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As the weather warms up, kids tend to get hit with spring fever and begin to lose their focus on school.  This can really hurt your child’s grade if they stop doing their homework and other projects.  Finding ways to motivate your kids is never easy, but these 24 blog posts can help.  You’ll find ideas about how to fight off spring fever, set goals to finish the year strong, set a good example for your student and create a reward system.  Sometimes it’s difficult for a student to understand why they need to finish the school year strong.  Help your student avoid being burned out by keeping the lines of communication open and letting him have some down time.  If your child is overwhelmed, then it will be a lot easier for him to throw in the towel at the first sign of spring.  Take a look at these blog articles and see what you can do to help your student.

Preventing Spring Fever

Finding ways to motivate kids to finish the school year strong can be tricky.  Think outside the box, like the school in one of the following articles did by holding pep rallies to get the kids excited about doing well on their tests.  Spend some time outside with your child so they don’t feel like they are trapped inside doing homework all the time.  Set up a work area outside so that your child can study while enjoying the weather at the same time.  If your child loses focus easily, offer a trade-off, such as for every hour of homework you can spend 15 minutes outside to clear your head.  Ideas like this and more can be found on the following six blog posts.

• Homework that Motivates
• Schools Use Pep Rallies to Motivate Kids for State Exams
• Lighting a Fire: Motivating Boys to Succeed
• Preventing Spring Fever 101: Ways to Reduce Stress and Stay Motivated
• Battling Spring Fever
• Fighting Off Spring Fever

Set Goals

Encourage your child to set daily or weekly goals to finish the school year in a positive way.  Even a student who is self-motivating during the first part of the school year may lose some of their conviction during the last month or so of school.  Achieving goals can help reenergize and redirect your child’s focus back onto school.  Make sure that the goals that your child sets are realistic and can be accomplished within the time left in the school year.  These six blog entries can help with goal setting.

• Finish the School Year on a Positive Note
• Ending the School Year Strong
• The Secret of Setting Successful Goals
• Motivation and Goal Setting
• Set Goals to Motivate Students
• How to Set and Accomplish Realistic Goals

Set A Good Example

Make sure that you are setting a good example for your child.  If he sees you taking a “sick day” to go play golf because the weather is nice, he may get the idea that it’s okay to cut class or slack off on his work too.  Make sure that you complete your work before you go play so that he doesn’t feel that there’s a double standard.  Check out these six blog posts to learn how to set a good example for your kids so that they finish the year on a high note.

• How to Enhance Your Kids’ (And Your Own) Motivation
• Top Tips: Getting Kids to Do Their Homework
• “Morning Motivation” at Kennedy Middle School
• How to Motivate Your Child to Do Well in School
• Acrostics M.O.T.I.V.A.T.E. Your Students
• Your Family Matters: Motivate Your Kids to Do School Work

Incentives

Not all people believe in rewarding kids to do what they are supposed to do anyway.  Many parents say that going to school is the same as going to a job; you have to put in the work.  However, at the end of the work week you get rewarded with a paycheck and your child does not.  By rewarding your child for staying focused in school during a difficult time, you may be making things a little easier and more fun.  They are kids after all, and they deserve a little fun.  These six blog entries will help you with creating rewards or incentives for your child.

• How to Keep Kids Focused until Summer Break
• 21 Simple Ideas to Improve Student Motivation
• Finishing the School Year Strong
• Viewpoint: Finish the Semester Strong
• Adding Relevancy and Rewards to Our Goal Setting
• Reward Effort Before Test Day