Parent:  How was school today?

Child: Stupid.

Parent: What did you do?

Child: Nothing. Fell asleep in math.

Parent: So you didn’t learn anything?

Child: Nothing.

This conversation highlights a common problem: Many students find school boring. They are uninterested in learning, waste time and fall asleep in class, and enjoy only the nonacademic aspects of school (e.g., friends, sports, activities).

Why are so many students bored in school? Motivation theorists would answer this question differently. Carl Rogers addressed the issue in Freedom to Learn. (1969). Contributing to boredom is the perception by many students that school learning is meaningless, or not connected with their goals and interests and not valuable in their lives. Meaningless learning is initiated by others, requires little personal involvement by learners, affects (at best) a small part of learners’ lives, and is viewed by learners as not relevant to their goals. Unfortunately much classroom teaching reinforces this perception, especially when teachers lecture and students passively listen.

Learning cannot be made meaningful to students by simply telling them why the learning is important (e.g., “Math will help you in the future when you have to compute your income taxes.”). Rather, meaningful learning requires a reorganization of the teaching-learning process. Teachers become learning facilitators who provide resources for students to attain their goals or solve problems that are important to them. Teachers do not relinguish their responsibilities for students’ skill acquisition but rather help students focus on the process that will lead to goal attainment. Rather than all students doing the same thing at the same time there will be much differentiation with some working in groups and others individually, some inside and others outside of the classroom, and so forth. Although such latitude may not be possible across an entire school day, allowing students some choices is predicted to increase their perception of learning as meaningful to them.

To stay healthy, people will do everything short of quarantining themselves to avoid getting coughed on, sneezed on, or breathed on by the sickly. As a parent, you’re probably well aware of how quickly contagious diseases like the flu can travel through a family—nay, a neighborhood. Teachers notice the same thing when they see student after student calling in sick until the class is but a mere figment of the imagination.

Research has also shown that in the workplace, one negative employee can spoil the bunch. A negative outlook on anything, whether it’s the administration, a client, or a department, can affect the morale of everyone around.

So what does this have to do with families? Believe it or not, the same research that shows how a negative attitude can “catch on” in families just as easily as it does in the office.

How Does It Work?

Jan Comeau, a licensed clinical social worker in Prairie Village, Kansas, explains that this concept is a natural outgrowth of cognitive behavioral therapy. CBT therapists believe that how one acts is always a reaction to what one thinks and believes. Children growing up in a negative family will naturally believe that they are at fault. For example, when a family member screams, a young child has no way of knowing what that’s directed towards. Rather than ascribing it to stressful experience at work or a chemical imbalance in the brain, the child begins to think of himself as the “bad” person, and he will naturally begin to act in the way that he believes he’s perceived.

In some ways, this makes a lot of sense. Think about the last time you were under severe stress, and took on a negative attitude. Did everyone around you seem to behave more negatively? Were you less able to provide constructive help, instead opting for angry retaliation? As a parent, these actions can drastically affect the mood of your child.

Just the Facts

·      It is more likely for children to catch negative emotions from their parents than it is for parents to catch negative emotions from their children.

• Women are more likely to catch negative emotions than men.
• Depression in children may be linked to their parents’ negative emotions.
• Parents under a lot of stress tend to raise children who suffer from stress as well.
• The following characteristics are associated with stress: large number of people in the family, stress from the workplace of one or more family members, and having an adolescent in the home.

What About Positive Emotions?

Fear not, the flip side to these studies is that positive emotions can be “caught” just like negative emotions. While most contagious emotions are usually negative and tend to last longer, we’ve all seen how one person can completely turn around the negative attitude of a group with a bit of optimism and kindness.

Tips for Parents

• Let your child know if you are undergoing stress that has nothing to do with them. For example, if you have a headache when they come home from school, tell them about it. Warn them that you may be a bit grouchier than normal, but that it’s not their fault. This will minimize the contagiousness of your negative emotions.
• Educate your family members about what to do when one is upset. “You can’t always change the person who is emoting,” says Corneau. “You need to teach others in your family to recognize that it’s not them, what people do and say isn’t their fault, even if they’re the receiver of all of it.”
• Corneau emphasizes that some children are more sensitive than others. Zero in on a child who strongly picks up energies in the house, even if they are not directed at her. Help her learn to identify when people are in a bad mood, and try to support her through the bad days of other family members.
• If one person’s mood seems to be contagious on a regular basis, support her and encourage her to get help. This might include seeing a therapist or trying to fix the issues that are causing the negative emotions (e.g., changing jobs, switching classes, finding new friends).

