll call, interacted with the teacher and chatted amongst themselves, the length of distraction free, focused learning is quite short.
I describe the well known Pomodero technique in my book. This concept of short, highly focussed timed periods of work (Generally
between 20 – 45 minutes in length.) has been proven to be a highly effective way of working. Gift your teen a cute kitchen timer, (rather than the temptation that comes with using the alarm on a cell phone) and encourage them to set it in order to manage their bursts of work with five minute breaks in between.
We don’t know how 2021 will pan out, but while we can’t control what’s happening in the world, we can control much of what happens in our homes. Why not sit your family down this week and use these three hacks to plan how your unexpected-schooling- at-home-adventure can become one that supports your children’s education and sets them up for success in life as they learn the skills of self management, self discipline and focus?
