Lesson Plans, Homework and Parents
Michael W. Cater, M.D.
As your children mature and enter high school they will be expected to assume greater responsibility for their education. The expectations of high school teachers are generally quite fair and attainable. As a rule, to earn a good grade in a class a student is expected to do three things: show up, turn in their homework and put some time into that work. Although these expectations are reasonable, many students (~40%) will not meet them. True, they may not be honor students, but they are bright and fully capable of achieving. Nevertheless, they will miss class more than they should, set friends and jobs as a higher priority and turn in assignments late or not at all. In a nutshell, they’ll just get by.
In some ways, this is one of the most frustrating situations for a teacher because these students could do so much more than just float through high school. If their grades ever slip to a “D”, they put it in high gear and do what’s needed to get back up to an acceptable level. The problem is, they’ve accepted a level that’s simply to low. The teacher knows it, parents know it, and most importantly, the students know it, too. They have not set high expectations for themselves!
Can this all-too-common situation be turned around? For most students, the answer is an unqualified yes. But who’s going to do it? Many students this age do not have the maturity or self-discipline to get tough on themselves. Teachers may try to motivate, but with five classes a day and some students who need extra attention, they are spread way too thin as it is. That leaves only the parents to solve the problem.
Many a mother or father has told me during a phone conference of being unsure just how much pressure to apply. Shouldn’t young people be responsible for making their own choices? That sounds good, but it ignores the fact that teenagers often make bad choices that close off future options. Should 15-years olds be in charge of decisions that will affect the rest of their lives? In many ways a 15-year old is still a child. Decision-making isn’t full developed until the mid twenties.
Parents should closely monitor the performance of their grade school children as well as that of the adolescents which includes making sure their homework is done and turned in on a daily basis. And don’t hesitate to guide your children’s academic choices. We often make the mistake of letting up on our teenagers too soon. True, staying on top a sophomore’s school achievement is more difficult, but raising children has never been easy. With only three or four years of required school left, why abandon our role now?
Will high school students welcome increased involvement from their parents? Not a chance! However, if it becomes clear that parents are not going to sit back and watch their kids do mediocre work, adjustments can and will be made.
Teenagers can put up tremendous resistance and parents may be tempted to give in to avoid the inevitable yelling and slammed doors. But continuing to insist on academic standards that you know your child can meet may be more important in the long run than temporary tranquility.
What are the reasonable expectations for a healthy, intelligent high school student? Try these for starters.
*You do not miss class unless you are really sick.
*You complete your homework every night.
*You do not go out on school night unless you can guarantee that you are prepared for the next day’s classes.
*You limit your children’s phone calls, cell phone use, texting, non-academic Internet use and TV watching.
*You turn in all assignments, complete and on time.
*You see that work and your social life do not interfere with your main job, which is academic success.
*You do what you know is necessary to get the highest grades you can.
Clearly these are not revolutionary suggestions, but enforcing them may be.
Unless there are consequences, behavior will not change. To make sure your child is not skipping class, call the school and ask. To get a talkative teen off his phone, cell or Internet social network, you may need to pull the plug on those devices! To be sure a paper is finished, you have to read it and watch it go into the backpack. To allow use of a car, you can insist on a B average.
That sort of enforcement takes vigilance, time and, more that anything else, energy. But the payoff could well be having our children graduate from high school with academic achievement that reflect their true abilities.
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