Does musical genius start in the womb? The makers of “Baby Mozart” would argue yes. It seems that every classical musician has a hand in making baby toys these days. Every store greets you with a different product for playing Beethoven, Bach, or Hayden, and famous tunes stream out of most children’s musical instruments with the push of a button.

This fairly widespread trend of incorporating classical music in baby toys and products can all be blamed on “The Mozart Effect.” In modern parlance, The Mozart Effect stems from the theory that listening to music, especially of the classical genre, improves intelligence. This concept, believed to have been around for centuries, has apparently been proven by dozens of studies conducted by those who, surprise surprise, would wholeheartedly promote the boom in classical toys.

More music, higher test scores, right? Too bad the truth isn’t so cut and dried.

So what is the truth? The first studies began 1993, when Frances Rauscher, Gordon Shaw, and Katherine Ky published an article inNature magazine about their research at the University of California at Irvine. In the study, college students were asked to listen to a Mozart sonata, a relaxation tape, and then silence, for ten minutes each. Directly afterward, the subjects were given a test on spatial reasoning. The results were astounding. Students scored much higher on the tests after listening to the Mozart than after the relaxation tape or nothing at all.

Naturally, the results took popular media by storm, with the Boston Globe coining “The Mozart Effect.” After all, if we could all improve our IQs by cranking up the Chopin, why wouldn’t we? And why not improve our kids’ chances by pumping classical music into the nursery as well?

But the road to Mensa is not so easily attained. What the original study didn’t seem to account for were the long-term impacts of music on a child’s brain. According to Dr. Rauscher, there were three limitations to the study that weren’t taken into account:

• It only tested the impact for a limited amount of time—about ten minutes after listening. In fact, later research showed that the effect lasted only for ten minutes.
• The researchers only tested the subjects’ spatial intelligence, which is relevant in areas such as architecture and visual arts, but cannot be a representation of overall intelligence.
• The subjects in the study were not infants, but college-aged. Dr. Rauscher maintains that the results can’t be applied to young children because the music only seems to increase spatial intelligence when the subject listens carefully and actively, which young children often don’t do. (In the original study, the students were even made aware that they would be tested after the listening session.)

Evidence in favor of The Mozart Study was faltering. Since then, a recent study in Australia, published in Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal in 2006, looked at the effects of pop music on 136 fifth graders. The process was similar to that of the original 1993 study, and concluded no evidence of The  Mozart Effect in the children.

In 2010, a team at the University of Vienna ran a meta-analysis of 40 international studies and concluded that there was no proof of The Mozart Effect. While this doesn’t prove that there are no positive long-term benefits to music listening, it does mean that wafting The Nutcracker Suite into your infant’s crib can’t guarantee admission into an Ivy League college.

But don’t throw the baby out with the musical bathwater! Dr. Rauscher still concedes that research has demonstrated that playing a musical instrument can lead to improved spatial reasoning. What has not been proven is that passively listening to music, especially at a young age, has any long term effects on cognition. And if you still spring for the trumpet that blasts “What A Wonderful World”, well,  we won’t blame you. Because that toy is plain cool, and you don’t need a scientific study to prove it.

Kids gravitate towards technology—if your child heads straight for the video games or Facebook after school, you know what we’re talking about. With a world of information at their fingertips nowadays, it seems like kids should be finding it easier than ever to succeed in school. However, as more classrooms invest in the latest technology, test scores remain the same, bringing its effectiveness into question.

Technology and Teaching

“Incorporating technology into the classroom requires a double innovation,” says Shelley Pasnik, director of the Center for Education and Technology, Educators who receive new technology must first learn how to use the equipment and then decide whether or not it supports the class objectives and curriculum.

For example, an instructor may restructure a lecture into a group activity, having students conduct online research to boost their understanding. With such a vast reference tool, the students might pose questions that no one in the class, not even the teacher himself, can answer. Many teachers and schools choose to avoid this situation by discouraging the use of computers in a well-organized lesson. Their latest shipment of Smartboards, ELMOs, or iPads stays locked in a closet as they struggle to find the time to effectively incorporate them into the curriculum plan.

