5 Reasons Why Cramming Is Bad For Your Kids

Almost all of us have left something to the last minute during our student years. We don’t study on time and end up pulling all-nighters while cramming as much information as we possibly can in our brains. While this might be fine once in a while, this should not be a regular practice.

If you are a parent and you see your child cramming, make sure you do something. It is not an effective learning technique, and you don't want them to develop a habit of cramming for tests. So, if you want your child to study well, you are in the right place.

Keep reading to find out why cramming is a bad habit and effective studying techniques for your kids.

Why Cramming Is Bad For Your Kids?

Here are the top five reasons cramming is bad for your kids:

1. It Creates Stress

When there is a lot to study and less time, your child will feel incredibly stressed. Their cortisol levels will shoot up, which will hinder them from creating short-term memories and turning them into long-term memories. Because of this, it is a lot more challenging to learn new things when you are stressed.

A slow and steady pace will allow the child to absorb the information much better and regulate their stress levels. It is crucial to start earlier and not cram in study material at the last minute for this purpose. Stress levels affect memory and concentration, which can lead to poor grades.

2. Temporary Information Storage

The purpose of studying is to retain the information for a long time. Cramming can be effective at getting high scores, but children will forget the material right after they have given their exams. A reason for this is that cramming will store information short-term in the brain.

You don’t want your children to cram the night before and forget everything they learn right after they graduate. It is important to space out the studying time and schedule. Doing this will allow your child to retain the information in a much better way.

3. It Is Not Good For Sleep Quality And Routine

Sleep is one of the most important things for everyone, as it helps with health, memory, learning, and more. When your child stays up all night to cram for the exam, they are sacrificing their sleep time. Even one day can hinder healthy sleeping patterns and turn the routine of your child upside-down.

If you develop such habits from an early age, children will also sacrifice sleep later on in their life to study for exams and tests. Such habits affect health significantly. So, make sure your child studies on time so they don’t have to cram at the last minute and ruin their sleep quality and routine.

4. It Might Lead To Feelings Of Guilt

Cramming will lead to poor grades more often, which means children will feel guilty for not performing well in school. You might show disappointment or anger at your child, but we suggest you don’t do this. There is a reason why the child might cram in study material at the last material.

It is up to you to identify what problems they are facing and help them solve these issues. Sit with your child, talk to them, and ask them about what they are struggling with in school. If they have problems with discipline or don't understand the study material, you can always opt for a home tutor.

These tutors can come to your home and ensure that your child studies on time. It will eliminate cramming, and they will have a much better and more effective studying schedule that will lead to good grades.

5. Leads To Procrastination

When children know that they can cram at the last minute, they will end up procrastinating on important things most of the time. Such procrastination will start showing up in other areas as well, such as homework, class activities, and much more. In the long run, such a technique will lead them to become more anxious and stressed and lower the quality of the outcome of work.

You have to keep an eye on your child to ensure that they don’t develop a mindset of procrastination. Fixed mindsets can be challenging to change, and it will require more effort on your part. Help your child create a schedule and stick to it so that they don’t have to stress themselves out at the last minute.

Top 8 Learning Strategies For Your Child

Now that you understand why cramming is bad, you have to help your child learn effective strategies that will boost their learning and memory abilities. Thanks to various studies and research on this topic, there are many proven ways of effective studying.

We have listed some of the best options for you that will help your child to learn in the best way possible:

1. Spaced Repetition

Spaced repetition is an effective hack that can help your child's brain to store more information in an effective manner. The idea behind this technique is to study small chunks of information at one time. It allows the brain to store information much better and store it in long-term memory.

Here are some tips you can follow to do this method:

• Break the information your child needs to learn into smaller parts
• Help them learn one part at a time over a few days or weeks
• Review the part you learned before each time you study

Our brain will always store information it thinks is important. When you frequently go over the same topic at some intervals, it enhances your memory of it. Your brain will get the cue that this is important information, which is why it is more likely to store it.

