How to Help Your Teen Who Absolutely Refuses to Study
What can you do to help your teen find some motivation when it feels like you've tried everything?
If the title of this post has resonated with you, presumably you are at your wits end. You’ve tried everything to get your teen to study; good cop, bad cop, incentives (bribes?!), but nothing is working.
I want to give you and your teen some really simple and practical study tips to start the process of getting them into a study routine.
I was lucky in that studying came fairly naturally to me. But I saw many of my mates struggle through their exams at high school.
They were switched on but when it came to studying, they would either avoid the experience altogether, or, if they did manage to actually sit down at their desk, they would stare at it blankly until the desperation to do absolutely anything else took over. Sound familiar?
My reflections on the plight of my attention span-challenged friends, and on the students I have tutored going through the same torture, is that they generally fall into one of two broad categories:
1. Category 1: They have absolutely no motivation to study
2. Category 2: They want to get good grades but have absolutely no idea how to go about studying
If your teen is acting like they have a life-threatening allergy to studying, my suggestion is to take a step back and ask yourself, are they a category 1 or category 2 teen?
It’s only once you and your teen have an understanding of why they are refusing to study that you can do something about it.
Is your teen a category 1?
If you suspect having no motivation is the reason why your teen is refusing to study, you might be thinking yup I already know that but what the hell am I supposed to do about it?!
A lack (or complete absence?) of motivation is most probably actually a symptom of a deeper underlying reason, and may I be so bold as to postulate it’s probably one or more of the following:
They don’t think school is important / don’t see the point in it
They’re not thinking past the end of their nose and they’re not being motivated by any longer term plans (e.g. going to uni, getting a good job, being well set up for pursuing some kind of career down the track, etc)
They have no idea how to go about studying (this is where the two categories overlap — check out the next section)
If one or more of these bullet points describes how your teen is feeling, it’s going to be really hard for your teen to study on their own volition.
Students who are motivated to study are fueled by a ‘why’; why is it important that I try to get the best grades possible?
Without their own ‘why’, in your teen’s mind, what’s in it for them?
Why should they be motivated to study if they don’t have a compelling reason driving them to their desk day after day? (If you’re in the mood to join me in a rant about teens not being taught how to study, you can join me here.)
As a parent, what can you do?!
You can help your teen find their ‘why’. I am not suggesting this is going to be an easy task, but if you can help your teen figure out what types of longer-term goals/aspirations are more likely to help them see the point in studying, this will end up be a lot more productive than forcing them to study.
You can only lead a horse to water, and forcing your teen to study without any buy-in from them is unlikely to result in any significant improvement, and will more likely result in you resenting each other.
Is your teen a category 2?
Let’s always remember that studying is a learnt skill. It comes pretty naturally to some students, but, as you know probably all too well, to many it absolutely does not.
If this is the position your teen is in, here are my starting out tips:
Help them identify exactly what they need to study. The more specific the better. What key topics are going to be examined on? Focus on those. What types of questions are they going to be asked in the exam? Take a look at some past exam papers. There is nothing more unmotivating that feeling like you have an endless sea of content to learn. Breaking down what your teen needs to study into manageable chunks is the key to carving a path through that formidable sea.
Help them organise an achievable study schedule. If half an hour is all your teen can manage initially, that is absolutely fine. Half an hour five days a week is two and a half hours of study that might not have been done at all otherwise. We want to make the process of learning how to study feel less daunting for your teen, so imposing unrealistic expectations on them is not going to work. Start small and manageable and scale up as realistic.
Help them identify some achievable goals. If your teen is flunking or extremely stressed out or both, setting their sights on straight A’s might be completely counterproductive. If they are currently failing a lot of their assessments, wouldn’t it be amazing if they got a couple of B’s this term?! Once again, start small and scale up as realistic.
Help them figure out what their predominant Learning Style is — visual, auditory, reader/writer, kinaesthetic (or perhaps a mixture). This is going to give them a starting point for figuring out what study techniques are more likely going to work for them. And, figuring out their predominant Learning Style is one facet of developing their own Study System. (You can point your teen in the direction of my free Learning Styles Quiz over at cramlab.org.)
The overarching theme tying these 4 starting steps is: start small.
If your teen is starting at square 1 when it comes to studying, it’s obviously not realistic to expect them to start studying like a Harvard valedictorian tomorrow.
Your teen is at the beginning of their studying journey, and like any learnt skill, it will take them some time to develop their study skills.
But by starting small, sorting out a plan, and taking things one step at a time, you will be making the study process a lot less daunting for your teen, and hopefully you will start seeing some sparks of motivation.
Have you been struggling to get your teen to their desk? Has anything worked? Anything not worked? Let us know in the comments — we can all help and learn from each other.
Wishing you and your teen the best of luck,
Clare x
P.S. This earlier article, 5 ways to help your teenager with school and studying, could be a big help too if your teen is struggling with motivation and getting their study on track.
P.P.S. Study System help: You can download the Study System Starter Kit here. The kit includes 8 teen-friendly printouts to download / print / use as a blueprint for building your teen’s own Study System. It’s a must-do starting point for any struggling student.