Despite the challenges, incorporating technology into education still has proven benefits, especially when it comes to personalized learning. From math games that adjust the level of difficulty as players progress to electronic books that talk and respond to the tap of a finger, products that personalize the learning experience for students often benefit their understanding. An interactive game is more engaging than a book, so technology often promotes more practice and review in areas requiring memorization, such as spelling, math and geography. This frees up time in the classroom so educators can focus on skills like problem solving, character development and critical thinking.

Technology also makes it easier to spend more overall time on learning. “After school and weekend time can become effective learning time with the right technology,” says David Vinca, founder and executive director of eSpark Learning, an education company that focuses on bringing iPads and iPods into the classroom. Much like how smart phones extend the workday by allowing professionals to send emails anytime, educational technology extends the school day for kids who will happily play multiplication games or review grammar on computer programs.

Educators also find it easier to track and assess student progress with the help of technology. At the end of each lesson cycle in eSpark’s app, students record a video summarizing what they’ve learned, and email it to their teacher. If a student consistently misspells words of a certain pattern, the teacher will know immediately and reintroduce that specific skill. This kind of data-driven information is invaluable for teachers who want to revise and review.

This table presents a list of 100 common words that fourth- through eighth-grade students need to learn. Some of the words, such as himself, finally, andremember, are more appropriate for fourth and fifth graders, and others, such as necessary, foreign, and throughout, are more appropriate for sixth through eighth graders. Some of these are commonly used words that students confuse with other words, including desert and dessert and quiet and quite.

A

• a lot
• again
• all
• although
• another
• anything
• around

B

• beautiful
• because
• belief
• believe
• beneath
• between
• board
• breathe
• brought

C

• caught
• certain
• clothes
• committee
• complete

D

• decided
• desert
• different
• discussed
• doesn’t

E

• either
• embarrassed
• enough
• especially
• etc.
• everything
• everywhere
• excellent
• experience

F, G

• familiar
• favorite
• field
• finally
• foreign
• friends
• frighten

H

• heard
• height
• herself
• himself
• humorous
• hungry

I, J

• immediately
• interesting
• its
• it’s

K

• knew
• know
• knowledge

L

• language
• lying

M

• maybe

N

• necessary
• neighbor

O

• once
• ourselves

P

• particular
• peace
• people
• piece
• please
• possible
• probably

Q, R

• quiet
• really
• receive
• recommend
• remember
• restaurant

S

• safety
• school
• separate
• serious
• since
• special
• something
• success

T

• their
• there
• themselves
• they’re
• though
• thought
• through
• throughout
• together

U, V

• until
• usually

W

• weight
• where
• whether
• whole

X, Y, Z

• your
• you’re

Once you have found an area of science or a subject that satisfies you, you are ready to get started. At this time, it is necessary to organize yourself and take inventory. You can begin by getting a notebook to create a journal of everything you will be learning and doing for your project. A journal is the best way to organize your research, and what’s more, it will serve as an excellent outline for your report. In your journal describe articles you have read, places you have visited, data results, and other points you think are worth noting. Write down important information so that you will not have to search through your references again.

Next, take into consideration the amount of time you have to complete the project, so that you can plan accordingly. As a researcher, you are investigating a particular problem or question. It would be helpful to know exactly what you are aiming for and how far you are willing to go to pursue your immediate objective. In addition to time constraints, you will need to take note of rules and guidelines established by your regional or state science fair, the contacts you will need to make, the resources and mentors you are going to need, supplies and equipment you will require, and finally the expenses you will incur.

Budget Your Time and Projected Expenses

Realize what you are getting into. Most science fairs are held from late February through late April. If you have been assigned to a science fair project by your teacher, you probably will know about the assignment as early as the preceding fall semester. That means you will have four or five months to do your project. However, keep in mind that due to the Scientific Rule Committee (SRC) guidelines that almost all state and regional science fairs follow, you will need to have your project proposal and description forms filled out and ready for submission as early as the November or December prior to the science fair in order to get approval for the work you are planning to do. If this is the case, then you will need to have your project topic and plan for experimentation worked out well before the SRC deadline. When selecting a topic, be sure that you can reasonably make the contacts you need, perform your research, obtain the necessary materials and carry out your experimentation, and analyze your results within the amount of time you have.

You should also look at the expenses that may arise for the type of project you have selected. You may be able to borrow various supplies, materials, and equipment from your school, or you may be eligible to work at a university or laboratory that will donate their equipment and supplies; however, there are some supplies that you may have to purchase. Consult with your parents, teacher, or mentor first to see how much can be budgeted for your project and if it is affordable prior to settling on your topic. For a list of scientific supply companies that can provide an estimate of costs for some of the supplies you may have to purchase, see Appendix C in the back of this book.

