Homeschool Questions
Today our homeschool community question is from a reading friend who wants to know more about teaching children independent work habits. My older boys, ages 9 and 12, have very good independent work habits; however, it has been years of slow and steady habit training (and not that those don’t need further development). That’s enough from me though. Let’s hear from YOU! Read the question below and give this homeschool mom helpful thoughts to help her on her journey.
Homeschool Community Question: “This is our first year homeschooling. My kids are 6 and 8. I want them to learn to work independently, manage their time well and not procrastinate. Each day they receive a list of chores. I add independent work I those lists -2 journal entries, 2 geography workbook pages, and one letter to a friend or relative. They know how to do these tasks on their own. The tasks appear in their list every morning to remind them that they are to be working on them, but otherwise I do not nag them about it. On Friday, they must sit at the table to finish all uncompleted work and are not allowed up (except to use the restroom) until they are done. We have been doing this for 6 weeks, and so far none of the tasks have even been started by Friday. As you can imagine, Fridays are nightmares. I’m starting to think I am asking too much of them. Am I, and if so, what can I do to help them learn time management at this age?”
Leave your wisdom for this momma in the comments below!
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It sounds like this is a new phase for your family so it can be hard to just jump in at the final destination with providing no direction down the road. I think it helps to start with small steps. One thing at a time. Give them the list in the morning and assist them in doing the first item on the list. Or sit down with them and ask then what they will have done before snack time and then before lunch time etc. As they get used to this rhythm you will have to guide them less and less.
I hear you! How wonderfully you’ve set this out for your children, scheduled and even reminded them to do these things without nagging. So why isn’t it working? Your children are very young. Young children need incentives that are tangible and love quick rewards.
I remember setting up “learning centers” for my children. I was Montessori trained and have an education degree. I expected my children to visit each, do the activities, and check them off their list. Right. End of story, it took adding “stars” that they put on their chart for a job well done as well as a “treasure box” of incentives that they could choose from each day and then one time per week. Low budget: treasure box contains pick a movie or choose a snack or dessert for the family, etc.
Eventually the children do learn, with allot of praise, to do a great job for no reward. I’m telling you this works! Looking forward to hearing the other responses. BTW I know many parents balk at any type of reward, so do what works for your family!
As has been mentioned above, you have great goals but your expectations for the present time may be a bit high. Kids do what you INspect, not what you EXpect. Although it’s chore-related and not school-related, some of the concepts from this short newsletter article still apply: http://www.hslda.org/elert/archive/2011/01/20110120110602.asp (Training Children in Diligence and Thoroughness — adapted from the book, The Everyday Family Chore System at http://www.everydayhomemaking.com).
You’ve given them the opportunity to have a weekly goal and that doesn’t appear to be working yet, so I’d back up to daily goals. Instead of “do this by Friday,” I’d move to “Do this by 5 pm” (or whatever). You can still give them the weekly goals (week at a glance) so they can move ahead if desired, and they have an overview of the week, but they also have daily milestones to hit. There’s a little timer you might try, listed in that article — Your Minder, with alarms you can set during the day and they can record little “notes” to themselves (or Dad can! “Hey, guys, how are you coming on your assignments from Mom? Need any help? Be sure to ask her!” etc). That way, the alarm is the “nag.”
A workbox approach may be a good fit for them, especially at this age.
Also, an incentive system can work well for starters. Our kids got 2 stars for doing their daily chores (household) without reminder. If I had to remind them, they only got one star. If I had to remind them again, zippo stars. If they cheerfully completed their schoolwork, they got 2 stars (this was an honor system thing — I didn’t have time to police the stars). You can read more about it in the 2010/2011 newsletters at that site.
It sounds like you are doing a great job with your kids and have great goals; they just need a bit more supervision at this age. Also, the multi-level teaching article at http://www.hslda.org/earlyyears/MultiLevel.asp has a few ideas for encouraging independent study. Best wishes!
That sounds like an awful lot to expect frim kids so young, especially just starting out. My 7 year old has difficulty working on his own for 15 minutes. You may have to help them with a lot for quite awhile yet; expecting them to maybe do one assignment on their own a day.
My kids learn independently as well. However, no matter how independent they are they still in need supervision. At first it maybe a lot then as they get older it may lessen. My kids will sometimes sit around the table telling tales of how they fooled me about doing they’re school work. We laugh about it now but had I known then it would have been a different story. My daughter, just the other day, was telling me how she told her father on the phone she was done with a book but she wasn’t. She said she still feels about it to this day. Even my oldest, who is a senior, still gets sidetracked. He is a talker, so I am constantly asking if he finished yet. He tells me “oh no, I forgot, I’ll go do it now.” I do like the comment above about giving incentives as well. I also have noticed my kids love a check list. Hope all goes well in homeschool land!
Part of indedpendent learning is training. So spend time training them to be able to work on their own. This means you’ll have to sit there with them for a while, but they will catch on and you will eventually be free during their independent work. An egg timer works great with independent work. Give one thing at a time, with a set time to have it done. At this age, they are not going to be able to stay on task for long periods of time. So give them one item, and set the timer for an appropriate amount of time. When the timer goes off, if they are finished give them a sticker (seriously, kids will volunteer for a lobotamy if there is a sticker at the end), and check that item off the list. If they aren’t finished, put that one aside and move on to the next item and repeat the process. At the end of the time for all the work, have them go back and make them finish anything that didn’t get done and have them do it while everyone else goes on with the fun afternoon activities. Dont’ give them the option of leaving it all until Friday.
