With the first day of school right around the corner, it’s good to have a plan in place to help make sure your kids have more than a fighting chance at making this year truly productive and positive in all regards.

One key ingredient to student success is having a clearly defined homework schedule and study habits. From our house to yours, here are a few time-tested techniques that really work:

• Establish a routine. Does your child do his or her best work right after school lets out or does an hour or so break refresh their brain cells just enough to make homework time more productive? No time is the right time for every student, so find and stick to the time of day that works best for your child.
• Designate a homework space. It should be comfortable, well lit, absent of noise and distractions – including cell phones and iPads! – and well-equipped with pencils, pens, calculators, and other helpful homework tools.
• It’s good to be involved, but not too involved. Caring parents naturally want to help out with homework when asked to do so, and provided they can. Just remember that you’re only really helping them when you guide them toward learning the answers for themselves vs. doing some or all of the work for them.
• Check their work. The way you check a first grader’s homework is much different than how you might for a tenth grader so, using age appropriate techniques, establish that all assignments are completed correctly, fully, and on time.
• Are they spending too much time on homework? Extra time spent on homework isn’t always productive. It could mean that your child doesn’t quite get the subject matter or they have a teacher who’s piling it on a little thick. Either way, this might be an occasion to contact the teacher for a fresh perspective on what exactly is going on.

And then there are those students who feel perfectly fine all day at school but sniffle the night away at home. Or scratch their itchy eyes. Or feel all stuffed up and headachy. And nobody can do their best work under those circumstances. So if the problem persists, contact the indoor air quality specialists at Absolute Air, as you and your family might be candidates for some type of remedial action. With a whole-house air filtration system, for example, more than 99% of dust, dirt, and other air pollutants will be trapped as they attempt to pass through the system’s filter. That keeps them out of your home, and out of your lungs.