Project Limitations and Required Forms

First and foremost, rules established by the Intel ISEF will govern your research on your topic and experimentation. The Intel ISEF’s Scientific Review Committee (SRC) continuously reviews and updates its rules out of concern for the safety and protection of student researchers and their advisers, as well as to comply with local and federal regulations governing research. Some of the areas in which strict rules apply involve vertebrate and nonvertebrate animals; human subjects; recombinant DNA; human and animal tissues; pathogenic agents, including bacteria, fungi, and molds; controlled substances and chemicals; mutagenic agents; carcinogenic agents; infectious agents; and hazardous materials or devices. For projects involving those areas, you are required to complete additional forms for the prescreening of your project and approval by an Institutional Review Board authorized by your state or regional science fair prior to the start of your research. You should contact your state or regional fair director for a copy of your fair’s specific rulebook and forms. (See Chapter 4 in this book for more information about getting your project approved. And see Appendix D in the back of this book for a list of science fairs across the United States and worldwide that are charter affiliates of the Intel ISEF. A copy of the Intel ISEF rule book can be obtained from Science Service, Inc., at the address listed in Chapter 1 of this book.)

Make Connections and Contacts

A good way to begin work on your topic is to check all relevant periodicals and scientific abstracts at your local library and on the Internet. Look for the names, addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses of resources with whom you can get in touch before you begin to work on your project. The contact information you find may also supply cross-references and referrals to key people and places, such as scientists, engineers, technicians, universities, organizations, laboratories, and businesses. Take advantage of these helpful references because they are your best source for learning what you may need to do, where to go, and who to meet before you do anything else.

As soon as you think you have located some useful physical or e-mail addresses, write a letter to the sources you have found. State that you are a student working under a deadline, discuss the plans you have in mind for your project, and describe the information you will need to gather. Ask for all the available literature that your referral might be able to recommend on your topic, along with any suggestions or advice for your experimentation. Ask for additional references of people in your area who are working in this field and who might be able to serve as mentors or offer you a connection to an institution. Ask your referrals if they know of an institution that might be able to assist you by donating their facilities or equipment to help you carry out your research or experiment.

Make several copies of this letter and send them to the people, organizations, and businesses who may be able to help you. Many will be glad to help, especially if your topic relates to their own products, technologies, or ideas. Not only does it benefit then by fostering good public relations, but also, it may help to get their business name and products out in the public eye. Sending out such letters enables you to save time by eliminating useless searches and honing your information down to the details that you need. Remember, you can always refer to textbooks, periodicals, and scientific abstracts when you need additional information later on.

Included below are two letters. One was sent by a student requesting information on alcohol as an alternative energy resource. This letter resulted in four informational guides that helped the student through her entire project. Along with the guides, she received lists containing the titles of exclusive literature on her subject and the address of an alcohol fuel producer who lived in her own county who served as a good mentor. The other letter was sent out by another student requesting information on x-raying corked baseball bats. This letter also helped the student make contact with a helpful mentor, which is perhaps the best way to get started on your project. The last section of this chapter discusses the benefits of working with a mentor.

Find a Good Mentor

One of the best-kept secrets of students who have had a very successful science fair project experience is their affiliation with a mentor. These students have had the opportunity to work under the advice and guidance of a professional scientist or engineer. A mentor can help you in many ways in the planning of your project, including helping you obtain materials and supplies, and possibly by enabling you to carry out your experimentation at a university, private corporation, or other testing facility. Students with a mentor often have a significant advantage over other students. This is especially the case at the high school level. If your goal is to make it to the top science fair competition in your state or to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, you really should consider making contact with a mentor.

Sample Letter

Renewable Energy Information P.O. Box 8900 Silver Spring, MD 20907

Dear Director:

am a high school student currently working on a science project for my state’s science fair. My project concerns the recycling of fermented organic garbage into ethyl alcohol. My objective is to see if it is possible for a household to construct a simple and inexpensive still capable of producing enough alcohol fuel to meet the household’s energy needs. I also plan to compare ethyl alcohol with other natural fuel sources to determine its efficiency.

Recently, I found your address in an alcohol fuel directory. This guide mentioned that your organization would be able to assist ethyl alcohol fuel producers by providing them with suggestions and further information.

