How to motivate your teenager to study

Every time we get closer to the end of the course and it is possible that you can intuit what the final grades of your children will be. Throughout the course you have been able observe your child's attitude to learning and what has been their academic performance. Now that summer is coming in just over a month, it is not a reason to lower your arms and wait for September to motivate your children to study again, it is a continuous work,

Adolescents should not feel that study is only to get good grades, they need to realize that study is everywhere and that when we learn something we are already studying it. It is important for them to realize that the study is not something that they should do forced, but it is something that comes from within and that is useful in daily life, not only in school to pass some exams.

But your child will most likely want to be somewhere else rather than sitting at the study table or picking up a book to read and learn interesting facts. Parents need to know how to motivate their children to study, not only to pass exams or pending tests but for life. Although it may seem exhausting or tedious, it doesn't have to be that way.

The solution is to find ways to make studying fun no matter what the subject matter. If you think that achieving this is impossible, I am sorry to tell you that you are wrong. The key is to be flexible, making use of the resources you have and thinking in perspective. Not everything has to be so squared.

Let me choose the place

It is a good idea for your child to choose his place or study area, because in this way he will feel more of his own. You just have to make sure that the study area meets the necessary conditions so that you do not feel fatigued (good lighting, comfort for the study, cool environment, etc.). In the area he chooses, you can offer to put some things like a desk, a lamp and some decorations to make it more attractive. You can allow your child to choose things within limitations. 

The goal is for your child to see in this place "his place", that is, a place where he can retire to learn not only for exams but also for anything that interests him and wants to learn because it seems like a good idea. In this way, your child will be inspired to study and it will not feel like something tedious or imposed.

Short activity list

When adolescents are studying for an hour, they need ten or fifteen minutes of rest so that their brain rests and that they can recharge their batteries and continue learning. So that the study is not too tedious for them or that they do not spend time resting, the ideal is to establish a list of short activities for the rest of this quarter of an hour and that in this way you can choose it. 

There may be things on this list to be able to do in this short period of time for your study break. It can include reading a book or magazine that interests you, playing a game, taking a walk, walking the dog, calling a friend, or even stretching out in bed and closing your eyes to unwind and rest. These short breaks will help relieve the stress of studying and it won't feel like something you are really struggling to achieve.

Study in group

If your child has friends who go to the same class or who have the same common interests and have a good friendship, it may be a good idea to invite a friend or two of them so that they can study together. Although this is a delicate point because there are teenagers who study very well in company but others prefer to do it alone completely because otherwise they can get distracted and not take advantage of the time they really need to get things right.

In this sense, it is a good idea to ask your child if it is okay for him to invite friends to study together or if he prefers to do it alone. In addition, you need to have enough responsibility to be able to decide how you prefer to study and if you decide to do it in a group, not be tempted to enjoy an afternoon of gossip and games instead of studying. But If you are confident that he can pull it off and that he is able to benefit from a shared study session, then feel free to allow it.

Give way to experience

Studying the theory is fine, but experience is what can really make the difference in the learning of children and adolescents. Therefore, if your child is studying something related to history or art, you can take him to museums to see it first hand. If he is studying biology, take him to a biology exhibition or take him to the mountains to go hiking ...

Think about what your child is studying and find a way that he can interact directly with the information that allows him to better assimilate the learning.

Respect their decisions

There are teenagers who can say that they study better with music. Maybe you don't think it is a good idea or you think that music can really distract him, But let him try it and if it doesn't go well let him find out for himself. If after studying with music he shows that he has not acquired the knowledge, then it is better that you guide him and tell him that music is fine but perhaps for when he has to do other types of activities, but to be able to memorize data or aspects of learning, it is better to do it in silence ... or at least it is better to do it in silence for him.

Each adolescent will have different capacities and you have to know what the capacities of each one are to know exactly what they need.