Mandatory Study Time: Learning Doesn’t Stop Because School Is Not In Session

When it comes to our children’s education, we cannot afford to be laid back, casual, or hands off. We have to be hands on, take control, and ensure our children are getting all they will need to be successful in the future. I won’t get started on the deficiencies in the public school system just yet, but will focus today on something you can do to ensure they will not hold your child back.

There are 52 weekends a year, summer, and holiday breaks in the school year. This equates to a lot of time our children are not in school and learning. Compared to the rest of the world, our children are clearly out of school too long. While we are “relaxing and enjoying our time off” the rest of the world is studying, learning, growing, and passing our children academically and in terms of ambition. We must do something to fight back!

Mandatory Study Time During Weekends & Breaks From School

Today, I want you to put on your parenting overalls and initiate something that will serve your child for the rest of their life. I want you to start ALLOWING your children to study and learn on their weekends and breaks from school.

I know, I know. This may sound a bit radical to you at first, but it will serve you and them well in the future. Keep this in mind when you are laying down the new law in your house.

American children and particularly African American children are lagging behind the rest of the world in math, science, and reading. We cannot allow this trend to continue. We definitely cannot allow our children to fall behind. I know Team Taylor is not going to allow this to happen. Hopefully, you are putting your foot down and putting a stop to this as well.

The Solution

Here is what we do to ensure our children have an opportunity to keep up with the rest of the world and continue to dominate the current school year. We have them study every weekend, summer and holiday break. There is no time off from schooling and education.

We stress the importance of education, but also that education doesn’t only take place in the hallways of their school. Education should happen with every breathe in life. Our children understand that education never stops, so they should continuously build on theirs each day, even when they are not in school.

Every weekend or school break, our children must study and learn for 1.5 to 2 hours each day before they are allowed to play video games, go outside or watch television. No exceptions.

Our children are 8 and 12 years old. We have different levels of expectations for them based on their ages. Freddie, the 8 year old, must study for 1.5 hours a day. Jayel, the 12 year old, msut study for 2 hours a day.

They don’t have to announce to us when they are starting their time, but they are held accountable. I don’t suggest starting out this way. We didn’t. In the beginning, they had to tell us when they started, work their time, then let us know when they were finished. This gave us an idea of the time frame they were working and studying.

We believe in empowering our children, so eventually we didn’t require them to tell us their start and stop times. Our aim is to get them to understand this isn’t for us, but for them. They love to dominate academically, so they understand this is only going to help them do so. Desire is a key element in raising wonderful children, in my opinion. This is also another topic we will be tackling in the future together.

Acceptable Activities:

There are a myriad of things the boys are allowed to do to satisfy their time. Again, we don’t hover over them while they are working and studying, but they know what we expect from them. Here is a short list of things that will work:

• Reading
• Chess
• Khan Academy
• Research
• Studying Ahead in a Class
• Online Tutorials

If you decide to implement this mandate in your home, you may run into some issues. Don’t panic. Everyone reacts differently when it comes to change. Your children are no different.

Be prepared to deal with disappointment you are ruining their weekends or vacations from school. They will give you the puppy dog eyes and much more to try and get you to feel bad about the decision. Ignore that and think about the long term benefits 52 additional weekends of study will do for your child or all those extra days of studying over the summer.

More than likely, you are going to be greeted with some resistance. Don’t panic here either. Push on and through with the plan to get your little one started down this path. You just have to get to a point where it is a habit in their life. This lies on the other side of resistance.

Yes, procrastination will be in the future for your child as well. They are not going to like the idea, so they will try to sit around in the bed and avoid the work all morning. Get their butts up and started with their time in the morning. You just have to get them to understand if they it done early in the morning, they can continue with their day as they please.

Suggestions for Implementing Study Time

Be Firm – This is non-negotiable in our household. If we have somewhere to go or they have something to do that afternoon or even morning, they still must get their time in each day. They are not allowed to do anything fun related or relaxing before they finish their study time. This means no TV, radio, video games or going outside. Get your work done first, then they are allowed to play the day away.

You have to keep the main thing as the main thing. Right now, their world revolves around their education. Education is the main thing, so make sure you articulate this to your children and keep encouraging their growth and development, but remain firm when they try to wiggle their way out of this responsibility. Eventually, they will come around to accept it as a part of life. You just have to be firm until that happens.

Options - Allow them to make choices on what they want to learn and study today. Empowering the children gives them a sense of ownership over their future. It will also ensure they are doing something enjoyable. Most children don’t hate learning or school, but some aspects of it. Allow them to go further in areas they love and encourage them every step along the way.

Just give them a few things to select from and get out of their way. Most children will appreciate the freedom and choices. They will select something enjoyable to them and comply.

Re-Teach Lessons – If you suspect your child is just wasting time in front of the computer, a book, or you just want to ensure they are absorbing the lessons, have them teach them to you. If they were reading, then have them summarize their reading for you and ask them questions.

Teaching someone else the lessons they just learned will only strengthen their understanding of a subject. Make sure you play dumb, at some point you won’t have to play (trust me), and ask a lot of questions. You want to make sure your child is critically thinking and grasping the lessons they are studying. Only by checking up with them and having them re-teach the information will you be able to really know if your child is understanding and growing mentally.

Khan Academy – We will be talking about this website in much more detail in the near future. It will also go in our resources list as well, but this place is awesome. You can visit them at KhanAcademy.org.

This is a free website that focuses on teaching math, science, and the world to anyone that wants to learn. The main reason we use it is to build our children’s math skills for now. It utilizes YouTube inside of the lessons to teach the children, but it is outstanding! Check it out today and remember, we will be doing a full review of this site.

Personally, I feel Khan Academy will give us the resources to ensure our children will go to top tier colleges and universities. It won’t solely be on them, but Khan Academy is a big part of our educational plan moving forward.

Hopefully, you can take something from this piece and use it in your home. The bottom line message here is our children’s education is too important to leave up to chance. We, as parents and leaders, must intervene to ensure our children will not only get by, but get ahead.

Do you think you could implement this in your home? What are some other methods you use to ensure your children are getting the extra study time they need to be successful?

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