Guest post: What You Can Do to Help Your Child Prepare for High School

Transitioning from primary school to high school is essential for a lot of reasons. For kids not staying in the same school, it means transitioning to an entirely new environment.

This involves forming new friendship groups, adapting different routines, and new ways of thinking and learning within that new environment.

As parents, we want to prepare our kids for these changes adequately. In this post, we’ll walk you through some helpful tips of what you can do to help your child prepare for high school:

Build Good Study Habits

To help your child succeed, you should teach them to adopt good study habits, such as organization and time management skills, before entering high school.

When you start off early, your child will be able to develop better learning skills early on. This makes them more capable of taking on more challenging workloads at school in the long run.

Know Their Learning Pace

When picking high school classes, students will usually decide whether they want to go for academic or applied level classes. 

By knowing the learning pace of your child, you’ll help them pick the best fit. That way, they have an easier time keeping up with the material.

Create a Distraction-Free Environment

While they might probably think that they can get their homework done while watching television, what your child needs is a well-lit, distraction-free environment that allows them to finish their homework and study for tests.

This can either be a desk in a quiet room or a designated area in the living room. If you aren’t there, make sure that you check every once in a while to see that they aren’t distracted with their phones, checking social media sites, or doing other things that might distract them from studying.

There are plenty of apps out there that lets your child access particular websites only at certain times of the day. For instance, you might consider blocking social media sites up until 7 in the evening or an hour after they’ve done their homework.

Don’t Hesitate to Ask For Help

If your child is struggling with their studies, you should be willing to give them the assistance they need. Have a talk with them about finding someone that can help them. 

They can stay after school and join a homework club, schedule an individual meeting with their teacher, or if you can afford it, work with a reputable tuition agency to help them out with their studies.

Take a School Tour

Before school starts, make sure that you visit it with your child and do a quick tour.

Many schools usually hold open house days, allowing new students to explore the school and know where the key locations are.

This also gives them enough time to be more familiar with the school and their new learning environment. This also helps them not to be overwhelmed entirely on their first day.

Set Goals

Discuss with your child about the specific goals that they’ll like to achieve within the year. These can either be academic or social goals. 

It doesn’t matter whether they’re big or small, like maintaining a grade for a specific project or pursuing their interests by joining a school club. This allows them to get the most out of their high school experience.

Over to You

So, there you have it. Transitioning to high school is often a huge change, and it’s quite completely normal for many students to feel nervous or have some difficulty adjusting to a new environment. Applying these tips makes the transition an easier one.