You want your child to keep all doors open, but one more lecture won't help either

Their grades are actually fine at the moment.

But a lot of the preparation is still left until the last evening before the test, and you wonder whether there wouldn't be even more in them without all that stress and rush.

And what happens once the material gets more demanding? You want all doors to be open to them later, and for them to be able to decide their own future.

You've talked to them about it a few times already. They promise to improve their approach, but at the next test it goes exactly the same as always.

That's frustrating. You don't want them to miss an opportunity just because they always leave the preparation until the last moment.

But you're also slowly losing the will to give the same speech every week.

Why your worry about their future doesn't land with them

You worry about your child's future because you know what is coming their way afterwards.

For your child, on the other hand, those worries about the future are something abstract and far away, which they can't necessarily do much with right now.

“That will give you better chances later” therefore gives them no concrete reason to do anything differently this week.

And even though you mean well, every lecture also feels a bit as if you didn't trust them.

The developmental psychologist David Yeager explains why such speeches about the future often don't work: adolescents know themselves what would be good for them.

But precisely because they feel they are being patronised on the subject, they often react with defiance.¹

How to find common ground

It is often more effective to bring the discussion from the future down to concrete things in everyday life.

They need to see for themselves that working more independently and more regularly leads to less stress before tests, more confidence at school, and better results.

And if they then see that good organisation means more time for other things and hobbies, that is a more convincing argument than another lecture.

So the question isn't how to make them understand why this matters for their future.

The question is: how do they see for themselves, very concretely, what working in a more organised way brings them?

On the next page we explain how your child can work independently and efficiently with the LuxEdu app.

So that they feel actively involved in their own learning path, and see for themselves that better organisation has very concrete benefits.

At the same time, you can keep a clear eye on their progress, and step in more actively if the signs ever point in the wrong direction.