At this time, I would be grateful for any current information on alcohol production, still designs, and alcohol producers in my area. If possible, please send this information to me soon since I am working toward a February deadline.

If all goes well, this will be both an informative and stimulating project for me and my community.

Sincerely,

Student

Sample Letter

Hillerich & Bradsby Company P.O. Box 35700 Louisville, KY 40232-5700

Dear Sir:

I am an eighth grade student working on a science fair project that may be of interest to your company.

My project topic is “The Physics of Cheating in Baseball.” Four bats were used to test my hypothesis which was that a baseball bat filled with sawdust, as opposed to a regular bat or bats filled with cork or rubber balls, will cause a baseball to travel the farthest on impact. I drilled out the center of three bats and filled one with sawdust, the second with rolled cork and the third with rubber balls. I left one bat alone to serve as a control. I tested the bats by placing each of them in a swinging device, which would hit a baseball placed on a batting tee when released. Out of the four bats, the sawdust-filled bat sent the baseball farther than the other bats.

In preparation for the State Science Fair, I would like to expand my project by seeing if it is possible to x-ray a baseball bat. I spoke with my doctor to find out if he or someone else would be willing to perform the X rays. He told me that I would have to find out whether a diagnostic machine X ray or metal fatigue/ stress fracture X ray would have to be performed. Please tell me which of these X rays would work with baseball bats.

Also, in doing my research I read an article, “The Physics of Foul Play” in Discover, in which tests were conducted at the request of MLB’s Commissioner of Baseball. Do you have any information on how the bats were tested and what the results were? I would be grateful to have this information as soon as possible since I am working under a limited time frame. Thank you for your assistance.

Sincerely,

Student

Like all best-kept secrets and insider tips, a mentor is not easy to come by. To find a good mentor who works in the specific niche area of science to which your project pertains requires some effort, a little finesse, and a bit of luck on your part. Basically, the process involves networking, and that means you have to get out there and make connections through teachers, family, friends, and others before you will find that one person who will be a great resource to you and be willing to volunteer his or her time to work with you in the role of a mentor.

One way to make a connection with a mentor (if you do not have one through your school or family) would be to contact your local, state, or regional science fair. Many of these fairs have outreach programs for students that feature the volunteer support of professionals from the scientific community. Some science fairs have a very sophisticated program where you may have to file an application to qualify for a mentor since they usually have limited numbers of such individuals available. Additionally, a local university science department might be able to supply the name of a professor or graduate student who can help you. In any case, it is a good idea to try to seek out a mentor as soon as possible so that you will have enough time to discuss your project with that person, plan out the course of your research and experimentation, and get any necessary approvals.

Summary

1. Project topics can be found in a variety of different areas. Primary areas for finding a topic include focusing on your interests, experiences, and personal resources. Secondary areas for finding a topic include the Internet, traditional periodicals, scientific abstracts, and current and local topics of interest. Topics may also be found through visiting a local science fair or attending a science fair workshop.
2. Once you have found a topic that interests you, it is important to stop and analyze the feasibility of what you have chosen. Consider your time constraints, the rules and guidelines established by your regional or state science fair, the contacts you will need to make, the resources and mentors you are going to need, and finally, the expenses you will incur. Get a notebook to use as a journal in which you will record all your work.
3. Check all relevant periodicals and scientific abstracts at your local library and on the Internet for the names, addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses of resources with whom you can get in touch before you begin to work on your project. Make contact with resources you have found in your research through writing letters or e-mails, making phone calls, and all other forms of networking.
4. Find a good mentor. Students with a mentor often have a significant advantage over other students. Finding a mentor requires networking with friends, family and others, so start looking early on in the process.

Let’s face it: the teenage years are a difficult time, as adolescents try to figure out who they are, who their friends are, and where their place is in the world. Many teens experience depression, family conflicts, or feelings of isolation. For some teens, these struggles go beyond normal development, greatly affecting their ability to function, and may lead to life-threatening behaviors and activities.

Frederic Reamer, Ph.D., and Deborah Siegel, Ph.D., have spent their careers identifying the right kinds of help for struggling teens. The husband-wife team are professors at the School of Social Work at Rhode Island College. They are also the authors of a guide for parents and professionals called Finding Help for Struggling Teensand their new book, Teens in Crisis: How the Industry Serving Struggling Teens Helps and Hurts Our Kids will be out this October.

