We all know that things learned during school stay with us throughout our lives. That doesn’t just apply to the lessons we’re taught but also the soft skills we pick up, such as the ability to learn.
At our prep school in Devon, we work to ensure all our pupils don’t just achieve academically, but are equipped with all the skills they’ll need to succeed in life. That includes study habits, something formed at a young age but which can remain just as important as we progress through our lives and careers.
Getting young children to care about studying can be a challenge in a world filled with distractions. However, these techniques can be really helpful for engaging young minds in the skills and importance of learning.
1. Understand Why Studying is Important
It’s totally normal for children not to want to do homework, especially these days when there are so many distractions. Therefore, good study habits often start with having discussions about why we study at all.
The old argument is usually, ‘why am I learning algebra when I’ll never use it in real life?’ However, framing studying itself as a useful skill and tying it to real-world abilities such as creativity and problem-solving can help young minds understand why spending extra time in front of their schoolbooks can make a positive difference to their lives.
2. Think About Small & Big Goals
When talking to children about the wider importance of studying, it can really help to frame it around whatever goals they might have. Clear goals help children find the motivation to spend that hour after school studying instead of running straight to their screens.
Studying goals should be both big and small. Simple goals, such as getting a certain score on an upcoming test or mastering a new topic, can provide short-term jolts of motivation. Larger goals, such as a dream job your child might be interested in doing, can help support those more short-term aims and ensure long-term study habits are maintained between milestone events or tests.
3. Make a Distraction-Free Study Space
If your child is committing to spending extra time studying, you want to make sure they can get the most from their efforts. That means creating a study space.
Study spaces don’t need to be formal desks tucked into corners; it’s just about creating any space that is free from distractions, with good lighting and comfortable seating, where your child can focus on their learning. That could be in the living room while you make dinner, or in their bedroom with their screens locked away until afterwards.
4. Keep a Consistent Routine
We all know how important routines are for children in many areas of their lives, particularly physical and mental health. Routines help ground all of us, producing that sense of comfort that allows us to perform at our best.
When it comes to developing good study habits, having a routine can be hugely beneficial. The key is establishing a routine that can be fairly easily maintained and isn’t asking too much. You can always extend it at a later point if you think more time is needed.
The first few weeks of a new studying plan might feel tough, but if you and your child can stick with it, those extra minutes or hours will begin to pass by stress-free.
5. Introduce Choice & Ownership
A really powerful way to ensure children continue to develop good study habits is to help them take ownership of their work.
Alongside speaking about the importance of studying generally, discuss the trade-offs of their choices around extra study. Help them understand that by spending an extra hour or two every evening studying, they will unlock more opportunities both at school and at home. You may also want to include rewards in this trade-off (see the next point).
While it’s still good to set minimum study sessions at home as a parent, allowing your child to make decisions about what extra work they do, and then to see the results of those choices at home and at school, can be really effective for them to own and work on their own study skills long-term.
6. Make Sure to Reward Effort
Finding the motivation to study is hard for the best of us, let alone young children. Therefore, it’s crucial that if we want good study habits to be maintained, we encourage and support early efforts as much as we can.
It’s good to create rewards tied to a child’s goals – such as giving them a present if they get high marks on an upcoming test – but it’s just as important to ensure we recognise and celebrate daily study efforts that can go unnoticed.
This can tie back into the trade-offs discussed above; maybe you can discuss a certain reward, such as extended game time, if your child commits to an extra hour of study. Tie that extra study back towards achieving their goals for an added motivational push.
As you can see, bringing all of these points together can help turn your child’s short-term goals, such as doing homework, into long-lasting study habits that can take them through school and life.
