Help Me With My Teenager! A Step-by-step Guide for Parents that Works
Where do you start? To help you with this, we have created this animation.
Below is the text so that you can read along if you prefer. For them, but also for you as a parent.
2. Practice Self-Care
It is nice to know what needs to happen and when, so that you have more structure and both you and your children can anticipate better what will happen in your lives. Often parents are excited and want to start planning an entire day but if you have little experience doing that it is important to start with just a little.
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For example, simply start with a time of day that does not work so well right now. It is very important to include your children in the process of planning. Any child older than four can participate. Begin for example in the morning.
Dealing with Troubled Teens: A 7-Step Guide for Parents - www.newyorkethnicfood.com
Together, look at what steps are important in the morning and in what order they should be done. If the children can think along in this process, it is also more of their own plan which causes the children to be more motivated to cooperate. Work with each child on their own personal plan. Even if a child is able to read, it is often not enough.
That is true especially for children with ASD. A tool like RoutineFactory makes is easy to incorporate pictures.
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Make sure that the planning "lives" inside your family. Put up a printed schedule in a place that is easy for everyone to see. For example, put the morning plan you made in the child's room and regularly work through the plan together. If your child has a smartphone, they can easily use the RoutineFactory app. When a new activity is supposed to start there will be an alarm on the phone. You can even adjust the schedule remotely so that your child's schedule is always up-to-date. After you have worked with the morning schedule for a few days and it worked well, you can expand it to include a schedule around lunch.
Your child's school schedule may well be the same every day with perhaps only a sports club or other activity occurring on a specific day. After just a short while you can expand into the evening schedule. And don't forget to involve your child at every step! Take care to have a continuous plan. You can insert activities that are "free play" but many children still appreciate guidance here.
It is also important to ask your child often if the schedule still works well for them and if they think that it needs to be adjusted a little. If certain situations have always been a little difficult, for example in the morning, it might be helpful, especially in the beginning, to focus on a reward.
For example, let your child work towards a reward if they manage to adhere to the plan. For instance, you may reward the child with stickers if age appropriate. If then the child collects a certain number of stickers you may give them a gift they might like or reward them with a fun activity. You can also manage this in the RoutineFactory app! Weekends are especially difficult for many families. You get out of bed at a different time and different activities may be planned.
Attending your school's open house or back-to-school night is a great way to get to know your teen's teachers and their expectations. School administrators may discuss school-wide programs and policies, and post-high school options that parents and guardians of juniors and seniors need to know about. Attending parent-teacher conferences is another way to stay informed, although in high school, staff usually set these up only when parental involvement is needed to address issues like behavior problems, falling below grade-level expectations, or alternatively, benefiting from advanced class work.
If your teen has special learning or behavioral needs, meetings can be scheduled with teachers and other school staff to consider setting up or revising individualized education plans IEPs , education plans , or gifted education plans. Keep in mind that parents or guardians can request meetings with teachers, principals, school counselors, or other school staff any time during the school year. Knowing the physical layout of the school building and grounds can help you connect with your teen when you talk about the school day. It's good to know the location of the main office, school nurse, cafeteria, gym, athletic fields, auditorium, and special classes.
Many teachers maintain their own websites that provide access to textbooks and other resources, and detail homework assignments, and test and quiz dates. Special resources for parents and students are also usually available on the district, school, or teacher websites. During the high school years, homework gets more intense and grades become critical for college plans. Amid all these changes, many teens are learning how to balance academics with extracurricular activities, social lives, and jobs. An important way to help is to make sure your teen has a quiet, well-lit, distraction-free place to study that's stocked with supplies.
Distraction-free means no phone, TV, or websites other than homework-related resources. Be sure to check in from time to time to make sure that your teen hasn't gotten distracted. Regularly sit down with your teen to go over class loads and make sure they're balanced, and help him or her stick to a homework and study schedule.
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Encourage your teen to ask for help when it's needed. Most teachers are available for extra help before or after school, and also might be able to recommend other resources. A nutritious breakfast fuels up teens and gets them ready for the day. In general, teens who eat breakfast have more energy and do better in school. You can help boost your teen's attention span, concentration, and memory by providing breakfast foods that are rich in whole grains, fiber, and protein, as well as low in added sugar. If your teen is running late some mornings, send along fresh fruit, nuts, yogurt, or a peanut butter and banana sandwich.
Many schools provide nutritious breakfast options before the first bell. But early school start times — on top of schedules packed with classes, homework, extracurricular activities, and friends — mean that it's common for teens to not get enough sleep. Lack of sleep is linked to decreased attentiveness, decreased short-term memory, inconsistent performance, and delayed response time.
Especially for families
Most teens also have a change in their sleep patterns , with their bodies telling them to stay up later at night and wake up later in the morning. Ideally, teens should try to go to bed at the same time every night and wake up at the same time every morning. You can help by reminding your teen before bedtime to turn off the phone and limit video games and TV. Napping during the day can also push bedtimes back, so it's best if teens don't nap after school. Many teens try to catch up on sleep on weekends. But try to keep your teen's sleep and wake times within 2 hours of what they are during the week.
Learning and mastering the skills of getting organized, staying focused, and seeing work through to the end will help teens in just about everything they do. But this is not usually explicitly taught in high school, so teens can benefit from some parental guidance with organization and time-management skills. Parents and guardians can help teens keep assignments and class information together in binders, notebooks, or folders that are organized by subject. Creating a calendar will help teens recognize upcoming deadlines and plan their time accordingly. Don't forget to have your teen include non-academic commitments on the calendar, too.
It also helps for teens to make prioritized daily to-do lists, and to study and do homework in a well-lit, quiet, orderly workspace.
Dealing with Troubled Teens: A 7-Step Guide for Parents
You can remind your teen that when it comes to studying and homework, multitasking is a time-waster. Working in an environment free of distractions like TV and texts works best. Planning is key for helping your teen study while juggling assignments in multiple subjects.
Since grades really count in high school, planning for studying is crucial for success, particularly when your teen's time is taken up with extracurricular activities. When there's a lot to study, help your teen to break down tasks into smaller chunks and stick to the studying calendar schedule so he or she isn't studying for multiple tests all in one night. Remind your teen to take notes in class, organize them by subject, and review them at home. If grades are good, your teen may not need help studying. If grades begin to slip, however, it may be time to step in.
Most parents still need to help their teen with organization and studying — don't think that teens can do this on their own just because they're in high school! You can help your teen review material and study with several techniques, like simple questioning, asking to provide the missing word, and creating practice tests.