Parents are facing so many challenges at the moment with children learning from home, and balancing teaching kids with regular work and home responsibilities is very tough. I hope that some of these tips will help you to encourage your child to be more independent, and ease some of your burden.
Children are capable of good time management, but they need some help learning how to do it. These skills are not only useful for getting through home learning - they are skills your child will use for the rest of his or her life!
Time management goes hand-in-hand with other executive functions. All of these skills help with managing school work:
Planning: figure out how to accomplish the goal
Organisation: developing and maintaining a system
Task initiation: just get started, even if you don't want to
Self control and task maintenance: stay focused and get it done - you can reward yourself later
Perseverance: don't give up, even when something is challenging
Motivation: think about what will motivate you - a reward or time off
Children respond well to what we call 'positive reinforcement' - a reward for a positive behaviour. That's why it works to tell a child that he or she can have sweets when a challenging task is over. That might sound something like 'If you finish your homework, you can have a chocolate'. For some children, this is all they need to hear to get things done. Other children, though, might need more. Consider talking to your child about the skills above, and offering a reward for displaying these skills. In the above example, you could tell your child 'When you've planned what work you're doing today, and laid out all your supplies and you feel ready to start, you can have a piece of chocolate.' Continue guiding them through the process so they learn how to get themselves ready for work, how to start work, how to complete work, and how to reward themselves.
I hope you have some luck with this! As always, you can contact me if you have any questions or just need a few tips.
Megan
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