How to Help Your Teen's Potential Burst Through and Shine, Without Nagging
Three simple, practical and effective ways to help your teen with their study that won't make them resent you.
As a parent, you of course want the best for your teen.
You know that they have their whole lives ahead of them, and are bursting with potential.
But how can you help make sure their potential doesn’t go to waste? And do it in a way that doesn’t damage your relationship with them and make you seem like the bad guy?
In this instance I’m talking about academic potential mostly. I want to help your teen get the grades they’re actually capable of.
I know — and you know — that they do have the ability to learn what they’re being taught at school, but far too often high school students don’t have the study skills they need to study effectively or sit exams.
And that is just absolutely heartbreaking, because it means they’re not getting recognition for what they actually do know and are capable of.
I suspect I’m preaching to the converted here, so let’s get into my three practical tips for helping your teen to unlock their amazing academic potential.
1. Being a United Front
Imposing a study plan on your teen that they are not on board with, is at best going to haul them along like a tired shire horse pulling a very heavy cart. At worst, it’s going to put your teen off studying even more.
It’s definitely not going to lead to consistent improvement in effort or grades, which is what we’re aiming for.
Obviously this can be a complex issue. I’m not at all suggesting that I have a magic wand to wave that will instantly make your teen enjoy studying and see that you never have to nag ever again.
But — I really do believe that there is a better way.
The better way involves your teen coming to the party, to some extent at least, themselves. It requires them having some level of self-motivation.
I really doubt that they want to get bad grades. Most of the time, teens don’t do well in exams and struggle to study because they feel stuck and don’t know what to do.
This is where you come in.
You can help your teen come up with a study plan that they spearhead themselves.
You can ask them questions like:
How do they want to go about studying?
When do they enjoy (or dislike the least) studying the most? (i.e. when during the week, what times of day)
What are their study goals?
What do they want to get out of the school year?
What’s their plan for the future?
Notice the emphasis on ‘they’ and ‘their’. The plan needs to be your teen’s plan. Not yours.
You want to be their cheerleader, not their coach.
Your teen is much more likely to stick to a study plan and feel self-motivated if they are driving the process (with your support), than if you are having to crack the whip and drive them nuts with nagging.
2. Identify the Issues Together
You can be an enormous help to your teen by helping them to identify the specific study issues that are holding them back.
We often hear parents say things like, “Mike is really struggling with studying and I don’t know why”.
Well, chances are, Mike has no clue either. All he knows is that when he sits down at his desk to study, he doesn’t know what to do and doesn’t have any motivation.
This is why your teen needs YOU to help them figure out what the specific problems with their study are.
You can discuss questions like:
What are their perceived road blocks?
What subjects / topics are they struggling with?
Are they struggling because they don’t know how to go about studying?
Is it a teacher issue?
Talking through their issues and identifying the specific obstacles should be incredibly helpful for ‘clearing the path’ for your teen, to make way for productive study unencumbered by roadblocks and frustration.
3. Progress not Perfection
If your teen is struggling with studying, the goal should not be perfection, IMHO.
The goal should be progress.
Your teen is not going to transform into a self-motivated straight-A student overnight. Or perhaps ever, and that’s probably absolutely okay.
Progress not perfection.
As I’ve talked about here and here, university is not for everyone and that’s actually a good thing. (Not that going to university requires perfection either.)
But regardless of what your teen ends up doing after high school, I am here to help them get the grades they’re actually capable of, so they at least have options and can pursue the path they want to.
I think sometimes parents can inadvertently sabotage their teen’s ‘success’ by expecting too much, or by pushing goals that their teen isn’t actually on board with.
This very much relates to the first point about being a united front and lighting the fire of self-motivation within your teen.
I bet that you and your teen can find common ground.
As I said above, most teens don’t want to fail. They want to succeed, they want to do well, and they want to make you proud.
So perhaps, for now at least, the goal should be progress. Improvement. Effort.
Forget about grades for a moment too.
How delighted would you be if your teen started to study somewhat consistently and become more self-motivated?
Let’s celebrate your teen’s effort. Let’s work towards mini-goals that are actaully achieveable.
And you know what — that’s all going to lead to better grades anyway.
The power of these simple strategies is that you’re not nagging. You’re not stuck in a power play of parent and child that for so many teens leads to resistance and resentment.
If you want your teen to tap into their potential, academic and otherwise, everyone will be much happier and better off, and successful, if you are a united front, and if your teen is personally invested in their own success.
I’d love to hear your thoughts. Does this resonate? Have you found any strategies that work where you and your teen solve problems together? Let us know in the comments.
Thanks so much for reading. It means a lot.
Clare
P.S. If your teen is struggling and you haven’t already, the place to start is my Study System page over at cramlab.org/study-system. The free resources there that you can download will kickstart your teen’s study journey.
P.P.S. Look out for my downloadable study guide, the Exam Study Survival Kit, coming out in a few weeks. I’m working as fast as I can to get it ready in time for end of year exams. More info to come soon…
