Homework is the most common challenge I see families struggle with. It can disrupt the entire family dynamic while creating a state of overwhelm, constant stress, and high emotions. The good news is that parents can turn around that dynamic with these 4 steps.

Structure an Evening Family Routine

Sit down with both your own and your children’s calendars to schedule the best times for homework time. Stay as consistent as possible, but keep a flexible mindset for handling life’s ups and downs. Post the schedule in the kitchen and other high-traffic areas in your home where school work will be done.

Sample Schedule for Success

Monday through Thursday

5:30 – 6:00 is dinnertime

6:00 – 7:30 is homework/study time  — one parent is supervising closely to assist

7:30 – 8:00 is wind-down time for the family

8:00 – 9:00 is for bathing, reading a story, making sure the backpack is ready for the next day, etc.

9:00 is bedtime

Teach Them a Homework Process

1. At the beginning of homework time, connect with your child and establish what needs to be accomplished.
2. Establish what “homework” looks like, i.e. study guide and pencil out on the table; no distractions.
3. Identify assignments they might need help with.
4. Ask your child to estimate how much time each assignment might take and give them a timer.
5. After their homework is done, have a discussion with them about how it went. With this deliberately collaborative approach, you’ll learn what you can improve each time.

Accept Homework Resistance

If your daughter refuses to study for her upcoming science test, despite your constant prodding, let go of control and let her do it her way. Your time is better spent after the test, celebrating wins, and finding effective studying techniques for the weak spots.

Sometimes children just want to vent about ‘how hard all this work is’ and the feeling that ‘it’s too much’ (You remember how you felt at their age, right?)  Allow for some venting time (5 minutes max) — it may be the key to their getting work done for the following 20-30 minutes.

Reward Homework Well Done

It might be helpful to offer a simple, inexpensive reward for quality work during the week. For example, you might agree to set a date for the weekend when you and your son walk to the ice cream store for a treat.

Lastly, Make It Safe to Fail

Failure is a matter of perspective. It is not a dirty word. It is a part of learning. Don’t be afraid to let your children fail, especially when you’re right there to help them rise up and try again.

Learn my simple technique to help children transition smoothly between tasks. The secret? Thinking about your thinking. 

There are so many topics under the vast umbrella of time management and executive functioning. Because there is so much to cover, I’ve decided to create (and share with you!) a 6-part video series on time management. This is part one!

In my private practice, I come across a number of students who struggle with time management and executive functioning skills. It shows up differently among different ages, but there’s no doubt that they all need help figuring out how to get a handle on upping their skills in these areas. Improving them will help not only for their time in school, but also in their careers and their life as a whole.

What is metacognition?

Long story short, metacognition is thinking about your thinking. And thinking about your thinking about your thinking about your thinking about your thinking (and on and on and on…)

People who “think about their thinking” can anticipate change, direct their own learning process, and learn more deeply.

How can we use breaks to successfully transition between tasks?

It’s important for a parent and a student (or a teacher and a student) taking a moment to pause together, think, and make a thoughtful choice about what comes next. A breathing technique I use can be super helpful in coming back from a break.

Pause. Take a deep breath together (or two or three, if the moment calls for it). Take stock of what is going on and how to move forward. “What is the next thing on my list to do? How can I most successfully move forward from this moment to complete the next task?”

With how quickly things move these days and the technology we have to assist in our daily life, metacognition can very easily go by the wayside and be forgotten. So, let’s practice our metacognition breathing break again.

Stop. Take a breath. Take stock of what’s to come on your list. And go! But go thoughtfully.

If they need more time before transitioning to the next task, I suggest using a visual timer. It helps to keep everyone “honest” and on the same page about exactly where you are in the task and how much time is left in your break.

Now that you have learned a new approach to thinking, I challenge you to try my technique with your children.

To connect with like-minded parents and educators and to learn more tips like these, check out my free Facebook group.

Develop a realistic sense of time by strengthening time awareness throughout the day. This is especially helpful for children with learning challenges.

Strategies to Strengthen Sense of Time

• Make a visual schedule (even adults like visual schedules, like the bullet journal). Visual schedules use a series of pictures to communicate a series of activities or the steps of a specific activity.  Post them around the house. 

• Set start and end times on activities with your child. 

• Practice estimating time with your child. Try “Beat the Timer.” Choose any task, such as getting dressed or doing a homework worksheet, and estimate how long you think it will take you to complete. Then, set the timer and try to beat it. 

• Using sand “hourglass” timers and “visual clocks” helps children get a more visual and tactile sense of time. Plus, using these timers literally keeps time front and center. 

A strong sense of time – and timing – helps your child become more independent and successful. If a person can manage their time, they will have more choices, more options for activities, and more opportunities for successful social interactions. Wishing you success!

This weekend, I’m tackling an activity I’ve put off for several months now.  

My husband and I are returning to the task of organizing our garage. We started about 8 months ago, but got distracted. The ultimate goal is to organize everything and place the items in cabinets mounted to the wall. We’ve sorted about a third of the garage storage so far.

