For those of you who cannot seem to focus on your homework, this is the right article for you. Here you will find five tips to have better study habits.
First of all, I understand that studying is usually boring. Why are assignments given that seem so irrelevant to the rest of your life? Unless you’re planning to be a biologist, you probably don’t care about how a frog reproduces, or how mitochondria are involved in cellular energy. You’d definitely rather come home and watch TV, play a sport, eat, nap, or really do anything else besides sit down and study.
Questions you May Have About Studying
How do I move past this hatred of my homework?
How do I motivate myself to complete assignments?
Why is it so much harder for me to study than for some kids?
5 Tips for Better Study Habits
1. Don’t Allow Yourself the Option of Not Finishing Your Homework
Don’t get half-way through your homework and put it off for later. It’s like when your mom asks you to do the dishes; she wants you to clean all of them, not leave it half-done.
2. Work intensely for a short amount of time, then take a break
It is up to you how long you think your study to free time ratio should be, but there should always be one. Here’s an example: When I was 20 years old, I had a college class that required a lot of studying. I did not enjoy it and struggled to get the work done. I finally decided to work intensely for 50 minutes with no distractions and then take a 10-minute break. For teenagers who are younger I recommend 15 minutes of intense studying with a 5-minute break, but it varies from person to person.
3. Change it up
If you are partway through an assignment and it is too tedious to complete, work on something else. As long as you’re still working, you’re still progressing towards finishing your homework. This makes for a good study habit.
4. Don’t try to be perfect
Some teenagers never start their homework because they are determined to do it perfectly, which is overwhelming. You are much better off getting a 60% on an assignment than a 0%. When you’re working on an assignment, just push through to the end even if it’s not your best work. You can always make corrections later.
5. Provide yourself with boring alternatives
For example, if you have an essay to write, give yourself the option of either working on your essay or cleaning the bathroom. When you get desperate for a break, you’ll go clean the bathroom. However, you’ll quickly tire of cleaning and prefer to get back to your essay.
Using Better Study Habits to Win
See if any of these things help you. Of course, these tips will only help if you really want to do better in school. You have to seriously commit to improving and then, and only then, will these study habits help you. However, once you do, having better study habits will help you for the rest of your life.
Muhammad Ali, a famous boxer, said, “I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'” Struggle through your homework and you will go on to win. Better study habits are one step in the road to success.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Social media keeps your teen connected to friends. Image courtesy of Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Social media is a game-changer for teenagers. It is so different than when we were kids. It has both negatives and positives, and consequently oversight is key when handling your teen’s social media.
Social media and texting are a necessary part of your teenager’s social development. This is how they make plans, deepen friendships, and keep tabs on their friends. However, do teens have the developmental ability to handle social media? This is the question you constantly need to ask yourself.
How can I help my 13-18 year old handle social media responsibly?
After working with hundreds of teenagers in my counseling office, it seems parents who come alongside their children while they use social media see the best results. These parents use social media to teach responsibility, concern for reputation, empathy, and as a means to build trust.
Story of a parent who does this well:
For example, one of my good friends handles the way her adolescent uses social media admirably. This mom lets her daughter have certain platforms but checks in on her daughter’s posts at random. They sit down together and look through her feed. The mom asks all kinds of questions as she goes such as, “How do you feel about this post? How would an employer feel about this post? Do you think this person knows a mom is looking at this post?” This teaches her daughter to think critically about what teens put on social media.
When should I restrict my teen’s social media?
Parents need to restrict teen social media when:
Adolescents use social media dangerously (posting provocative pictures, using it to obtain drugs, etc.).
They are spending excessive time on social media when they could be exercising or building in-person relationships.
It’s causing them to lose confidence.
The Bigger Picture
It’s important to remember that social media is just another means to an end with your kids. Everything you have them do should have a bigger purpose in mind. You want to be constantly trying to use the events, people, and activities that come up in their lives to help develop them into a well-functioning adult. It should be your aim for them to be thoughtful, faithful, responsible, kind, passionate, driven, etc. Social media doesn’t have to be the enemy; you can use it to instill these good qualities in your teen.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Too much screen time leads to exhausted teens. Image courtesy of imagerymajestic at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
Why Teen Sleep Is Affected By Screens
Is your teenager’s sleep affected by screen time? How about your sleep? The sad fact is all of us are sleeping less. There are increasing percentages of teens who get insufficient sleep. In theory, a lot of researchers believe screens affect teen sleep.
As you’ve probably already suspected, if your teenager is on a tablet, smartphone, game console, watching TV, etc., they are not sleeping as much. Teens need roughly nine hours per night of sleep. However, the majority of teens are getting up to seven hours per night of sleep.
There are several suspected reasons for this. One obvious reason is the dopamine (a pleasurable neurotransmitter in the brain) provided by interaction with the internet, smartphones, and laptops. The other is that sleep quality is often poorer in people who spend a lot of time on screens. The brain remains very active, which disrupts the body’s natural process of winding down. In other words, there are many reasons teen sleep is affected by screens.
