The New Year is here, and it’s a time of energized and optimistic plans. Include the students in your house this year. Work with them to set realistic and achievable goals about their learning. It’s RESOLUTION TIME! Once the fireworks have died down, scroll on down for ideas about how to make this your new reality.

• Set Up a Schedule: Whether your kids are in public school, college, or homeschooled, help them learn the discipline it takes to be a good student. Set up a workable schedule that includes adequate time for academic work. Stick with it! Schedules work best if they break study periods up into manageable chunks and allow for some decompression time between classes and independent work. Be sure to post your new schedule where everyone can see.

• Make a Special Place: Be sure each child or student has a private and quiet place to do school work. It should be far from family distractions like the television, or even high-traffic household areas. Make the space well-lit and inviting, and equip it with the supplies your student is likely to need (to minimize delaying tactics such as “I can’t find the colored pencils!”). For younger or struggling students, make sure you can monitor easily to help them stay on task.

• Add Some Motivation: For most kids (and even many adults), academic work is not motivating on its own. Yes, you and I know that practice will result in better grades, but this is not always enough. You may well need to add some artificial motivation to keep your kids on track. Consider having them earn a reward for consistency with their new schedule. It will help, especially if you can offer a reward that they value highly.

• Get the Work Home: All the best laid plans will be meaningless if your student consistently forgets or neglects to bring required materials home from school. If this is a problem at your house, institute a close communication with the teacher or teachers. Find out which days to expect homework, and if the assignment can be found online. And as always, find a way to reward compliance. Offer a high-value outcome for responsible behavior.

• Make a Plan to Be Productive: If you are concerned at all about student performance (which you must be if you have read this far), consider always using this time, without fail, to focus on academics. The first priority will be school assignments, but make sure to enforce learning time even if nothing has come home from school that night. What to do with the extra time? Help your child build study skills by having them reread or review notes, summarize what they’ve done in class that day (these summaries will make a great DIY study guide when tests come around), practice any weak skills, do puzzles, read, write, or research for personal growth.

Looking for support in your quest to build better habits (and better grades) with your students? You’ve come to the right place! You’ll want to sign up for The Learning Nook’s Tip List to keep the reminders and information coming straight to your inbox. Best of all, you’ll get a free motivational word search puzzle to use during one of your “learning times” when you are searching for productive activities for your kids. Grab yours today: