You Don’t Need Luck

Call me neurotic but the phrase “good luck” has never done much good for my psyche. Although I appreciate the good intentions embedded in the delivery, the phrase has always generated more nerves than confidence, as though I’ll need to rely on luck in order to achieve success.  As it turns out, I’m not alone. A belief in luck has been found to undermine students’ academic performance.

After decades of research, we now know that students have theories about why they succeed or fail and these theories provide important insights into their behaviors in the classroom.

Students who feel that both their successes and failures are the result of causes within their control, like the amount effort they exerted on a problem or the extent to which they studied for a test, are likely to demonstrate high levels of motivation, engagement and persistence. In contrast, students who report that the reasons for their success and failure are out of their control, rather the result of the actions of their teacher or due to luck, are more likely to behave in a helpless manner, reducing effort, strategy use and motivation in the face of a challenge.

Yet even with this information in our educational arsenal, the phrase “good luck” still prevails as the dominant expression of encouragement lfor students facing a challenge.

There seem to be two reasons why the term is so pervasive. First, luck does have some role in student success. Consider the spelling bee contestant who receives one of the 500 words she’s been studying as the contest tie breaker, luck is certainly central to her success and our hope, as educators, is that hard working students will always have luck on their side. But the second reason for the phrase’s popularity is that there is no sufficient alternative. Although expressions like “good effort” or “show how hard you’ve worked” don’t quite have the same ring to them as the original, it may be worth expanding our encouragement repertoire to include phrases that emphasize the power students have over their own future.

Sunday Night Dread

Many children and adults alike grapple with the classic anguish of Sunday nights; the freedom of the weekend is slipping away and thoughts of the new week loom. Sunday nights can be a particularly stressful time for students who want to enjoy every possible moment of the weekend and “save” their assignments for the last minute. As most parents and students realize saving assignments not only aids stress to an often tense evening but often results in incomplete or poorly executed work.

Here are a few suggestions that I and the families I work with have found as helpful ways to break the cycle and transform Sunday evenings into a pleasurable time:

• Create a Homework Plan Early

Parents and children should sit down on Friday afternoon or evening to create a weekend homework schedule. Spreading out the work over the course of two days and trying to accomplish as much as possible Sat & Sun mornings can not only significantly lessen the blow, but also allows time for purchasing supplies or trips to the library as necessary.

• Systematically Relinquish Control

Creating a structure schedule for homework completion which children know they will be held accountable for can be highly effective strategy for preventing procrastination. However, working under constant monitoring can seem stifling to most students. Since it is highly unlikely that parents will provide homework supervision throughout their child’s academic career and it is in the student’s best interest to engage in self-monitoring it is important to create a compromise. The most effective type of compromise is one in which both members are clear about their responsibilities. For instance, a contract that clearly states parent and child will work together to create a weekend homework schedule for 4 weeks, and then the child will be given the freedom to create his/her own weekend schedule but cannot save all homework until Sunday night and if all homework is saved for Sunday night the 4 week cycle will begin again. A parent who systematically relinquishes control of the weekend homework plan as his/her child can demonstrate the independent ability to be proactive about assignments, will provide an healthy foundation for planning and time management.

• Replace Negative Associations with Positive Ones

Creating an enjoyable Sunday Night ritual can not only replace negative end of weekend associations but it can also provide the motivation to complete work ahead of time. Utilizing the evening as a time to gather as a family to engage in a relaxing activity like having a movie night complete with popcorn and tickets, playing a game or talking a walk for ice-cream can provide a tranquil transition from the weekend to the new week.