Hi there, Just saw your question and I think you have a very hard part here. On the one hand as a mother you want  your child to do her best and reach her full potential however you also want her to have fun and if you push her too much she may rebel completely.

I was pushed very hard to do academic study and my study habits were very like your daughter's although sadly my marks were not as high as hers. Do you praise her for the grades she gets as these are good grades? If she feels valued she may try harder.

If she really does not want your help then your only option is to leave her to her own methods and if her marks begin to drop than suggesting that if she cannot maintain good grades than your work plan is her only option and there will be consequences if she does not try. I only learned to do my work little and often when I left everything a bit too long and became too stressed and ill trying to finish my work. That helped me learn more than my mum telling me to work, which she did for 18 yrs.

Often I do find that you do your best when you are motivated and have a drive to work, so maybe give her an incentive to get an exceptionally high mark. If she can rise to the challenge you know she is capable. Hope that helps

Break up her study time. Let her do her homework first then take a break for a half an hour. Then have her review her work for 30 minutes.  If she has a test the next day if she was reviewing all week then her study time will be less. Also she should be aware what she has difficulty doing. Participate with her and give her oral quizzes. If she has an essay response required, have her write out her answers and both of you go over it together.

From a personal perspective, I'd suggest you ease up a little. I understand your want as a mom to push your child to be her very best, but I think, since she's coming into her teen years and becoming rebellious, it might be doing more harm than good.

I was a very similar teenager -- as soon as my mom told me to do one thing, my reaction would be to not do it, especially studying. I felt that by constantly hounding me and forcing me to study at a certain time of day she wasn't letting me show her that I was capable of succeeding on my own. For instance, in middle school, we constantly got into fights because I didn't start on my homework immediately after getting home from school -- I knew I worked better after I had taken a few hours to decompress and liked to wait until after dinner to start on my homework. My mom always told me I was being lazy by doing this and forced me to have my homework done by the time she got home. My work began to suffer because I felt like I was being forced to do it for her rather than for my own success, and no one likes being forced to do anything.

It sounds like you are mostly on the right track here, but what I would suggest is -- and believe me, I know this will be hard! -- stepping back just a little bit. Drop the subject for a week or two, then try to work with her on a schedule rather than set one for her. Ask her how she'd like her schedule to look during the week and see if you can come to an agreement. Who knows, maybe cram sessions are what work best for her!

Best of luck, and let us know how it goes.

Jody

you should try doing the bribe thing

Thanks for everybody for the valuable help. We have already negociated on reducing from 2 and 1/2 hour to only 2 hours and setting another time of her preference. She´s not totally into it but she´s accepting it easier. Those were her suggestions and I took them.