Helping Your Teen Start the School Year Right

Back to school time when you have a struggling teen can bring up a lot of mixed emotions. Feelings of anxiety or worry (“What if Jon gets suspended again,” or “What do I do if Suzy keeps hanging out with that bad crowd this year?”), but it also is a time for hope and excitement. A new school year means a fresh start for both you and your teen. Don’t give up hope that this could be the year things start improving! Here are a few things you can try to start things off on the right foot:

1. Be intentional about your teen's schedule: There is a balance between making sure your teen is active and involved, but not over-committed. The most productive time for a teen is usually right after school, between 3 and 7 p.m. Encouraging your teen to be involved in activity or sport that meets during these hours will help keep them out of after-school trouble. But pressuring your teen to be too involved can lead to stress and resentment. A good place to start is requiring your teen to be involved with one extracurricular activity of their choosing. Help them decide on this activity as soon as possible, and then create a calendar so they can visualize how it will affect their schedule.

2. Keep a positive attitude about your child’s school and teachers: If your teen hears you frequently complaining about school policies or specific teachers, it will undermine their authority in his/her mind. Unless the school is doing something that blatantly goes against your values, keep negative or critical opinions to yourself.

3. Make your home a restful place to come back to: Pick your battles when your teen is at home. If home is a place of constant bickering, chances are your teen will invent ways to be gone as much as possible. Let go of some of the little things, like your daughter’s eyebrow ring or your son’s long, unruly hair. This is not to say you should let your teen do whatever or dress however they want, but sometimes it is worth keeping the peace by not fighting over issues that do not threaten your teen’s physical, emotional, or spiritual safety.

As the new school year begins, be willing to take an honest look back at what has been done right and wrong in the past. Chances are you and your teen both have mistakes to learn from, but it’s never too late for a fresh start.

Sometimes, the issues a teen is struggling with are serious enough to consider temporarily removing them from their environment to give them an opportunity to focus. If you feel that your consistent best efforts with your teen are ineffective, consider seeking professional help to bring hope and healing to your family.