A helpful parenting book I read years ago when my 15-year-old was about 5 talked about how to train children to be responsible for themselves. The advice could be applied to chores or schoolwork, really any area, and has worked well for our family. The book suggested making expectations clear, like assigning chores or school assignments for the day, then allowing them the freedom to complete their assignments. The key was in how the parent should supervise. For example, if you want your child to finish his/her math assignment before eating lunch, then explain that he can eat when he has finished the schoolwork. Instead of asking, “Have you finished your math?” when it is time to eat lunch, ask, “Do you have the freedom to eat right now?” The child then has to review what was required of him. This cuts out the parental nagging and teaches the child that he is accountable for completing his tasks. Instead of waiting until Friday to see what chores and independent schoolwork has been left undone, I would review their list daily. I would tell the children that there would be no “free time” (in our home that would be when they can have computer time, watch a video, or play outside, etc.) until everything on their daily list was completed. Then when they ask if they can do one of their fun activities, I would simply ask “Have you finished your list?” If they have, then great, they can go play. If not, they would not be allowed to have free time.
Just remember that it takes time to train children. If they are already used to doing chores independently on a daily basis, then it would be an easy adjustment to add schoolwork, maybe just one independent assignment until they demonstrate they can handle that much responsibility, and then add another. However, if they are not used to such structure, they may be easily overwhelmed with being required to do daily chores and schoolwork all at once. Starting with a short list of daily responsibilites and rewarding them for completing their tasks is a good beginning to training them to be independent.
I agree with many of the above comments. My daughter is 8 years old. She does best with lists and short term goals. She loves for me to make her a list of tasks for the day so she knows what she is expected to do before she is free to have her own time. This is chores, school everything. Some days we do better than others, but being consistent with her, setting small goals and time limits have helped both of us accomplish what we need to do every day. As always you have to be flexible too…I also have an 11 month old and another on the way, and an elderly Grandfather to take care of so our days are full and hectic. As long as you are teaching your kids to set priorities everyday you will do fine.
My boys are 6 & 8 and this is our 3rd yr of homeschooling. When I think of “independent work” like you described I think “time management” is an important consideration and personally, I can’t see either of my boys being able to manage their work and their time on their own.
Perhaps you could set a block of time during a certain part of the day when they have to work on this “independent work” or at least have it done by and have them hand it to you every day.
Great suggestions! I have 6 children ages 1-11. I made them a colorful chart with their pictures down the side and pictures of their subjects across the top. I laminated it with clear contact paper, so when they are done with a subject they check it off with a write-on-wipe off marker. For some kids this is reward in & of itself.
With in each box I typed the exact book or books they need to do in that subject, for example under math, my 8 year old has typed “Life of Fred Butterflies” and “XtraMath” a computer flashcard program. We have tried many different charts: Empty boxes, all pictures for every subject, and pics and type.
I have made similar charts for their chores.
Also, Managers of their home has a good book on scheduling.
At this time I do give tickets for any chores or subjects they have marked off, which they use in our “Family Store”. Seriously, all I do is write down how many check marks they have at the end of the day and total them all up on Friday. Then, on Saturday they can buy stuff from the store (a big rubbermaid tote.) But it sounds like just a shiny chart could work for your kids, since it would be new.
If anyone wants copies of my charts to use or just to look at you can email me at dannyandsuzanne@sbcglobal.net
I’m a young mom, so I’m totally going off what my mother did with me. I’m also an only child, so what she did was easier with me than it would have been if I had siblings.
Starting very young (3?), she expected me to be able to play by myself. There would be times during the day when she would send me to my room to play alone. Later, I was allowed to play by myself outside. She wasn’t very structured about it, but I think teaching this skill more deliberately would work with siblings (set aside 15-30 minutes every day when the children have to play separately).
Since I was used to playing by myself, doing schoolwork on my own was a fairly natural extension, once we got into the swing of homeschooling. That started with my doing reading assignments on my own, and quickly extended to doing exercises (math work sheets, sentence building, writing assignments, etc.) and research on my own.
My homeschool grades were 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 8th-10th, so the progression happened later than it could have. 2nd grade was an unmitigated disaster. Although I was able to do reading assignments on my own, I basically refused to do anything else unattended.
I think a 6yo is too young to have much independent work. Maybe some reading. But for that age, they’re still learning so many basics, that I think you would need to work fairly closely with them. However, since they are still working on basics and have fairly short attention spans, their schooldays can be pretty short. And if you need them to be occupied for a while, you can sit them in front of a documentary or have them work with language tapes or some such. An 8yo is definitely old enough to learn how to work independently.
Bottom line, I would start by giving them both solo play time every day, and the 8yo would also have silent reading time followed by a few minutes to tell you what he read and what he thought of it (accountability).
Thanks for this question! This is something I’m going to need to think about in a year or two!