Help your student be successful Support for OU students from friends and family

The support of the people around them is vital to the success of OU students. OU students have to show commitment and perseverance to be successful, and need to develop good time-management skills in order to fit their studies into the rest of their lives. You can help by letting them know that it’s ok to give priority to study and not feel guilty about dropping some other activities.

Equally, spending too much time studying without a break can be counterproductive – it’s much better to go out for an hour and come back to study feeling refreshed. Help your student work out when they study most effectively and try to ensure they are not interrupted then.

Study is hard and there may even come a point when your student considers whether or not to continue. This is the sort of time when you can be of most help, being around and talking things through.

Patience and support can yield rewards for everyone, as family members testify.

Family views

He has to work really hard to get the assignments done on time, so I keep him going with cups of coffee and try to keep things peaceful where he's working. Once the assignment is in the post we make sure we get some family time together, which is a good way to recover.

We seem to have so much to talk about now – I've learned a lot as well!