We often try to improve our children's study habits by targeting their motivation or goals. However, research shows that focusing inward doesn’t lead to lasting change in habitual behaviours like studying. Instead, we must shape the cues and the environment triggering these learning habits.
Breaking Bad Study Habits
It’s tough to break habits like avoiding studying or always working with a screen solely through willpower. Like a loud TV nearby, the old cues continue triggering these habits automatically while studying.
Rather than intentions, the key is managing exposure to habit triggers. For example, a study found students only kept habits like reading the news when their new common room provided the same cues, like quiet spaces. Luckily, big life changes aren’t required to disrupt study habits—subtler environmental tweaks help. Having children put their mobiles away during study time can sometimes be enough to break a distraction habit.
Some apps can help, too. The HOLD app rewards you with points for leaving your phone unchecked between 7 am to 11 pm. You can spend these points on rewards like discounted cinema tickets. Allowing you to accumulate points every 20 minutes, HOLD helps incentivise you to focus on studying without social media distractions. Similarly, the FOREST app helps you focus by having you plant a virtual tree that only grows when you stay off your phone. The longer you avoid distractions, the bigger your tree and virtual coin collection grows. FOREST makes resisting phone habits into a rewarding game.
Building Good Study Habits
Repetition in a stable context is key for habit formation. Research shows that most students require a few weeks of consistently studying in the same quiet spot to become automatic. Make it easy for your child to repeat successful studying using environmental cues and rewards through apps like HOLD and FOREST when helpful.
In summary, shape the environment to limit triggers pulling children off-task and reinforce learning behaviours through repetition, convenience and reward. Helping students effectively form good study habits takes patience, not just parental motivation. But by leveraging context cues strategically, positive changes can become true habits over time.environment,