Time-Block a Task

On Saturday, we’ll tackle the biggest challenge: a wall-length organizer that holds a wide variety of small boxes. Each box contains a variety of odds and ends. We’ve put this off for a long time, because it’s challenging to decide what to keep, give away, or throw away. 

Our strategy is to focus entirely on that organizer and stop at four hours. If we don’t complete it, we’ll schedule additional time for another day. We hope, however, that a time limit will encourage us to finish. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Patience and Communication

Knowing that this is a task that we both dread makes it extra important for us to communicate with each other. If his shoulder is acting up or if I’m extra sore from a workout, we lean on each other a little extra. Yes, both physically and emotionally! Having an accountability partner in a project like this is a big plus. It really helps to get the whole project done in a timely manner.

I’d love to hear about the challenging tasks you’re tackling this week.

Is your summer feeling easy breezy, or is a bit of chaos creeping in?

After the burst of euphoria from ditching homework and responsibilities, we can scatter in too many directions, skip sleep, eat junk food, and maybe even fill our minds with silly cat videos.

Yes, it’s nice to have a break. In fact, brain research shows we get a rush of feel-good dopamine from new experiences of any kind!

But, we also need a daily routine to help us to feel more in control and be more prepared for the next school year. Routine also reduces stress levels and helps us sleep better!

So, I recommend a summer schedule to all of my clients. 

Here’s my proven plan for a successful schedule:

1. Make child-specific daily schedules (here’s a free template). 
   
2. Schedule bedtimes. If appropriate, use staying up late as an incentive.
   
3. Add fun outside time, and lots of movement!
   
4. Assign family contributions (aka chores) with a specific time so they actually get done!
   
5. Try to review one academic subject daily.
   
6. Schedule at least 15 minutes of independent, age-appropriate activity. Mom and/or Dad need a break, too! 
   
7. Include caregiver (Mom, Dad, Grandparent, Nanny, etc.) work time on the schedule. You don’t want to have clashing Zoom dates or a vacuum running while you’re on a call while working from home! 
   
8. Take a few moments at the end of the day to sort out what worked and what didn’t.  Focus on progress, not perfection. 

Post your schedule in a high-traffic spot where everyone can see – maybe even in two places, like the kids’ bathroom and the kitchen. 

You did it! Congratulations!

Put a reminder in your calendar three weeks before school starts to slowly adjust the schedule (and don’t forget bedtime!) to retrain them in time for school.

I recently met with a student who was feeling under a lot of pressure. Let’s call her Cindy. She had multiple quizzes and tests coming up at school. She was trying to juggle studying with her regular nightly homework. Plus, she had a few missed assignments she was still trying to complete. In between all that, she had family obligations that were making her free time scarce. 

Cindy had so much swirling around in her mind that she just worked on whatever came to the forefront first. This only relieved her stress for a moment. Then, all the other items on her to-do list came flooding back in and increased her stress levels and resistance. 

It’s safe to say she was overwhelmed.

In this week’s installment of our 6-part series: Time Management Skills to Help You & Your Child Today, we’re going to take a look at working memory and time management. I’ll show you how they helped stressed-out Cindy gain control over her to-do list. 

I like to think of working memory as a whiteboard in the front of your brain. It’s where you hold onto a variety of information while working through your day. Once you use information in your working memory, you can release it and move on to the next piece of information. However, if your brain is not well-trained to stay focused, (i.e. you start and stop a lot of projects), you will be holding in your working memory your entire ‘to do’ list for the day.  Not a good use of anyone’s time.  

So the first thing “Cindy” and I did was use our session time to prioritize all of her tasks. Then we began by taking action on the things she could get done right away. These were tasks that only took about two minutes to complete. Things like sending an email to a teacher to ask a question about an upcoming assignment or connecting with a fellow student about a project.

Once these quick tasks were off her list, she didn’t need to hold them in her memory anymore. 

Next, we took a look at the other tasks that required more time. And then we pulled out a calendar to reference. I asked Cindy, “When are you going to schedule those tasks so you can get them done by their due dates? Where are the holes in your day? Free time you can set aside to get these tasks done?”

These questions are the crux of time management. 

For middle school and high school students, their projects are typically due in a relatively short period of time. So this process of scheduling involves thinking through the immediate future to find the times when they can plug in extra tasks around their daily homework schedule. 

Once you have a complete schedule, the next step is to organize it in a visual way. Online calendars are great tools, but if you’re struggling with time management, having your plan open in front of you as much as possible is a better way to ensure all tasks will get done, on time. 

Time is an abstract, vague concept, so with a planner, you have a tangible record of your time, making it easier to track and manage.

In addition, the physical act of writing information down is shown to increase your chances of committing it to memory (and following through) as well. 

Plus, you don’t want to be constantly checking your phone for assignments! Especially if you’re someone who is easily distracted while working or studying. 

As you can see, working memory and time management are two critical skills in terms of executive functioning. They keep your student, just like Cindy, on task. This way, they’ll be able to manage everything and anything that needs to get done each day, without feeling panicked or stressed.