One of the most common battles I see between students and their parents at the beginning of the school year is the agenda. Parents purchase expensive, often beautiful calendars so that their children can carefully record every homework assignment. Their children obediently carry the calendar to and from school, but by week three, they have stopped recording homework assignments on its pristine pages. The students protest that they have found another way that suits them better to keep up with homework, and a battle ensues.
Of course, students need to track assignments to ensure that they neither miss deadlines nor fail to complete homework. Old-fashioned calendars offer certain benefits, including the following two:
1. Kinesthetic learners are often more likely to remember an assignment that they have physically written down, and
2. Helicopter parents have access to a ready checklist to verify their child’s homework completion.
In this digital age, though, parents should be flexible about the way children track assignments, take notes, and complete work. In high school, students are learning how to function independently and to develop their own to-do lists and organizational styles. If your child prefers using an app like ClassManager or myHomework Student Planner to a physical calendar, by all means let him or her do so. (I recommend My Study Life). Your child may also prefer taking notes on a laptop. By typing class notes into Google Docs, your child can access notes at home, even if his or her notebook and laptop are still in the school locker! Parents may not be familiar with all of the new ways schoolwork can be tracked, organized, and completed. Let your child take the lead.
Allow your child to experiment, at the very least until he or she misses an assignment or deadline. Offer suggestions, but cultivate your child’s independence by relinquishing control of these tasks to your high school-aged child. You might just learn a better way of organizing!