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Help Your Teen Succeed in High School

podcast Aug 08, 2023

This is Going to Be FUN: the Podcast

Episode 59. The Back to School Success Strategy Most Moms Don't Know 

Episode Summary:

Help Your Teen Succeed In High-School

Want to help your teen succeed in high school? Most moms don’t know about this simple strategy that can make homework battles with your teen a thing of the past.

Motivating your teen to take responsibility for their school success doesn’t have to require nagging and lectures. Follow these 5 simple steps to get your teen excited about being more responsible!

Already have a star-student? This process works for any area where you want to teach your teen to be more responsible!

If you want help implementing this strategy with your teen, join my ENJOY community today and get immediate access to all the resources inside...plus personalized help from me.

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Help Your Teen Succeed in High School

I have been interviewing parents of teenagers over the past couple of weeks to make sure that what I share here is exactly what you need and what will help you in the phase of life you are in right now.

And as I’ve been talking to parents, one of the challenges the parents I interviewed face is trying to get their teenagers to do what they need them to do: especially when it comes to school. 

Motivate your Teen without Nagging 

There are a lot of things you can do to set your teen up for school success, but we are going to talk about one strategy that most moms don’t even know about.

You know how important organization, routines, study habits, healthy boundaries for technology and getting enough sleep are to your child’s academic success. But the key to motivating your child to succeed in school is turning over the responsibility for that success to them. 

I know it seems almost too simple, but it makes a huge difference for your teen (and for your own stress level about their schoolwork). 

 

Giving Your Teen More Responsibility

What your teenager wants more than anything is freedom and independence. And this can really work in our favor as parents, because with independence and with freedom comes responsibility.

We often think about giving our teens more freedom or independence because that’s what they want. But a more effective approach is focusing on giving them more responsibility, which creates more freedom and independence. 

 

5 steps to giving your teen more responsibility

The beginning of a new school year is the perfect opportunity to evaluate what your teen is responsible for and think about ways to give them even more responsibility. But, it is important to do this gradually. You don’t want to give them so much responsibility that you set them up to fail. 

Start with one small manageable thing that they can take on now that they are a little older, wiser, smarter and more mature (I am not above feeding that teenage ego!) The best place to start is something that is a point of contention between you and your teen: something you often nag them about or something they often get annoyed with you about. 

That conflict with your teen is actually a sign that they want more freedom and independence in that area. And the fact that you are nagging them about it is a sign that you want them to take more responsibility in that area. 

Here’s how you can successfully implement this strategy so you both get exactly what you want: 

 

1. Have a family council

Before you sit down with your teen one on one and talk about their new responsibilities and freedoms, it’s a great idea to start with a family council for the coming school year. Get the whole family together and talk about how you want the school year to go and make sure every person has a voice in the conversation.

A family council is not a lecture. The goal is to get your kids’ input about how they want the year to go so everyone can be on the same page. If you want to know more about how to have a successful family council, I have a bonus course all about Family Councils inside my ENJOY community

I suggest starting with a family council because it opens the door to more conversations about the coming school year. Most teens immediately go on the defensive when parents talk to them about school because they are used to lectures and suggestions for improvement. You need to set the stage for them to be the one coming up with ideas and a family council is the perfect way to introduce that idea.

 

2. Give them more freedom and more responsibility

When you have a one-on-one conversation with your teen, you want to build on the momentum you started in that family council. Focus on the goals you set as a family, and then let them know that you want to give them more independence and freedom and think they are capable and ready for it.

Instead of telling them your suggestions, ask them if there are some areas where they would like more freedom and independence. They might have some great ideas – school related or not – or they might not. This is where you can make some suggestions. But even if you don’t want to give them the freedom they are asking for, don’t shut them down completely.

If they are allowed freedom and independence in the areas they want, they are much more motivated to make sacrifices by taking responsibility in other areas. 

 

3. Make a plan and set clear expectations.

Once you’ve determined how their responsibilities will increase and what freedoms and independence they are going to have as a result of that, you’ve got to get really clear about the expectations.

For example, if your teen wants more time to hang out with friends on weekdays, they will have to be responsible for getting their homework done and turned in on time. 

To set clear guidelines in this example you might want to determine how often they can hang out with friends on weekdays and how late they can stay out. You might want to establish what expectations you have for homework being turned in on time and what kind of scores they should be getting on those assignments. Can they miss any assignments? Turn in late assignments? How often?

 

4. Create a check-in plan & commit to NO NAGGING 

The key to making any of this work is that you can’t nag them or remind them all the time. If you are checking in with them every single day, they don’t actually have responsibility.

Create a plan that you both agree to for how often you will check in with them to make sure the expectations are being met. Let them know that this means you will not be nagging them to get things done (trust me, they will be all in at this point!) 

You want to choose a time frame that balances their desire for freedom and your comfort level with the impact of them NOT fulfilling the responsibility.

In our example, you might have them show you their scores every other Sunday so you know they are fulfilling their responsibility. This gives them the ability to be responsible on their own and you enough time to help them make changes if not. 

Let them know that as they show responsibility, you can increase the amount of time between check-ins. Remember the goal is increasing both their responsibility and their freedom, not enforcing consequences. A good check-in plan will set them up to be successful.   

 

5. Follow the plan and praise your teen’s efforts

Once this plan is in place, you have to follow the plan. Only check in on the pre-determined schedule. 

Watch for the ways that they are fulfilling their new responsibility and make sure to praise their efforts. As you praise the things they are doing, they will want to do more of it.

If they don’t fulfill their responsibility, allow them to experience the natural (or agreed-upon) consequences.

If they go two weeks without turning anything in, they will get a worse grade in the class. Resist the urge to talk to the teacher or force them to catch up. They need to experience the impact of not turning in their work so they can learn how responsibility works. 

You will also want to reassess how much freedom they will get to hang out with their friends on weekdays in the coming weeks. This is how they will learn that taking responsibility leads to more freedom and independence. 

 

Not just for School Success

This process works really well for motivating your child to succeed in school, but it can also apply to many other responsibilities you might want to give your kids. Get creative and find ways to apply this strategy to other areas where you want to teach your teen to take responsibility. 

If you have questions or need help applying this with your teenager, I would love to guide you through this process. You can get personalized help from me with this and any other challenge you are facing in your parenting inside my ENJOY community. Join now and get immediate access to everything you need to make parenting teens easier!

  

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