Your involvement in homework shouldn’t be any more than setting them up with the right tools and letting them struggle on their own.

Perhaps the biggest educational struggle for a parent is helping your child with their homework in the right way. You don’t want to help too much; they won’t learn anything. You don’t want to ignore it; that sets a bad example. Here’s how to walk the line.

Show Interest

The biggest thing a parent can do to affect their child’s educational success is to just participate. This includes homework. Simply asking about it and what their assignments are about is more than half the battle.

Set Them Up for Success

It’s a very rare child that knows how to organize themselves. Kids need help in learning how to keep things organized and set up the right work environment.

First, eliminate distractions. If you let your child complete their homework in their room with the door closed, there is probably a lot more going on than just homework. Work goes much more efficiently in a common area.

Second, make homework part of a routine. It helps them remember their assignments and helps you keep track of what’s going on.

Facilitate the Process, Instead of Completing It

Your job is to “lead the horse to water”. Your involvement in homework shouldn’t be any more than setting them up with the right tools and letting them struggle on their own.

Before they start, ask if they understand what they are supposed to do. If they don’t, help them find other materials that can help them, such as online tutorials. Consume them together as a demonstration of team building.

If they get frustrated in the middle of an assignment, offer a break and a talk—but never any advice about the specific work.

At the end, feel free to check their work over and even alert them to problems or tasks that might be wrong, but stop short of suggesting ways to make the answer better that go beyond any background information they would have received in class, in their textbook, or online.

Work Together with the Teacher

The homework process becomes much more effective if the parent and teacher work together as a team. After all, homework is just supposed to be practice. If the parent better understands what is involved in that practice, the child will be much more likely to complete it successfully.

Regular communication and the ability to ask the teacher for clarification can be valuable tools to help the parent and teacher work together effectively.

Threatening isn’t bullying—it’s criminal behavior that is against the law in any situation.

Schools and districts take bullying a lot more seriously now than when we were in class, but unfortunately that doesn’t mean it has gone away. What has happened is there are now some actionable steps that will get results. If you find out your child is being bullied at school, here are the steps you should take.

• Support your child

It takes a lot of courage for them to come to you. Support their feelings about the incident and never suggest they could have done more or they should “toughen up”.

• Get as many details as possible

Reporting a bullying incident requires specifics. Names, dates, times, locations, and what was said/done are all needed. If there were witnesses, get their information as well.

• If a threat was made, contact the police

Threatening isn’t bullying—it’s criminal behavior that is against the law in any situation.

• Research the school’s anti-bullying policy

It might have been bad behavior, but the incident might not fit the definition of bullying.

• Cyberbullying

If the bullying is occurring online, make sure cyberbullying is covered in the school’s policy. It might not be. If not, most states now have legislation regarding online bullying. If that’s the case, the police need to be notified.

• Contact school personnel

Severity and regularity dictate who you talk to. One time, minor offense? The teacher is probably fine. Anything more than that, make an appointment with the principal.

• Relay the information calmly

No matter how angry you might be, you’ll be much more likely to be able to work with the school if you come off as rational.

• Work together to come up with a plan

There should be specific steps that everyone involved need to accomplish after the meeting is concluded. Write these down and confirm after the meeting. Everyone, especially the school personnel, need to be held accountable.

• Follow up

A lot of parents don’t ask for updates from their child. Give it about a week and ask what has happened. Also, if you haven’t heard from the school, now is the time to make sure they are doing their part.

• If bullying continues, move up the chain of command

Most districts have administration-level personnel that are responsible for anti-bullying steps. If yours doesn’t, the superintendent is the next step. Copy the principal on all correspondence.
If the district is ineffective, file charges with the police and the school board.

Back to School Night really is a great event to get everyone on the same page and help start the school year off right.

The start of the school year is sneaking up on us. Before you know it, Back to School Night will be popping up on our calendars. Here is a checklist to make sure you meet all of your goals for the event while not overstepping.

• Bring your child

Students spend more of their time in school than they do with you. Bringing them to BTS gives them an opportunity to show off their “other world”. Besides, it’s entertaining to watch them act shy in front of you and their friends.

• Collect information about the PTA/PTO and upcoming events

Yes, you’re on the email list and the Facebook group. It doesn’t hurt to take some hard copies of any relevant information, especially about upcoming events. Put them up on the refrigerator.

• Introduce yourself to the principal

You may never see the principal but for Back to School, but it can’t hurt to show you are engaged with the school community. You never know when you’ll need to call him or her for something important.

