Spanish 
PART 1
Dear families,
This month’s Partnering with Parents is focused on helping your child develop good study habits. Paul talked about “studying” in 2 Timothy 2:15, reminding us to “Study to show yourself approved by God, a workman who need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” Though Paul was speaking about studying God’s Word, there are principles that can be drawn from this truth that can carry forward into all areas of your child’s life.
However, kids don’t tend to love doing homework or studying, and parents often wrestle with crossing that line of helping to motivate their kids and nagging. Consider the following ideas to avoid homework battles and develop good study habits that will carry with them into adulthood.
First, set some reasonable goals. If your child’s attention runs short, set a timer for, say, twenty minutes. After he or she works for the agreed-upon time, allow them to take a break for five minutes before returning to their studies. Set weekly targets, as well. On a day where your child is not stressed or weighted with other distractions, sit down together and talk about reasonable goals they feel they can meet to set them up for success.
Next, brainstorm an appropriate reward system for completing a week of homework. Together you can create a chart to document progress and meaningful rewards that will motivate your child. Does your child enjoy computer time? Perhaps thirty minutes of computer time would be an agreeable reward. Does he or she like to bake with you? If the child’s goals were met, maybe making cookies with mom is the perfect reward. If your child is social, consider hosting a play date the following week. Make sure to follow through with these rewards—or the whole system will fall apart!
You may even teach your child the verse: “All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty” (Proverbs 14:23). Help them to connect this verse with how hard they have worked—to connect their success with their effort.
We are with you in the journey, and are praying for you and your family.
Joining you in prayer for your child,
The NAC USA Family Ministry Team
PART 2
Hi families,
We’ve been talking in this month’s Partnering with Parents about helping your child to develop good study habits.
There are different ways to structure study and homework time, and it will vary depending on your household schedule and your child’s personality and abilities. However, scheduling a routine “work period” for each day of each week, starting from an early age, is important.
Some parents require kids to hunker down and open up their backpacks immediately after school—but this might not work for all (probably most) kids. Keep in mind they’ve been working hard for many hours and a bit of relaxation or play time might be of great benefit. Figure out what works for your child, and then try and be consistent. If it works to do homework from 4:00-5:00 pm every night, make that family “homework” time.
Set aside time on the weekends, too, to finish up studies or projects—which will be likely more of an issue with older children. Help your kids learn to finish their studies in as relaxed a way as possible, rather than at the last minute or late at night.
As your children are exposed to more and more difficult subjects and material, help them learn some effective study strategies.
This might include:
- Keeping an agenda with the date the assignment is due
- Breaking up larger projects with “mini-deadlines” to avoid last-minute panic trying to get the assignment done
- Making flash cards
- Studying for tests well before the actual day of the test
- Organizing study groups
- Learning to take organized notes
We hope this month’s Partnering with Parents has given you some tools to help with developing good study habits in your kids. We are praying for you!
Together in Him,
The NAC USA Family Ministry Team