Siegel and Reamer say it’s important for parents to first assess if their teen is going through the typical roller coaster of normal development, or whether she’s experiencing something more serious. How do you tell if your teen is struggling? Reamer and Siegel say to watch for these common warning signs:

Isolation and withdrawal: Teens may feel alone and alienated, unable to connect with any safe adult. They crave friendships but feel too demoralized and fearful to reach out to others or respond to friendly overtures.

School failure and truancy: Some teens who were strong students in elementary school may become discouraged and alienated from academics in middle school or high school. Other teens have difficulty in school their entire lives because of learning disabilities, mental health issues, difficult home lives, or hostile school environments.

Defiance toward authority: Many struggling teens refuse to obey rules laid down by parents, teachers, the police and other authority figures.

Running away from home: Teens may run away from home to escape conflict with their parents, assert their independence, avoid the consequences of breaking rules, or flee their own distressing emotions.

Choosing the “wrong” friends: How do you know if your child is hanging out with the wrong friends? While teens can throw lots of camouflage over their activities, here are some red flags for parents to look for:

• If teen is secretive, or unwilling to share information about other kids’ identities.
• Other telltale signs include: coming home with glazed or bloodshot eyes, drug paraphenalia or condom wrappers, and suddenly ceasing to eat meals during the day.

Depression: Common symptoms include poor appetite or overeating, difficulty with sleep, low energy and fatigue, low self-esteem, poor concentration, difficulty making decisions, feelings of hopelessness, guilt and worthlessness, and irritability.

Abusing alcohol and drugs: “We would never condone a kid experimenting with marijuana or drinking beers,” says Reamer, “But what we’re really talking about here are kids who develop chronic and persistent substance abuse.”

These days, it seems like cheating is everywhere, from the baseball diamond to the classroom. With stories of professional dishonesty and performance-enhancing drugs permeating the adult world, it’s no wonder that studies show academic cheating among children and teens on the rise. But while cheating on a test or plagiarizing an essay may seem a quick way to get a leg up, students are actually holding themselves back from the type of meaningful learning that will serve them best in life.

So how can parents keep kids from cheating in a society that seems to stress winning at any cost? According to Eric Anderman, Professor of Educational Psychology at The Ohio State University and co-editor of the book Psychology of Academic Cheating, the trick is to diminish the motivations that drive cheating in the first place.

“Kids cheat when they become stressed,” explains Anderman, who says that as the pressure to get good grades and high test scores increases, so does the incidence of cheating. Anderman says that although children who cheat in school do not fit any defined profile, they’re usually students “who are much more focused on getting good grades and extrinsically motivated rather than intrinsically motivated by a desire to learn.”

That means that the more pressure students feel, the more likely they are to resort to cheating. And although pen-and-paper notes and other familiar methods are still very much in use, cell phones and PDAs have opened up new opportunities for students gunning for top grades. “Obviously with more technology there are more methods kids use to cheat,” says Anderman. Browsing the Internet during a test, texting solutions or taking photos of answer sheets and messaging them to friends are all possible in the digital age, and enforcement of no phone policies can be tough for teachers.

Using technology as a cheating aid may be new, but cheating has been around a long time, and it probably won’t go away anytime soon. However, there are things that parents can do to help make sure their children get the most out of their education by getting past the impulse to cheat.

• Take Pressure Off. Kids often cheat because they see it as the only way to measure up to high expectations. Although it’s good to expect the most from your kids, make it clear that you expect them to do their best, not be the best.
• Avoid Extrinsic Motivation. Praising your child every time he comes home with a good grade is standard parenting procedure, but make sure that you’re sending the right message. Avoid punishing your child for low grades and rewarding him for high ones. Instead, emphasize the concept of effort by recognizing the hard work he put into his work, and encouraging better effort in problem areas.
• Talk About It. “One of the most important things parents can do is talk to kids about how they are feeling academically and whether they are feeling stressed,” says Anderman. Opening up a dialogue about tough classes does more than inform you about where your child is struggling: he’ll know that you’re on his side when it comes to that killer math test or demanding paper, and be more likely to come to you with problems rather then dealing with them the wrong way.
• Prep for Peer Pressure. Whether your child is involved in cheating or not, she will feel pressure to participate from peers at school, from friends asking to copy a last minute lab report to students passing notes across her desk during a test. Make sure she knows that by saying “No” now, she’s not only helping herself, but helping others in the long run.
• Know the News. Sports stars, politicians, and high-powered businesspeople are constantly in the news over all kinds of misbehavior, from doping and lying to insider trading and fraud. Use these cases as “teachable moments” to talk about moral values, and emphasize that even though some people act dishonestly to get ahead, it’s still not okay for you or your child to do the same.
• Set a Good Example. Think your teen doesn’t notice what you do? Think again. Younger kids may mimic a parent’s behavior, but older adolescents will jump on hypocrisy wherever they see it. Either way, it’s best to be a role model for your kids, and that means putting the brakes on “white” lies and shortcuts to get what you want the easy way. Be sure to share personal stories about cheating and lying with your child, too: it’s important to show that you’re not so perfect after all!

