1. Is there anything I can do to help you get enough sleep tonight?

Getting enough sleep prior to a big test or exam has been shown to be more effectively than staying up late and "cramming" - unless the student really doesn't know any of the material.   Doing what we can to help kids/teens sleep well - letting them know that sleep will help them think faster in the morning and remember more information, helping them make rooms dark, encouraging screen free time before bed, warm showers, cool rooms and relaxation before bed can all help them get the sleep they need.

2. Do you have any strategies for making sure you fully express all you do know/correctly answer the questions you know the answers for?

The night before a test or exam is not the time to learn new material.  

However, it can be useful to make sure young people have strategies to fully express the material they DO know.  It's usually important for example for students to do the problems they know first and ignore the ones they don't know until these are done.

In fact, some research has shown that students who use some of the "pre exam writing time" to write down the questions they don't know and that they will come back to later do better in exams because they are more effectively able to put them aside.

Last week I asked *Justine how her day had been and she said "boring".  

Nothing at school had been interesting.  Nothing at home.  She would be happy if she could have ipad time, but that wasn't an option - so life was boring, boring, boring.

Some children get bored more than others.  As adults we often have little sympathy for children who report being bored.  In fact sometimes, it feels downright annoying.  Here's why:

A parent asked me recently about her 8 year old boy’s tendency to create imaginary and very violent war games with his younger brother.  Here’s some of my thoughts.

1. It’s common and not usually a sign of mental health problems

For many generations, children have played imaginary violent games.  They make guns out of sticks, imagine shooting, blowing up, capturing and attacking the “bad guys”.  Imaginary limbs get chopped off, imaginary bombs are set and there is often much yelling in pain and loud deaths.   This violent fantasy also is expressed in story writing – for some children every story, joke and example involves some horrible death. 

Most of the time, children who play and write in this way are happy and enjoying their violent play and stories.  If children seem happy and have no other symptoms that worry us - but just play violent games happily - normally this means they are NOT traumatised, mentally ill or on the road to becoming violent criminals. 

Instead violent play and imagery is an instinctive form of play which probably has its origins in our need as a species to win wars and tribal battles.  This kind of violent play peaks between the ages of 4 and 10.  Not all kids will do it of course, but a lot of them will.  And yes, there is a gender imbalance – boys are more likely to do this than girls on average.

I'm working with DECD and Parents SA during "Parents in Education" week in SA in a couple of weeks time - talking on a panel with the Minister and presenting at a couple of workshops around Adelaide.  One of the journalists doing a story on this week asked me for my top 10 tips for parents on helping them through secondary school.

I really wanted to write about 50 ...and include an essay on each one...but in the interests of space I had to prioritise.  

I've copied them here for your interest.  What would be yours?

1. Ask questions

Asking questions (gently, kindly and casually) about teenagers' subjects, assignments and teachers is important for helping them trouble shooting problems and be successful at school

2. Frequently thank, affirm, praise and express care

Find opportunities every day to say "I admire you for...", "I'm sorry you are dealing with....", "I love how you...." and "Thanks so much for....".  Being positive and caring helps teenagers and also helps us stop to notice the positives - and feel better.

3. Friendships matter

Teenagers who have good relationships with their peers are happier and this in turn has an effect on results at school.  Help teens find ways to make and build friendships, allow lots of socialising time, help them resolve conflict and put in place opportunities for them to find new connections.

One of the ongoing challenging tasks for parents is to help children and young people to get their jobs done.  Trying to help children and teens follow through on mundane tasks like cleaning rooms, unpacking bags, putting their toys and doing assigned chores.

This is hard enough for parents with kids who have easy going personalities and few life demands - but when you are trying to help a child who struggles with worry/frustration management, attention problems and other life challenges - getting them to do their chores is extremely hard work.

Parents in our clinics talk about the immense frustration that comes with reminding, nagging, yelling at young people in order to get them to do these simple things - and how they end up just doing it themselves.

There's no easy solution for helping young people get things done, but in my experience there is ONE detail that can potentially make a big difference.  If we get this detail right, then it is significantly more likely that children/young people will do their jobs, and if we don't - it's much less likely this will happen.