There are plenty of reasons for a child not to be excited about school. Sometimes, the parents themselves have a lot to do with it.
Whenever a child is not enthusiastic about school, it can be frustrating. At times, frustration, depression, lack of motivation, bullying, or sickness can cause your child not to get excited about school.
Let’s take a closer look.
9 Things You Can Do To Get Kids Excited About School
Notwithstanding the situation, you can remedy the problem. For example, you might know why your child is not excited about school; So, it`s your job as a parent to get them excited. Interestingly, the things you can do to achieve this are simple but require dedication.
Be Their Role Model
You are the first and most influential role model to your child. Therefore, be an influential mentor while acting as a role model. You may be extremely busy with work. In that case, you can employ a caregiver for your child and ensure that this person acts as a teacher.
When you read a book or attend any academic class, you showcase the importance of learning to your children. In other words, you are instilling a positive learning attitude and placing the importance of education in their lives.
Once they see you exhibiting these character traits, they naturally get excited about school.
Teach Them to Maintain Respect
At times, your child might feel reluctant to go to school because of the attitude of one of their teachers. If you recall, you also didn’t like some teachers when you were in school. Notwithstanding the adoration or disdain, they are teachers and therefore deserve respect.
Teach your child always to respect adults, regardless of how they perceive that person.
Try to speak highly of the teachers to help your kid respect them. Tell your children to respect and obey their teachers because they are at school to help them become anything they want to be in the future.
Get your Child Involved
Education isn’t all about spending time in a classroom. There are also fun parts – after-school activities such as clubs and sports.
Encourage your child to pick an interest in activities beyond the classroom. For example, you can register them in the football club, dancing team, singing competition, or other extracurricular activities. By doing that, they will always be excited and look forward to school.
Resist Overscheduling
Karate tournaments, baseball practices, art classes, and music lessons require a lot of time. Most children are highly overscheduled with numerous school and after-school activities. Some parents need to hire a personal assistant to get them organized.
Although your child might love these after-school activities, which can help improve their future college applications, it can sometimes become overwhelming.
Therefore, as a parent, resist the urge to get them signed up for several after-school activities; your child needs some downtime for him or herself. The lesser the distraction, the more you minimize homework hassles.
If your child loves several activities, you can help them to shortlist the most important activities for them to participate in. By doing that, you can help your child with scheduling the most important activities.
Create a Homework Routine
When your child has an endless amount of homework to do, they can become unexcited about school. However, homework is part of the learning process. So, for example, you can designate a pleasant homework routine and a timeframe to complete the homework.
If you remember, when growing up, your parents always asked you to do your homework in a quiet room.
However, most kids prefer using the kitchen table or bedroom floor. You can ask your child about their preferred location when doing their homework. Ensure there is no blaring music or TV around so they can concentrate properly.
Furthermore, motivate them to complete their homework before playing. For example, if your child has several assignments, they can take short breaks to disrupt the cycle of staying in a particular place for a long time.
Encourage Relationships with Other Kids
While your child can make friends at school, you shouldn’t pressure them into socializing. Instead, allow your child to gravitate towards kids they love hanging out with. You don’t have to force them to make friends because friendship isn’t about quantity but quality.
Their quality of friends will enable them to build good relationships, influencing them positively.
Develop an Interest in their Educational Growth
If you aren’t interested in your children’s education, they will lack excitement about anything related to school. But on the other hand, developing an interest in your children’s education creates a feeling of responsibility and importance.
There are several ways to show interest – doing homework with them, asking about their favorite subject, teacher, or after-school event.
Be active in their education; also volunteer for activities when their school has a program. It shows you value their progress and schoolwork. Notwithstanding how busy your schedule might be, please find time to attend special events and activities they are involved in.
Practicalize the Theory
If you discover that your child is interested in a particular subject, you can help make it more exciting. Help your child set up science experiments at home or visit a local museum. If they are taught something at home, they can get the items needed to practicalize it at home.
This way, they will become excited about school because they will apply their knowledge in real-life situations.
Create a Reward System
Reward their efforts instead of the outcome. It would send a message that you respect their hard work and effort. Praising your kids for making an effort or trying to do something they weren’t sure of can help teach them the value of pushing themselves.
Therefore, please don’t focus on the outcome, even though it is essential. Firstly, praise them for their effort before working on the result.
Once they recognize you value their effort, they would like to improve or get a better result next time. Even if your child didn’t perform well, encourage them to learn from their mistakes.
Conclusion – Get Support
It is frustrating seeing your kids not getting excited about school. You might have done everything possible to get them excited; why not seek support? Some schools have support groups for parents with kids that are less motivated about school.
You can schedule a meeting to get help from the school group. Here, you’ll discover that you are not the only one facing such a challenge. You can hear people who have faced a similar situation and how they navigated through the process.
Alternatively, you can hire a therapist to find a solution. This is always a viable option that can be resorted to when all other options fail. For example, your child doesn’t have to be demotivated about going to school – it’s possible to change their attitude and approach towards education!