Although pressure to perform is an increasing focus for students, your child shouldn’t feel that cheating is the only way to get ahead. Through hard work, good communication, and a desire to learn, your child will become a better learner and a better citizen for life.

Seven Ways to Help Students Reduce Anxiety and

Test taking can be stressful for both students and parents.  Most everyone is familiar with the butterflies that flutter up inside your stomach before taking a test.  While it is normal for most students to experience some level of jitters before and during an exam, it has proven to become a problem for some, affecting their scores so much that they no longer are an indication of the student’s true ability.  We at Tutor Doctor aim to squash anxiety and help local students boost their grades.

There are many techniques that students can use to improve concentration and ease their nerves.  Every student is different, which is why we use a one-on-one, in-home method in our tutoring model, but these are a few tips and tricks to get students started on boosting their marks in school.

The morning of the test surprise your child with their own customized “first aid” test anxiety busting kit.  This is a perfect way to start the day and show your kids that although you can’t be there with them while they take the test; you are with them in spirit.  It is a simple gesture that goes a long way towards comforting them.

I like to pack the kit into a colorful bag or box and even label it with the student’s name.  Inside the kit is a notebook (Moleskine notebooks work great), a healthy snack (something small and tasty such as an apple), and a small bottle of aromatherapy oil (I recommend lavender).

The first two tips relate to the notebook:

1. Write Down Anxieties Before A Test- A recent study in the journal Science explains that students can greatly benefit from writing their anxieties before taking an exam.  The study suggests that releasing anxieties onto paper will clear students’ minds during a test and allow them to focus better.
2. Counter Apprehensions By Writing Down Positive Responses- In a guide on how to reduce dread before taking tests, Claire Stone, MFT and Berkeley therapist, explains that it is beneficial to write positive responses to the negative anxieties or thoughts that students just wrote.  This will ensure that all the negatives will be cleared from students’ minds while taking a test.

The healthy snack is in the kit to remind your child not to take their test on an empty stomach and leads to the next three tips.

1. Maintain A Healthy Diet- There is a correlation between positive test scores and a healthy diet.  Students should be sure not to take an exam on an empty stomach, and that they are eating the right foods.   Joe Landsberger, author of the Study Guides and Strategies Web site, offers fruit and vegetables as a recommended option to reduce stress.  Avoid processed foods, artificial sweeteners and foods containing preservatives, as they are considered “stressful foods.”
2. Stay Physically Fit- According to Lesley Cottrell, an associate professor of pediatrics at West Virginia University, children’s physical fitness is associated with their academic performance.  Students who stay physically fit during the week generally experience better test scores.
3. Get Enough Sleep- Many students struggle to get adequate sleep at night, but it is important that they try to get between seven and nine hours.  According to psychologist John Markovich, “Sleep keeps students well-rested.   It gives them a good attention span, along with a more stable mood, which increases concentration.”  Getting enough sleep at night will help students focus while taking tests.

The sixth tip ties into the reason for the aromatherapy bottle.  Your son or daughter can sniff the oil before taking the test to activate their memory and approach the test from a calmer perspective.

1. Aromatherapy- It has been proven that essential oils such as lavender and rosemary can stimulate the brain and improve concentration and learning abilities.  Students can use this method by lighting a lavender candle while studying, helping them retain information easier before the test.
2. Study With a Friend- When possible, students should study with a friend or parent.  This helps students understand the material better and learn from one another.  Preparation for tests should be a group effort.  A student’s parents, teachers and tutors should all work together to set the student up for success.  One fun way is to encourage them invite a friend over to the home to study together.

Hopefully these tips will get you and your child on the path to better results in test taking.