5 Practical Ways Busy Parents Can Help Their Teens With Studying and Exams
TLDR; Here are 5 practical ways you can help your teen with their study:
Identify their pain points
Be the reassuring voice of wisdom
Find and provide useful study resources
Support their dream — whatever that might be after school
Help them get organised
If your teen is struggling at school, you might feel like you’ve run out of ideas as to how you can help them.
Plus you’re working, looking after your family, sorting out dinner, planning a friend’s birthday dinner, and approximately eight other tasks all at the same time.
But of course, you want to do everything you can for your teen. So how can you help them, like really help them, with their school work and exams in a meaningful way? Particularly when you haven’t answered a Maths question for over 20 years…
Well there is good news. Smart and effective study — I swear — is not actually complicated, and there are simple and practical things you can do to help your teen make studying less daunting and painful.
1. What are their pain points?
Sometimes teens are unmotivated and / or frustrated about studying because there’s an obstacle in the way, but they don’t actually know what the obstacle is.
It could be a particular topic they’re struggling with.
It could be that they don’t know where to start with studying.
Maybe they need a little bit of tutoring to get on top of a subject.
It could be that they’re not sure where it’s all leading to and therefore what’s the point — what’s their post high school plan? They don’t necessarily need to know the answer to that, just thinking about what they might do could be enough to shine a light at the end of the study tunnel.
We can’t expect teenagers to have all the answers about where they’re going wrong and what’s holding them back.
They still need support and guidance. Heck — don’t we all still need help and support to work through problems?!
It could be just one conversation that digs a little deeper into what your teen is finding challenging that makes all the difference.
2. Be that reassuring voice of wisdom
Of course I think that school is important, but I think it’s counterproductive when teens get so worried and stressed about exams and grades that they fall into a very early existential crisis.
You can reassure your teen that while yes, exams are important…
they don’t need to get perfect grades to do well. Seriously, I never got perfect grades. No one does. We’re aiming for consistency and progress.
cliché alert but it’s true — things have a way of working themselves out — school is a very short period of life, and a few less-than-ideal grades along the way, in the grand scheme of things, is not going to get in the way of your teen’s success.
All your teen can do is put their best foot forward.
They can’t control the exact grades they end up getting.
Perspective, provided by you, can be a very helpful and leveling thing.
3. Point them in the direction of useful resources
I have found that even though today’s teenagers are tech natives, this doesn’t correspond with them necessarily being proactive in finding the study resources they need.
Every teen should have access to practice questions and explanatory resources to help them understand their topics thorough and practice answering exam questions before the real assessment.
This is where you can swoop in and be massively valuable to your teen’s study success. There are so many amazing resources for every subject, every year level, every curriculum.
If your teen doesn’t have these resources already, I would take look at the following:
Past exam papers for your teen’s curriculum. Your country/state’s education authority will hopefully provide copies of previous years exam papers that your teen can use as one of my all time favourite study tools. (Here’s the link for Kiwi parents whose teens are doing NCEA: https://www2.nzqa.govt.nz/ncea/subjects/past-exams-and-exemplars/)
Educational websites, like Khan Academy (US), Bitesize (UK), and LearnWell (NZ). But there are plenty of others. Just Google your teen’s curriculum and you’ll find more information on whatever subject they’re struggling than they will ever need to know.
Past exam papers were my absolute favourite way to make sure I was exam-ready.
4. Support their dream
It really doesn’t matter what your teen wants to do once they finish school — university, a trade, work experience, gap year — what does matter is that they have some direction and purpose. That’s what’s going to drive them to do well at school.
Kids who have some kind of plan after school — even if it’s not ‘academic’ — are much more likely to be motivated, because they’ll see school as a pathway to having options.
The thing that separates almost every teen who is motivated about school and those who, well, aren’t… is having at least some idea of what they’re going to do after school.
It doesn’t need to be a 20 year plan, or even a 5 year plan, but just… something.
I once tutored a plumber who was at least 10 years older than me because he was struggling with his theory exams. I’m afraid Maths escapes no one!
5. Help them get organised
Making study timetables, Subject Maps (free templates linked here), knowing when assignments are due and when exams start, setting up a notes system (like Evernote or OneNote) — these are the types of organisational tasks that a lot of teens struggle with and where you can provide invaluable support.
For most of us, organisation is a learnt skill, and it’s not realistic for us to expect teenagers to run their study plan like a military operation.
Making an Exam Study Timetable is one of the most important study tools. Here’s what mine used to look like!
I hope these practical pointers will help you help your teen in a meaningful way. Of course there’s nothing ‘easy’ about getting a teenager through school, but I hope it’s reassuring that the things you can do to help are not themselves complex.
And that’s in large part because effective study does not need to be complex.
Effective study is 90% about having systems in place, a study routine, and turning up.
Would love to hear what’s working / not working for your teen in the comments.
Clare x