Indirect Ways Screens Affect Teen Sleep
One thing I know you’ve noticed is how much more sedentary our culture is than it was 20 years ago. It doesn’t take a genius to know this is because screens provide so much entertainment and distraction. What teenager wants to go walk the dog with you when watching YouTube provides so much more dopamine?
So, how does this pertain to your teenager’s sleep? There’s a decent chance your teen isn’t wearing out their body during the day. I grew up during the advent of cell phones, but before smartphones. We used to either play sports after school or go to a park. The boys usually skated or threw a football. The girls either walked around or joined them.
Basically, a tired body means better and more sleep. Screens are preventing your teenager from the physical exhaustion that leads to solid sleep. Sure, your teen might be “tired,” but it’s the kind of tiredness that comes from exasperated boredom. So yes, teens are also indirectly affecting teen sleep.
What Should You Do About It?
I empathize with you for how difficult it is today to keep a kid off screens. They factor in literally every aspect of life. Your child cannot even do homework without screens. Simultaneously, your teen’s sleep will continue to be negatively affected by screens. What do you do?
Setting Priorities With Screens for Better Health
As a therapist, I believe you must see getting enough sleep as non-negotiable. There are certain things we do to ensure good health in our teens. As a culture, we consistently underestimate the importance of sleep. When screens affect teen sleep, we are effectively allowing lowered immunity, decreased focus, reduced cell repair, increased likelihood of excessive appetite, a more stagnant body, etc.
When you consider all that it costs your teen to allow screens to affect their sleep, it becomes nearly the top priority in a day that they sleep enough. Your attitude towards sleep needs to supersede exercise, healthy eating, and all the other little ways our culture tells us to worry about health.
When you do this, you will become stronger in policing your teen’s use of screens related to sleep. You will value sleep above the competitive edge your child may gain by taking one more AP class. You will create a family culture where all of you get 1-2 more hours of sleep each night.
Basically, you will enforce a bedtime…for EVERYONE…
How Will Controlling Screens Improve Our Lives?
There are all the obvious reasons we all talk about: less drama, less intellectual “junk food” entering the brain, less influence from thoughtless soundbites, more connection among family members, and more pursuit of real-life hobbies.
Then there are the less obvious things. You yourself will find you actually have MORE time. You will have a higher energy level, which results in a better mood, better focus, and a healthier body. According to the University of Chicago, the average adult who started getting enough sleep lost 26 pounds over 3 years without even trying. So please recognize how little benefit you’re getting out of the massive effort you make to “eat clean,” or follow a strict exercise regimen when compared to the health benefits of just sleeping more.
Final Thoughts on Teen Sleep and Screens
Parents, now you have an excuse to police your children’s use of electronics. It’s truly unhealthy for your teens to use screens for more than a couple hours per day. If your adolescent sleeps about 9 hours, they will have better immunity, learn more easily, are less prone to depression, will be nicer to you, have more friends, and have more energy. Maybe this is why so many parents tell me their teens became much nicer after losing their phone for a couple days.
I’m not against electronics. I use a smart phone, I’m typing this blog on a laptop, and I watch TV sometimes. However, like all things, moderation is key. Your teens need to sleep about 9 hours per night. Do you think they could sleep more if they didn’t use their phones as much? I think so.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Sharing with teenagers Image courtesy of Ambro at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Have A Better Connection With Your Teen
To have a better connection with your teen, you have to remember what it felt like. Next, you have to tell stories. Your teenager loves to hear about your ups and downs. If you handle it right, they will learn from your mistakes.
Telling Stories to Teenagers to Build Connection
Teenagers feel comfortable with adults who can tell stories that relate to the teen’s reality. If your teenager is occasionally drinking at a party, your teen will respond well to stories about what you did at parties when you were a teenager. Your past can be a place of connection between you and your child. Surprisingly, this is a way to show empathy.
What If Your Teen Is Totally Different Than You Were?
Maybe your teenage years were vastly different from your own child. Perhaps you were a popular athlete, and your kid is an unpopular mathlete. Even if you didn’t have the same exact experience, you can still relate.
There were days when you felt uncomfortable in your own skin and days when you didn’t like your parents. You still had moments of triumph and moments of defeat. Having the exact same experiences is not the important thing. The important thing is helping your adolescent understand that you also had to figure out who you were;it wasn’t easy then either. Their knowing this helps you build better connection with your teen.
Making a Better Connection: How Much to Share With A Teenager
Be discretionary in what you share with your teenager. Don’t overshare. You don’t want to tell your child things that are going to cause them emotional harm. Stay focused on the goal of building connection with your teen, which means sharing at the level of their maturity.
For example, some parents dealt with teen pregnancy when they were younger. They might have terminated the pregnancy, or given the baby up for adoption. Some teens will respond well to this information, but some will feel devastated. You know your child well and have to be discerning about when to share what and in how much detail.
