Does your child get 10 hours a sleep a night? On average elementary school children need ten hours of uninterrupted sleep a night to function at their best. Children who get less than 10 hours of sleep a night are more likely to perform below their academic ability at school. They also more likely to have problems at school that include being inattentive, unable to focus, disruptive, or hyperactive.

Another key to success at school is eating breakfast in the morning. Breakfast means "break the fast" because most of us go through the night without eating which is the same as fasting. So it is very important to fuel up our bodies and eat breakfast. Research shows that skipping breakfast can lead to weight gain due to overeating later in the day. Research has also shown that children that eat a healthy breakfast tend to have higher test scores than children that skip breakfast.

Does your child get anxious before a test? Being nervous before a test can result in a lower test scores because it is difficult to think clearly when we are nervous.The way to "turn off" nervousness is slow, deep breaths. Teach your child to do this any time they are nervous. Also encourage them to imagine themselves successfully taking the test in a calm manner.This can be done before falling asleep.

Successful test takers read all the directions and do all the questions they know first. They then go back and do the harder questions. When they finish the test, they use time left over to go back and check their answers but they only change the answers that they are sure were wrong. Lastly, start studying for tests a few days before the test not just the night before the test.

One of the things that can affect a child's behavior and academic performance at school is grief. Sometimes it may look like a child who has experienced some type of major loss is not grieving at all. Children do grieve but often grieve differently from adults. For example, some of the ways a child grieves can be by acting out, being afraid to go to school, having sleep problems, showing baby-like behavior, becoming a victim of a bully, showing aggressive behaviors, becoming a loner, developing unusual eating habits, and exhibiting behavior that looks like ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.) Please notify your child's teacher or the school counselor, if your child has experienced loss of a close family member, life threatening illness of a close family member, or recent divorce/separation within the past year or two. This will information will help your student's teacher.

Is your child having trouble making friends at school? You can help your child by encouraging her/him to look for another student who is alone on the playground. It easiest to make a new friend by looking for someone who is alone. Encourage your child to go up to the student that is alone and say "Do you want to play?" If the child says "yes," have your child suggest what to play. If the other student doesn't like the suggestion, have your child say "What would you like to play?" You and your child can practice this by role playing with stuffed animals. Also practice what to do if the other child says "I don't want to play with you?" by having your child say in response "Okay, maybe another day we can play" and walk away. Tell them not to take it personally because the child just might want to be alone that day.

Some elementary school children can confuse reality and fantasy especially when watching movies and television. Some children believe what they watch in a movie or on television are real because elementary children are capable of magical thinking where the unreal seems real. For this reason, the movie can be troubling for your children but they might not tell you. Also children who are aggressive can become more aggressive after watching violent movies or playing violent video games. Children also may imitate what they see on TV or a movie without understanding the behavior is inappropriate for their age.