- Organizational skills take on increased significance in junior high school and throughout life. During the summer, encourage your child to begin to keep a calendar to record his or her activities. This will help your child get used to keeping track of assignments and planning ahead to due dates.
- Make certain your child is getting adequate sleep. Although this advice holds true at any age, it’s especially important in junior high school, where students typically have more homework and more extra curricular activities. Starting several weeks before school starts, try to get your child on a consistent sleep schedule.
- Before the school year starts, try to determine what adjustments you’ll need to make to your schedule to accommodate your child’s activities. If your child is participating in extra-curricular activities, you should expect that this might require you to bring him or her to school earlier or pick him or her up later. Group assignments or library research might also periodically require that your child stay in school later. It’s important that you be on time for your children, to help them enjoy the full benefits of all aspects of junior high school.
- Read and familiarize yourself with the Student Code of Conduct and any other handbooks.
- In addition to extra curricular activities your junior high school may offer, check to see if there are other after-school clubs or activities that your child may want to participate in. Be careful not to overburden your child.
- In junior high school, the school counselor is different in some ways from elementary school, but no less vital. Unlike elementary schools, junior high schools have more than one counselor. Find out who your child’s counselor is. Don’t be afraid to contact your counselor with pertinent questions and encourage your child to use the counselor to solve problems. As your child gets older, they should be taking a larger role in solving his or her problems.
- Join your school’s PTO. It’s a good way to find out what volunteer opportunities are available and to keep abreast of what’s going on in the school.
- Help your child become more socially comfortable. It’s likely that your child has attended school with the same smaller group of students for several years, and hasn’t had the opportunity to meet new people. Suddenly, he or she is thrust into a larger, more unfamiliar environment and that might be uncomfortable at first. Encourage your child to be friendly and look for opportunities to connect with schoolmates. Teach your children how to introduce themselves to others. Encourage your child to participate in clubs or activities with students who share the same interests.
- Perhaps most importantly, keep the lines of communication open with your children. Encourage him or her to talk about what’s happening at school and be attentive to their concerns. Be supportive. For some children, junior high school will be the first time they encounter difficulty with lessons. That is not unusual and typically not cause for alarm. Encourage your child to learn new skills and try new things. Emphasize that learning takes effort, time, and practice.
Source: Texas Association of School Boards