An Example of When to Hold Back
I know a parent who drank a lot and used drugs throughout high school. Sharing this with his child would not be wise in his particular case. This is because his son would use the information as permission to drink and do drugs. He knew not to tell his son because his son seemed to glorify the druggie lifestyle. While this provides an opportunity to build connection with your teen, this dad knew it would be counter-productive.
An Example of Effective Sharing to Build Connection with your Adolescent
I’ve knew another mother who experimented with drugs when she was younger. She chose to share this with her teenage daughter because the daughter listened when the mom told her about some painful consequences. In this case, the daughter saw it as something to learn from.
Tip for Building Better Connection with Your Teen: Don’t Lecture
You don’t want to turn your past stories into an opportunity to lecture your child. This turns teenagers off to you instead of helping teens build better connection with you.
You want it to be a conversation that leads them to feel safe sharing with you too. Don’t use a thinly veiled story from your past as a criticism of your teenager’s current behavior, or as a criticism of their friends. Just tell your story without implying any judgement on anyone else.
Disclosing parts of your past to your children can be enormously beneficial for them. It can help them understand why you are the way you are as a parent. Your child will learn from mistakes they don’t have to make. It can help your kid feel like you relate to what they are going through. Disclosing about your past is an excellent opportunity to build stronger connection with your teen.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Test anxiety can make a person miserable. Photo Credit: nenetus via freedigitalphotos.net
Test Anxiety in Adolescents
You remember the feeling. You’re staring at an exam you studied for, but now matter how hard you think about it, you cannot remember the information. Your body tenses up. You feel panic rise. You are dealing with test anxiety.
I have several clients who do very well in school, but feel like they blank out on tests. This affects their confidence and even their relationships at school.
The worst part for many teens is that they don’t know what to do once this starts. It can get bad enough that a teen starts feeling the anxiety as soon as a test is announced. A couple of bad test-taking incidents, and your child is now phobic of test taking.
A Tool for Test Anxiety
A really simple tool for test anxiety is called “priming.” This is a phenomenon psychologists use to influence how someone does on something in the immediate future. Let’s have you try it out in order to understand how it’s done.
Steps for Priming Before A Test
Step 1: Get out a pen and paper.
Step 2: Set a timer for 60 seconds.
Step 3: For the next 60 seconds write down as many words as you can think of to describe a Harvard professor. Don’t overthink this. Just write down ANYTHING that comes to mind. If you immediately think of glasses and tweed coats, then write those down. If you think of the word, ‘smart,’ then write that down. Just let your mind free-flow.
Step 4: Attempt an intellectually difficult task such as a math problem.
What Happens When You Use Priming
The point of priming is that when we think of words and images related to what we’re about to do, we do better or worse based on how we think. Sounds obvious right? Yet, most people are not intentional when they prime.
In fact, we prime all the time. Do you ever find yourself “prepping” before you do something or talk to someone? You are priming for the task. Unfortunately, we often prime in a negative way. But for test anxiety, we can using priming in a positive way.
My Personal Example
Sometimes when I surf I am excited, energized, and eager. In these times I picture the surfing feats of highly talented professionals and slightly less highly talented friends. I am priming. In those cases, I surf pretty well.
At other times, I feel nervous and stiff. In those cases, I picture wipe-outs. I say things to myself such as, “You’ve been doing this for 3 decades and you’re still not very good.” My surfing starts out almost like having test anxiety. It’s as though I can’t even quite remember how to do it.
Back to Priming for Test Anxiety
If I had you imagined a high school drop-out instead of a Harvard professor, you would have performed worse on the task instead of better. This phenomenon has been repeated in psychological experiments many times.
It has worked well for my clients with test anxiety too. Here’s how: Instead of immediately beginning their exam in school, they take the first 60 seconds and prime with the Harvard professor example. They have told me they performed about 10% higher on their test than expected. By the way, this is exactly what we’d expect based on the research.
Priming for Athletics
Also, if you’re nervous before a sporting event, you can do a priming exercise imagining a top notch athlete. If your adolescent has a swim meet, have him or her imagine Michael Phelps. Your teen can either write down or just tell you descriptors of his abilities before his or her race. The research says your teen should go a bit faster.
Final Thoughts on Adolescent Test Anxiety
Anxiety is a hard thing. When you have test anxiety, it can make school miserable. It can bleed over into your friendships and even how you get along with your parents. It’s awful.
Instead of letting the test anxiety overwhelm and consume your teen, help them systematically tackle it. Start with priming. Try a few other techniques. If nothing is effective enough, reach out. I’m happy to chat with you about it.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Hello, I’m Lauren! If you notice your teen struggling, you might be feeling helpless, hopeless, frustrated or concerned as a parent. Try to remember, there is hope. I want to help your adolescent feel better. My hope is for them to enjoy their life again. I want them to feel confident they can handle whatever situations arise.