2. Use Flashcards

Flashcards are also a great way to incorporate spaced repetition, but they also work as a learning technique on their own. It will enable your child to do practice tests and check whether they have retained the information that they learned. Once they finish the test, they can compare their answers to what is on the back of the card.

We recommend you use this technique when your child has an important exam coming up. For example, admission tests or final-year examinations are great times to practice these techniques. You can also get involved in this practice and provide them with the push they need to study better.

3. Help Them Create A Schedule And Stick To It

Humans are creatures of habit, and students need to study often so it can become a habit. You can help your child with this by creating a study schedule with them. For example, you can dedicate specific days to certain days and carve out times when they can study.

Doing this will allow them to have a concrete schedule that they can follow. When you know they are going off-track, you can keep them accountable and ensure they stick to it. Such accountability will help them create discipline when it comes to studying and learning effectively.

4. Give Them The Environment That They Need To Study

Our environment gives us cues on what we need to do. For example, the kitchen is an environment for cooking, the bedroom is for sleeping, the living room is for watching TV, etc. If there is no dedicated zone for studying, children will not engage in this activity often.

Set up a small space with a desk and chair. You can keep their favorite books, stationery, and everything else that they require to study. Having such a space at home will automatically push them to use this space and study when they have anything important coming up.

Make sure that this space doesn’t have any other distractions. Take out any electronics from this space. It will enable the child to focus completely on the studying task at hand.

5. Encourage Children To Do Self-Quizzes

Many children don’t like giving tests because it induces anxiety in them. You can greatly eliminate this anxiety by encouraging your children to test themselves. Take away the negative association with testing, and they will do much better.

Sit with your child and encourage them to make various test questions on different topics. They can think about the types of questions that they expect to come up on the test. Then, they can incorporate these questions into their study time and check their knowledge.

Such a technique will enable your children to be less fearful of tests and even be comfortable with them. It will also encourage them to understand what type of questions they can expect.

6. Let Your Child Know It Is Good To Take Breaks

Intense periods of studying are not effective, and children need to take breaks to retain the information they have just learned. Not all children know this, which is why you can be the one to tell them that it is good to take breaks. Communicate with your child that they can study for thirty minutes and take a ten minutes break.

If you want to incentivize them, you can also set up a reward system from time to time. For example, if your child doesn’t like studying math, you can promise them ten extra minutes of screen time once they finish studying. This will encourage them to study effectively and take breaks.

Keep in mind that a consistent reward system is not good for children. If they only want the reward, they will not study out of an instrinsic motivation to study. So, make sure you only give rewards some of the time.

7. Encourage Them To Use Color For Learning

Did you know that color can improve our memory performance? This information is based on a study that also went on to conclude that warm colors such as red and yellow can create a motivating and positive environment for learning. So, you can encourage your children to color-code their learning material for better storage and retention.

It will also help your children to engage with the material in a much better way. There are different color-coding techniques that children can utilize, depending on what they want. Here are some you can encourage your child to try out next time they study:

• Let them know they can write down key points in red
• Children can highlight important information in yellow while studying
• They can organize different subjects by using different colors
• They don’t have to color-code everything, but important information they want to remember

These small steps can encourage your child to optimize their learning and engage better with the content. You can buy colored markers for them so that they are motivated to take this step and begin color-coding their materials.

8. Opt For The Help Of A Tutor

Finally, if you are a busy parent and you don’t have a lot of time to help your child study, then you can opt for the help of a tutor. There are many private tutors available that can come to your home and help your child study well. These tutors are professionals that understand different learning techniques.

It will also ensure that your child learns from the comfort of their home. If your child does better in group settings, then you can also enroll them in tuition classes. Just do your research and select the best private tutors in Singapore.

Final Thoughts

Cramming can work from time to time, but it has too many detrimental effects to let your child continue with this learning strategy. Instead, you must help them cultivate better learning techniques so that they can perform well at school. Your encouragement and appreciation will help them do better for a long time.

Not every technique will be effective for your child, as everyone is unique. You can implement a few and see which one your child responds to in the best way. Then, you can take the steps needed to ensure they learn better and get good grades.