When the cold winter months dissipate into fresh spring flowers and leaves sprout on formerly dormant trees, another phenomenon begins to occur: young students get restless.

Nobody wants to be cooped up indoors when the weather outside is nice and after months of sitting diligently and listening to teachers, your children are ready to get out of there.

A useful resolution for parents is to aid your children with encouragment through this final stretch of the school year.

Stress Completing Homework Assignments
First and foremost, encourage your kids to keep up with their schoolwork. It’s way too easy to let things slide when the weather is nice and kids are feeling worn down from months of study already completed.

If they’re getting restless or arguing about doing their homework, change up the times they complete it or have them move to a new location.

Be Positive
Try to stay positive as best as you can. Instead of arguing and telling them you’ll take away privileges if they don’t do their homework or if their grades are slipping, change how your convey message to them by using a positive spin. Tell them instead that they will earn new privileges or rewards. For example, don’t say, “You can’t watch TV if you don’t do your homework.” Instead say, “You may watch your favorite show tonight when you finish your math.”

Stay away from monetary rewards or buying them “gifts” as ways to keep them studying. That’s basically bribing them. Offer smaller things, like some extra TV or computer time, doing an activity like going for ice cream, a favorite restaurant, having a friend over, etc.

Send Them Outside
When the squirming and arguing become too much, send them outside and let the sun do its work of re-energizing them. Use the time to take a break yourself, throw a baseball with your kids, play soccer, or hit around a volleyball. Walk around your neighborhood and tie in school science lessons with nature walks or constellation viewing. This is a fun way to get active with your kids’ studies and spend time together.

Another way to wear off the stress is ask them to help you prepare dinner. Getting their minds off of school work while you spend time together talking about your day or the kinds of food you’re preparing (great time to practice good nutrition) will provide a healthy distraction and promote good nutritional habits.

Turn Off the Television and Computer
This is just another way of saying get outside! Utilize their restlessness to encourage them to be active instead of dormant in front of electronics.

Sit Down With Them
While your kids are working on their homework, sit with them and check their progress. Be encouraging and stay alert for signs of frustrations. Even kids who have been problem free in the classroom all year long may hit some road bumps. The best thing you can do is talk with them about their work to learn about what they may be struggling with and maybe pay a visit to their teacher.

Start Final Exam Prep
For older children, encourage them to begin preparing for their final exams. The first step is to help them organize their schoolwork from the year to date. Discuss the study tips they’ve learned in school or introduce them to it. Once they’re organized or you see that they’ve prepared themselves, start spending one day a week reviewing older lessons with them. If your children haven’t kept a wall-maintained binder, it’s never too late to start and now is the time to catch them up instead of waiting until the final days before the tests.