How Do I Get My Teen To Do Homework / Care About School? - Motivation, Homework & Exams Episodes

Ask Rachel anything Exam stress — are your teen’s exams quietly overwhelming them (and you)? In this episode of Teenagers Untangled I spoke with Katherine Radice, author of The Parent’s Guide to Exam Stress, to explore: * Why teens withdraw and how parental questions can shut down conversations about school * What makes exams uniquely stressful (risk, public outcomes, long timelines) * How parents can build calm, constructive conversations and listen so teens feel safe to share * Practical st...

Ask Rachel anything It's exam season and so important to keep a steady ship with all of the stress in the house. I thought it would be a great time to interrupt my youngest, Amelia, for an honest chat about what she sees as both good and bad strategies for supporting teenagers through exams, and homework; particularly those with dyslexia and ADHD. We wanted to give parents hope, an honest insight into how bumpy the road can become, and how long it can take to figure out what the b...

Ask Rachel anything A listener parenting a teen son wrote to say both of them felt pretty stunned when he was rejected from the university he'd set his heart on. She asked for the best way to help our teenagers cope with this sort of disappointment. I thought it was a great question and a good opportunity to also look at how we parents can best navigate when our teen has worked for years toward a dream - a top university place, exam results, a team, a part - and it doesn’t happen. The d...

Ask Rachel anything Thank you, thank you, thank you, Wirohugo for your incredible donation. You are so kind! My fifteen year old boy seems to show no curiousity about the world. Does not know countries, capitals, does not read (except when incentived). Today, he didn't recognise the neighbouring village which we drive through many times. He is middling at school but good at some subjects. So, not a dunce! Is it digital distraction? Is it common? I searched your shows and could not find ...

Ask Rachel anything Camilla asked if I could do a short recap of the things we’ve talked about on the podcast that will help us help our kids most. So here it is! Now, tell me what you want for next week. Click this link for a list of the top tips: https://open.substack.com/pub/teenagersuntangled/p/helping-our-kids-with-their-exam?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web Support the show Please hit the follow button if you like the podcast, and share it with anyone who might ...

Ask Rachel anything We want our kids to do as well as possible, so when they mess up, do dumb things, or seem to be failing, it's easy to focus on their mistakes and what they should do instead. Naomi Glover, a leading applied neuroscientist and brain health specialist, says we'd get the best out of our kids by doing the opposite; focusing on their strengths. Coming from a neurodivergent family, she truly understands the challenges faced by ADHD, dyslexia, and other neurotypes and...

Ask Rachel anything Hint: it depends on how you define happy and successful. We all want our kids to be happy and successful but what does that mean? In today's episode, I'm joined by Giselle Goodwin, author of Can Women Really Have it All? to talk about our definitions of success and happiness, and how they impact the way we parent. In this changing landscape where what we inherit can mean more than how hard we work what expectations should we have, and what message should we be giving...

Ask Rachel anything Struggling with homework battles, school stress, or understanding ADHD in your teen? In this episode I was joined by executive skills coach Sean Geraghty—author of “I’ll Do It Later”—to unpack the real challenges (and hidden strengths) of neurodivergent teens. As someone who is navigating neurodivergence at home, I found Sean's advice on executive function, school portals and building better family relationships invaluable. He gives actionable tools for e...

Ask Rachel anything Is your kid stressed or lacking motivation? What if the antidote was pushing them less and giving them more of a sense of control over their lives? It doesn't mean giving up your authority as a parent. As elite teen coach, Ned Johnson, explains the science tells us we can help our child sculpt a brain that is resilient, and ready to take on new challenges if we stop taking over. In his practice he uses science, behavioural therapy and extensive case studies to offer ...

Ask Rachel anything We all want our kids to feel they belong and have purpose, but what simple things can we do at home and in schools that will help them develop what they need? In this interview you'll hear so many great tips we can put in place at home that will help our kids thrive. In 2007, Tish co-founded Jamie’s Farm with her son Jamie, a teacher and farmer. LINK: https://jamiesfarm.org.uk/people/tish-feilden/ The residential visits for disadvanteged kids, who are disengaged or d...

Ask Rachel anything We'd all love our children to breeze through school, enjoying a satisfying academic life, having lots of friends, and coming out at the end feeling a success. But what if you have a child that doesn't thrive in an academic environment? What if they can't or won't do the work? How do you deal with it and what techniques can you use to motivate them? According to eminent psychologist, Dr David Yeager, when kids hit puberty they're primarily looking for experiences that give ...

Ask Rachel anything The intense, content-heavy exam system in the UK kicks off at this time of year with GCSEs and A levels; high-stakes exams that can feel like a make-or-break moment for teenagers. I've already discussed with Susie how we can support our teens through the stress, which you can download here: https://www.teenagersuntangled.com/exam-revision-parenting-through-the-pressure/ This time I'm joined by journalist Jenny Anderson who writes extensively about education, the atte...

