Parent's always ask me: What is the biggest mistakes that a student can make in Middle School. I tell them that there's two. One is being absent. When a child is absent, they miss out on work. They miss out on the teacher's lesson. They miss out on what the class did that day. They miss out on the homework. So the next day they go to school, and they have that day's homework to make up. Then everything from the previous day that they were at home. So being absent is a really, really big problem for students. The other thing is a student that's not organized. It's very important for a child to be organized; knowing your assignments, knowing your projects, knowing when things are due. It's easier to take care of things when you know they are down and when they are due. It's much harder to make things up. Often if a child is missing many assignments, they begin to feel overwhelmed and they might lose interest in that class if they are so far behind and might have difficulty catching up. So the two biggest mistakes that a child can make is being absent too much, and also, not being organized.