• Learn about this year’s curriculum

Curricula has changed a lot in the past few years, not to mention since we were in school. Take time to flip through the textbooks (if they’re still being used) and ask the teacher(s) content-based questions.

• Ask about technology

Also ask about any technology needs your child might have for the class. There might be special apps to download or websites they might need to join.

• Do not discuss your child in specifics

Introduce yourself nicely so the teacher(s) can put a face to the name, but don’t take up the time of the other parents by trying to talk about your child in specifics. If you want to talk specifically about your child, send an email or schedule a conference.

• Make sure to ask when conferences will be held (or how to schedule one)

Speaking of which, some schools have designated times of the year for mandatory conferences. Others rely on the parents to make appointments. Make sure you know how to take advantage of your first opportunity to talk “business” with your child’s teacher(s).

Back to School Night really is a great event to get everyone on the same page and help start the school year off right. Afterwards, everyone should be working toward the common goal of student success.

The temptation is to enjoy this last little bit of summer. With the right plan, you can set yourself up for scholarship opportunities and have fun before that school bell rings again.

Make no mistake, winning scholarships is just as competitive as winning football games. And just like the NFL, there really is no offseason. The students who consistently win scholarships are spending the rest of their summer doing these things to make themselves more competitive:

Summer Work is Adding to the Resume

Your summer job might pay fairly well, but does it make your resume stand out from the pile? The students that win scholarships have internships, study abroad trips, or volunteer work that set them apart. Throw on a last-minute volunteer opportunity if it’s too late for anything else.

Setting Themselves Up for Crunch Time

Another sports analogy: it takes a lot of prep work to win scholarships. Winning students are setting up the systems to keep themselves organized and the essays that will keep the reader riveted. If you ask them the status of any particular scholarship, they know it off the top of their heads.

Networking

It’s never too early to network. They are meeting a lot of impressive people at their impressive summer job/internship/volunteer work. This comes in handy when it’s time to start approaching people for letters of recommendation.

Narrowing Down Their Focus

No one can apply for every scholarship that exists. It can save a lot time in the fall to know where to best spend your efforts and which opportunities are worth letting go. This takes research and an honest view of strengths and weaknesses.

Cleaning Out Their Online Profiles

The judges for scholarships are just like regular people; if they want to know about someone, they look online. Having a professional, serious online presence makes sure you pass that test.

Studying Up

Speaking of tests, scholarship winners are always wondering if they could do better on their standardized tests and grades. If they think there is a chance, they’ll spend some extra time studying, perhaps even booking themselves another testing appointment. It’s not too late to bolster scores and grades.

The temptation is to enjoy this last little bit of summer. With the right plan, you can set yourself up for scholarship opportunities and have fun before that school bell rings again.

70% of students change their major after they enroll in college.

Last week we talked about using the rest of the summer as a launching point for the activities that will eventually get a high school senior into a college—the first among those being narrowing down what is probably a fairly big list of possibilities into a manageable one from which tours can be scheduled and essays can be planned. But how do you narrow down that list? Here are some things for you and your child to think about.

Retention and graduation rates

The first thing to look at in that giant book of colleges is retention and graduation rates. Retention is what percentage of students stay in school after one year. Graduation is obviously what percentage of students end up graduating. Both tell you how happy students are with the school. A low retention rate means other students didn’t even want to stay around longer than a year, or there wasn’t enough support to keep them around. If students aren’t graduating, they didn’t want to stay around for 4-5 years.

There are lots of reasons why this could be the case, but the bottom line is an increased risk that your child won’t be happy there either.

A wide variety of majors and programs

70% of students change their major after they enroll in college. It’s natural to have a different idea about what you want out of life at the age of 18 compared to 20 or 21. But when that itch starts happening, your child wants a college that offers enough options for them to land somewhere comfortably without having to switch schools. For example, a small liberal arts school might have a great English program, but computer programming might not even be offered.

Life outside of class

The truth? Most colleges, especially your large universities, are pretty similar academically. What isn’t the same is how big the town or city is in which they are located, how expensive it is to live in these places, how far away from home they are, and other factors that can affect day-to-day life. A helpful mindset is to consider whether you would live in the place if the school wasn’t there.

Price

Because many colleges are similar in academics, it’s possible to comparison shop by price. Yes, this is the biggest investment you can make in your child’s future, but you also need to be realistic. It can be very hard to start that future if you have to pay off hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt.

Remember, you’re not committing to any one school now. This process is just to separate the possibilities from the pretenders to streamline senior year.