How Not to Let the Child Fall Behind from Studying on Vacation

Who doesn’t know how difficult it is to return to studies after having a long vacation? Everybody that has a child of school age faces this problem each year at the end of summer. It seems that your child forgets everything they know during this time. Few parents know how to maintain the pace, but in autumn many of them struggle hard to return to the level of knowledge a child had at the end of the school year. We know how to reduce your pain and help your child not to fall behind from studying on vacation.

Why Are We Prone to Forget What We Know When We Don’t Have Practice?

The human brain tends to assimilate daily routine patterns. When children study, their knowledge is accumulated and they gradually improve expertise in various disciplines. Vice versa, vacation relaxes our mind if we don’t support knowledge with practice during the holiday. The situation becomes even worse if your child is entering their puberty age: hormones make parents’ task to educate children during holidays even more difficult. As a result, children can’t concentrate on learning new material and even forget what they knew at the end of school year.  In order to encourage them to stay focused on studying, we should help them by supporting the level of knowledge they already have so they start the next school year prepared.

How to Help Your Child Not to Fall Behind from Studies?

Obviously, children tend to become lazy and less goal-oriented during long summer vacation. Therefore, parents need to develop an appropriate plan not to let them fall behind from studying. The plan should target waking up children’s brain and shift from the resting phase of their minds during vacation. So, what can we do in this case? There are several useful patterns to be used by parents: make a to-do list, set a timetable, spend less time in front of laptop/tablet/phone, and provide right vacation-studies balance.

Make a To-Do List

The first thing you should do is to plan your activities: try to organise the summer studies of your child so they can study for at least 15-30 minutes a day. You know the weaknesses of your child very well, so you may try to fill the gap in education even if you have a family trip. An electronic calendar may help plan your activities more carefully. A planner or a calendar will help you and your child track your activities and reflect on what is done. Otherwise, you may wish to pay someone to do essay. It would be better if you emphasize lagging activities and pay less attention to the disciplines your child is good at. For example, your child is good at literature, but math is not their strong point. You can assign more tasks in math so your child can emphasise this discipline.

Set a Timetable

A routine guarantees that you will do the thing. Regular training is the best education pattern. Therefore, you should set a dynamic pace of your child’s studying on vacation. At the same time, you shouldn’t forget that your child is on vacation and some relaxation has to take place on the schedule as well. A timetable will help you to maintain the pace and fulfil your plan. You may organise the studies of your child in the form of homework. Printed and online materials for summer exercises are widely available both in bookstores and online. According to Ecomena, printed books are preferred for effective studies because modern children tend to spend a lot of time with gadgets. It would be nice if children have an opportunity to distract from computers and explore completely different activities.

Spend Less Time in Front of Gadgets

Gadgets are the sources of worries and headaches for modern parents. As parents are busy at work, children spend a lot of time in front of gadgets and this situation is sometimes out of control. You need to suggest alternative occupations for your child, such as help at home, reading, performing daily tasks, walking, travelling, playing outside, etc. The summer schedule of your child depends on your creativity. Studying lessons on the beach doesn’t remind of boring in-class routine. So, take advantage of this opportunity so you can kill two birds with one stone: educate your child and let them enjoy life at full.

Don’t Forget About Study-Rest Balance

It is very important to find the right schedule for your child because misbalance may lead to unpredictable negative consequences. For example, your child may lose interest in studies if you plan a lot of studying activities or may lose their expertise in certain disciplines if you don’t assign enough tasks to them. You may organise your summer studying process as the regular activity: let your child read and complete math tasks five days a week with two days of the weekends. Maybe you will prefer to schedule 1-hour studies each day. It depends on mental abilities of a child, biological clock and parents’ expectations. This is a kind of individual thing and general recommendations are not helpful in this case.

Key Takeaways

Let’s summarise the main ideas of this article to cut a long story short:

• Make a plan of studies based on your individual schedule and the schedule of your child;
• Set a comfortable timetable of the studies and include the tasks on the disciplines your child is not that good to improve their knowledge;
• Plan less time for gadgets: summer is about spending time outside with friends, leave gadgets for studies only;
• Encourage your child to read more – this is a good alternative to computer games;
• Don’t forget that your child is on their summer vacation and don’t be very enthusiastic when planning too much-studying activities for them not to discourage them from upcoming regular studies.

Nicole Lewis is a top content writer at Edubirdie.com. She has been writing articles on tech topics for the last 6 years and loves researching on the newest software available. She likes to help people understand what technological solution is better for them.