Ask Rachel anything We parents are deluding ourselves about how much our kids enjoy school, according to research for the book The Disengaged Teen. In survey responses 65% of parents thought their 10th grade kid loved school, whilst only 26% of 10th graders actually said they did. A lot of educators admit that things go wrong in the teen years, and many fine minds are trying to work on ways to tackle the problem. In the meantime huge numbers of teens spend most of their time disengaged. Som...

Ask Rachel anything When kids hit puberty they become driven by a core motivation that many of us adults don't fully appreciate. It's not simply fun, or sex; they're looking for experiences that give them social status and respect. According to David Yeager, author of 10-25: The Science of How to Motivate Young People, a societal belief that teens and young adults are lazy and incompetent causes us to misunderstand the power of this motivator. When parents, teachers and employers get it wro...

Ask Rachel anything What is school for, and are exam grades a good measure of a human? Does someone's grades tell us what we should know, or are we being misled? Do grades help children grow and engage with learning, or do they simply destroy interest and entrench social divisions? These are the sort of questions that perplex many of us who are parenting teenagers. It’s coming to the end of summer in the UK which means there’s been a wave of exam results and the beautifully timed release of ...

Ask Rachel anything In the West, we tend to see success for late teens as passing exams, getting into further education or getting a job, and moving on with life. So when we received an email from a mother, concerned for the welfare of her two step-sons who've performed poorly in their final high school exams, and who don't seem to be interested in finding work, we thought it would be a really interesting topic to unpack. Her step-sons aren't alone. There is growing concern about the ...

Ask Rachel anything It's incredibly frustrating to parent a teen who seems smart but is constantly late, can't set effective goals, can't keep going after their initial burst of enthusiasm, who's messy, doesn't start projects on time, or can't seem to control their impulses. Are they being lazy or is it that they lack a key skill which is holding them back? The latest book I read makes it clear that problems with any of these tasks isn't necessarily lack of interest or laziness, but ca...

Ask Rachel anything I scan the newspapers daily to keep an eye on what's going on that might be relevant to us parents. I usually share it on my Instagram and Facebook feeds, but it's also good to sit down with another, equally interested but unpolitical, parent, to simply chat about the state of the world that our kids are growing up in. None of it is scientific, or based on deep fact, but sometimes it's nice to chew the cud and hear other parents talking freely about the issues that ...

Ask Rachel anything Nobody likes making mistakes, but some of us find it much harder than others. Whilst most of us look on with admiration at the kid who's prepared to keep working until they do things perfectly, underlying that drive can be a painful belief that they're never going to be good enough. The knock-on effect can be a lifetime of anguish and all sorts of issues with starting and finishing projects. So when our listener asked us to talk about how to help her daughter who's showin...

Ask Rachel anything Does a goldfish have a longer attention span than us humans - as a Microsoft study found - or do we believe the latest study on concentration which says adults have actually increased in their ability to pay attention since the 1990's? The latest study made us wonder about what's really going on, because we all know that gamers have phenomenal powers of concentration, but the rest of us feel we're struggling with attention. Perhaps our real problem is a lack of foc...

Ask Rachel anything One of the trickiest questions for parents is how to set expectations that help our kids thrive and grow without crushing them or making them feel low self-esteem or shame. If we don't set expectations we run the risk of making our kids feel like nothing they do really matters, so they can feel overlooked and apathetic about life, but we've all heard about parents who damage their kids through unreasonable demands. Our expectations are born out of our own ideas of ...

Ask Rachel anything The transition from junior to senior school can be thrilling; the chance to meet a much bigger group of kids, and gain more of the independence that's part of growing up. But change is always stressful, and when you combine a big shake up of friend groups with puberty, having to navigate your way around a larger school campus, and the immense pressure of having to study for endless exams, it's not surprising that the first year can feel very tricky. As one parent said, '...

Ask Rachel anything In this interview with Danielle Winton of Memory Strategy we talked about: * Why we should care about memory stategies. * Key things parents can do to support their teens. * How to link a number to music. * Everyone can polish up their memory. * Using your body as a memory palace. * How to help yourself with memorizing names. * Using blurting to check what you remember. * Mind-mapping and memory. * Why to get students to be more creative about learning. For more a...

Ask Rachel anything It's pre-exam time of year again, and oh boy it's tough for our teens. Does yours have a colour-coded revision schedule, carefully-timed breaks, and a confident spring in their step? Maybe they don't seem to be doing enough revision, and you're the one panicking? Or are they losing their sh## with everyone in the house and struggling to stay on top of it? Both of us have teens currently revising for important exams, so we thought it might be helpful to chat about how we s...