Managing your time as a parent to ensure your child’s educational success can be a challenge. Below are some tips to set your child up for a successful school year.

• Establish routines. Children benefit from knowing what to expect. They receive comfort from structure as well as order due to being consistent. Children who have a routine thrive when they get home from school, prepare to go to bed, and get ready for school.
• Ensure that your child gets plenty of rest and has a good breakfast. Well-rested and well-nourished children are more capable to concentrate, learn, and demonstrate character.
• Assist your child in managing his/her backpack each day. Often teachers send home important information, permission slips, or notes. Communication between home and school is vital to your child’s success.
• Stay organized. As part of your home routine, have your child put his/her backpack, shoes, glasses, lunchbox, and other important items in a specific place each day.
• Have a study spot. Try to have a comfortable, quiet, well-lit spot where your child regularly does homework. It works best if that spot is close to you so you can be around to offer support and guidance.
• Read together. Reading books to your child and/or having your child read to you is beneficial for many reasons. A way to bring excitement to reading at home is to have your child read a book on his/her own, you also read the book on your own, and then discuss the book with him/her.
• Ask open-ended specific questions about how things are going at school.
  Instead of asking "How was your day?", ask:
  “What was your favorite thing that happened today?”
  “What was your favorite lesson today?”
  “What did you have the hardest time with at school today?”
• Model/Develop/Guide healthy social skills. The number one way children learn healthy social skills is by watching how adults in their lives react to social situations. Take the time to guide and assist your child if he/she is having a social conflict to develop healthy social skills. In addition, make it a point to acknowledge authentic healthy social situations communicated through children’s books, movies, or modeled by family and friends.

Getting enough sleep is vital to a child’s growth and education. Think of how you feel when you are tired—grumpy, irritable, you have difficulty concentrating. Your children react similarly. According to Kids Health, school age children should get 9 to 10 hours of sleep a night while teens should get 8 to 9 hours of sleep. Establishing a bedtime is the key to ensuring your child gets enough sleep.

• Establish bedtime routines. Turn off the television and video games and have your child do something quiet for at least 30 minutes before lights out. She can play quietly in her room, read with you, or play a quiet bedtime game found on HubPages.
• Be the boss. It is important that the parent determine the bedtime, not the child. Discuss your child’s bedtime with her so she knows the expectations. But, make her realize that you will ultimately make the final decision about what time she will go to bed.
• Stick to it. If your child is like most, she is a master at stalling for a later bedtime. Stick with it and don’t allow her to put off bedtime routines.
• Keep it the same. Fight the urge to allow her to stay up extra late on the weekends or school holidays. Occasionally, it won’t be harmful, but try to stick to the routine as much as possible—no matter the day of week.