Gearing up for 9th Grade by Brooke Grupe

Starting high school can seem intimidating for both freshman and their parents, but it doesn’t have to be. High school provides many new opportunities and allows students to further develop their self-identity and individuality. Here are some ideas to help your students get the most out of their freshman year and the rest of their high school career.

1. Help them get to sleep on time. High school can be overwhelming, but it is much easier to deal with if you are well-rested. Making sure your student gets at least 8 hours of sleep every night will help them be more awake and more successful in the classroom.

2. Encourage them to join a club. Clubs are a great way for your teen to meet new people on campus. Campus clubs are geared toward topics that interest high school students and can help them make friends with similar interests. Clubs also usually offer community service, which might be a requirement for graduation and definitely helps when applying to colleges.

3. Encourage them to join a sport. Joining a sport is time-consuming, but this can help your student develop better time management skills. To play a sports students need to maintain a certain GPA status, which might be a grade motivator for them. Students will need to learn how to get their work done to maintain their grades while getting to bed on time so that they are ready for their game.

4. Help them pick the right friends. Friends can be a huge influence on a student, so you want to make sure that your student is picking the right friends. Friends that are unmotivated and apathetic will bring your student down with them. Help them choose friends that are driven and passionate so they are surrounded by good role models. Help your student get and stay prepared for school.

5. Make sure your student has all the right materials for success. 4-in-1 pens can be extremely useful when taking notes because each color can represent something different (i.e. blue = definitions, red = concepts, etc.).

6. Don’t let your student fall behind on work/procrastinate. Nothing is worse than having a project due the next day that you haven’t even started. Providing your student with a planner to write due dates in can help them get their work done early. Assignments can easily pile up and classes go at a faster pace, so if your student falls behind in one area, the next will become more difficult. Keep them on top of their work and provide them with the support that they need.