A teenager does not want to go to school — what to do?

Some children enjoy going to school for 11 years. But it seems that this is not the case in all families. This situation is more common — the child is extremely reluctant to persuade parents to do homework, textbooks are easily replaced with a mobile phone, and one cannot even dream of additional classes. This situation occurs at different ages, but, according to statistics, it most often occurs in adolescents. We in the editorial office decided to thoroughly study the traditional two questions: why and what to do?

Psychologists divide the reasons for unwillingness to study into three groups:

one. educational mistakes — when a teenager does not want to go to school because one of the adults is doing something wrong;

2. The child lacks learning skillstherefore, everything that needs to be done at school is given to him with great difficulty than other children;

3. Psychological and social causes: the teenager has difficulties in relationships with the environment, which affect his desire to come to school.

Let’s think about what skills a teenager should develop to make learning easier?

For example, he must be able to follow the instructions of an adult. Recall that from early childhood the learning process has been going on like this — first the child does something together with an adult, then according to his instructions, and then on his own. Another important skill ability to organize yourself. That’s hard to do without! Parents can help a child in this in several ways — if they organize a personal space for him together — lockers, a room (or part of a room), a daily routine. At school age, over time, the child learns to understand how much time is spent on what task. Thus, he can independently decide when exactly to take up this or that subject, so as not to finish all the lessons by three in the morning 🙂
The next skill that will come in handy in your studies is ability to make an effort. Create situations for the child when he made an effort, tried — and achieved something important. Emphasize the value of his efforts, notice the contribution to the common cause.
And the last thing I want to mention is the ability to break a bunch of learning tasks into small steps. Even an adult, when he sees a mountain of tasks at work, is horrified, let alone children! But any large and difficult work does not seem so scary if you divide it into parts and do each part in turn.

How to help a teenager to master all this? Start, you guessed it, from an early age.

one. Send your child to school on time. Make sure that the child is ready for school not only pedagogically — he can read, count and write, but also psychologically. We recently wrote detailed material about psychological readiness for school.

2. Do not scare a teenager with the future! Firstly, at the age of 13-14, the child does not care who he will become in 6-10 years — even if he is a janitor. Secondly, most often, teenagers perceive such threats from their parents as a clear exaggeration. Much more children are motivated by immediate prospects and illustrative examples of success.

3. Ensure the unity of educational influences. Everyone is familiar with this situation — mom is categorically against a tattoo on her leg — the offspring goes to dad and begs for permission from dad. Or uncle’s. So it doesn’t fit. It would be good for all adults in the family, together with the child, to develop uniform rules and lines of requirements so that the teenager does not have the opportunity to break the rules.

four. Adhere to correct parenting methods. Forget about manipulation, loud screaming, scandals and, even more so, physical punishment. Two adults can always agree without the use of personality suppression methods.

5. Be always on the side of the child. No matter what your son has done or in whatever condition your daughter comes home, they must know that your decision will be fair, and the love of their parents will always remain with them. A teenager should feel that parents are the people who will support and protect him in case of any injustice.

If difficulties in the family persist, and the problem of getting to school reaches serious proportions and no advice helps, be sure to contact a specialist — a psychologist, doctor, teacher who understands your child well. Together, it will definitely work!