Coaching Your Child Through a Winning School Year
The Four “R’s” of a Winning School Year
Parents could learn a lot from professional football coaches. Right now before the season begins, coaches aren’t just thinking about getting through it. They’re already busy working to help every player bring his “A” game to opening day.
This coaching principle of preparation should also be true for parents. Opening day of the school year is upon us. This is the time parents must show up with their plan for a successful year.
Coaches don’t wait for the first game to hold their first strategy meeting. Long before the games begin, coaches get together to develop a plan of action. They start by analyzing the individual players’ weaknesses and strengths. Once the plan has been established they inform the players. The players might not like the restrictions of the plan, but that doesn’t matter. The coaches don’t hold a vote to see if all the players are in favor. The purpose of a coach is not to be liked, but to help the players reach their full potential.
As the school season approaches, it is the perfect time for parents to focus on the four “R’s” of a successful school year. The first “R” for success is to be reasonable. Start by deciding to have reasonable expectations about what can be and needs to be on your family calendar this season. Your children can’t do it all … and they shouldn’t have to try.
Make the family calendar your playbook. Set your top family priorities (such as family time, academics, worship, etc.) and make everything else work around it. This is the time to determine the family non-negotiable and negotiable activities. Decide which extra-curricular activities you will do and which you will say “No” to. Parents should ask themselves, “What’s the priority? What does our child need most to become a healthy, fully functioning adult in the future?” Now is the time for parents to decide to help their child become a healthy human being rather than a frazzled “human doing.”
The second “R” for a winning school year is routine. Determine a school day routine for each child. In the NFL, the players don’t vote on their daily routines and workouts. The coaches pick them and post them. Setting a routine and sticking with it saves countless parent/child arguments, when (and only when) the child believes that you are committed to it. Knowing there’s a specific bed time on school nights and a routine to follow on school mornings will eventually help the child spend his energies on accomplishments rather than arguments.
That leads to the third “R”, responsibility. Winning coaches tell the players the plan, teach the players the plan and then they hold the players responsible to follow through with the plan. Every student experiences some big challenges throughout the school year … things such as science projects and book reports should not be last minute disasters that cause both the student and the parents to scramble to accomplish.
Coaches can’t run out on the field to help a player do something he isn’t prepared to do. Parents need to anticipate the book reports, know when they’re due, put them on the calendar and then help the child work out a weekly reading schedule to get it done. Hold your child responsible to sit down for those predetermined thirty minutes, two evenings a week, to get the book read. Teaching responsibility will assist in preparing your child for college.
The final “R” is the glue that holds the school year together. It’s the parent/child relationship. Parents can’t just put a plan in place; they must also be the child’s greatest encourager. Don’t just have a plan … be the child’s fan.
Parental statements like, “I’m proud of you for getting your reading done before dinner,” will go along way toward motivating a child to win at school. When a child knows that his parents are proud of him it helps him make the right decisions in life with confidence.
After all, what is the real purpose of school? It’s preparation for college and for the real world. It’s the process a child needs to go through to develop the discipline to excel as an adult. The school year is not something you get your child through; it’s a process parents use to train their child. Proverbs 22:6 instructs parents to, “Teach your child to choose the right path, and when they are older, they will remain upon it.”
Parents shouldn’t just try to motivate their children to do their best in school; parents should coach their children to do their best. The beginning of the school year is a time to:
- Set reasonable expectations/schedules
- Establish a routine
- Teach personal responsibility
- Grow the parent/child relationship
To prepare a child properly for school is to prepare a child for life.
