Life Skill #2: Prioritization and Time Management
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Your kids have finished their to-do list… but there are about ten thousand things on it. It’s making you go cross-eyed, and you wonder how they’ll ever get it done. You again find yourself longing to make a mad-dash for the window.
But before you flatten your hydrangeas in a homework-induced panic, take a deep breath and look at the bright side: all these assignments can help your kids learn another great life skill! Time Management.
The first trick is to remember that not all assignments are created equal. Some take ten minutes, some take three hours. Some are worth ten points, some are worth a hundred. Some are due tomorrow, some next week, some next month. Once you and your kids get that down, you can prioritize so that even if they can’t get everything done, they’ll at least take care of the important stuff: Generally, things due tomorrow come before things due next week; things that are 100 points come before things that are 10 points; and it’s up to your kids whether they want to start with the short assignments to get some things off the checklist, or tackle the long ones first. With big, long-term projects, you can help your kids break them down into smaller steps, with individual due dates.
The second trick is to accept that it’s okay to not go over-and-above on every single assignment. “What’s the problem?” you ask. “It’s great seeing my child getting carried away with school work!” And you’re absolutely right: on extra-special projects that they’re particularly passionate about, it’s great for kids to get swept away. But it’s also very easy for them to spend all their time doing the fun stuff that’s above and beyond the assignment, at the expense of the assignment itself. If they take too much time on the frills—or even on the research—they might run out of time and not finish the assignment, or they might finish and then not have time for their other work. The bottom line is that when your kids have a lot to get done, they have to learn to just get it done. To do that, they have to accept that doing enough on an assignment is just that: enough.
Filed under: Learning Tips, Technology and Kids | Tagged: homework
