My stuggling student

blossom
Sun, 09 Mar 2008 20:56:55 +0000

College is like a job. Whether your kid is nocturnal or not, a set number of hours per day need to be devoted to studying. So if he blows off a Saturday doing something fun, he needs to schedule those missed study hours for Sunday/Monday/Tuesday to make up the time. Once kids understand that there isn’t some magic formula to help them learn the material they become more realistic about putting together a schedule.
There are probably dozens of resources at his college but they won’t help if he doesn’t use them. Agree that the study center/skills center, whatever it’s called is the first step. He may have a hard time hearing how much time successful students actually spend preparing and studying- but this is often a good reality check.
It’s great he feels comfortable discussing this with you. One tactic which may work for him is to actually schedule his downtime and his social time, vs. letting it be the amorphous “i’m not doing anything so let’s go hang out for an hour”. My kids found that blocking out social time worked better than trying to keep up with friendships while not neglecting school work. If you know that you’re going out for pizza with friends from the hall at midnight it is easier to be in the library from 7-11:30.
4.Time for a reality check on his course schedule. College is usually not “high school with cigarettes”; the pace is blistering and whether he’s taking reading heavy courses or lab-heavy courses, many a Freshman has been done in by assuming that he can handle what’s on his schedule. The study center ought to be able to help him understand if his course selections were reasonable.
Keep the lines of communication open. This is a steep learning curve and Freshman often need to hear that the folks at home are rooting for them to get up to speed vs. being punitive that they’re not blowing the cover off the ball in every single class.