Ways to Keep Your Teen’s Brain Working Over the Summer Break

Hopefully your teen is thoroughly enjoying their summer break right now. Exams are behind them, and the new school year isn’t even on the radar yet.But we hope that they haven’t switched their brain off completely. Three months is a really long time for your teen to not be focused at all on learning.This article is all about the things that you can do for your teen that will make their eventual return to the classroom not seem like a complete shock to the system. Plus they may even return to school with a little more focus. (One can always hope!!!)

1. Having a good ol’ chat

While it may not seem like it sometimes, and while they definitely not come right out and say it, we have no doubt that your teen values your thoughts and opinions about their future.School holidays are the perfect time for your teen to start thinking about their future. They can get their game plan sorted early while there’s a ton of time before they have to make any hard decisions.With more time on both yours and your teen’s hands without school and all its associated activities, now is the perfect time for you to have a chinwag about what the new school year has might have in store.Is your teen heading off to College? What are they hoping to get out of the experience (more than just a degree)?Or – if they have a new year of high school ahead of them – what sorts of grades are they going to strive for? What’s their game plan? What other activities are they going to engage in? Have they thought about life after high school? What tickles their fancy in later life?We could certainly go on...

2. Family outing

Again – because you have more time than normal – now’s the perfect time to head out and do something bit different with your teen.How about having a look around your town’s local university or college? Inspire your teen with what college life could be like!An excursion to the museum? A concert? A show? Anything that could potentially spark an interest in all things not Facebook and computer games will do nicely.

3. Reading

It took both of us until our early twenties before we read frequently for pleasure, but boy do we wish we’d started sooner!Maybe if someone had encouraged us earlier on and made more of an effort to find something we liked, we would have started reading at a much earlier age.Reading will do wonders for your teen’s vocabulary, their writing skills, their verbal skills, their attention span, and the overall effort they put into school.If your teen doesn’t already enjoy reading for pleasure, now is a great time to try and find a genre or author that would them into it.

4. Revision

If your teen starts off the upcoming year feeling behind, then it’s going to be a really hard slog trying to keep up - let alone get good grades.There’s always a pretty big jump up in workload and understanding required between each high school year. Maybe a few hours study each week these holidays is all your teen would need to ensure their academic success this year.If you teen ended the last school year with more of a crumble than a bang, then we recommend that they put in a few hours each week catching up on what they struggled with.Because their limitations are only going to snowball next year. It won't be a fun conversation, but it may be just what the doctor ordered.
 Getting your teen interested in something these holidays - whether it’s their future, a book, or a musical instrument - doesn’t have to be an extravagant exercise, and it doesn’t have to be expensive.If you have any ideas yourself about how to engage teenagers’ brains these holidays please don’t hesitate to share!