Now that we have the practical things covered, let’s look at time management, habits and routines to continue the process of avoiding the back to school madness.
Look at how your young person is spending their time– What else is going on while they are studying or doing homework? Are they sending instant messages via the computer or mobile phone? Is there music playing? These things as well as others contribute to them wasting time and, of course, taking longer to get their work done. Sit with your child and create rules around homework. For example, no instant messaging or phone calls while engaged in completing homework, unless it is directly related to the homework. Set specific daily times for studying and completing homework assignments. Make a trip to your nearest office supply or Franklin Covey store and have your child choose a planner and implement its use. They should get into the habit of using their planner daily and remember to set a time each week to plan for the upcoming week. Plan with them initially; after that, let them do it themselves with your observation.
Create additional supportive habits– To continue the process, look to see what other habits you see that may contribute to incomplete homework assignments, lost items and the like. Maybe things are lost because they don’t have a designated place to be. Assign a place for everything and help your child develop the habit of putting things back where they belong.
Create additional routines– You’ll want to consider a few more routines. In addition to the daily routine with a planner, consider what needs to happen while your child is still at school. During the course of the day as they are given assignments, they can be recorded in their planner and reviewed at the end of the day before leaving school. This way, they come home with the right books and notes to complete the assignments. This creates another healthy habit that enables them to have the right materials to complete the task at hand and it will carry over to tasks that aren’t related to school.
Once you’ve got it all in place, this is what it looks like: When your student makes it home, they have a space for their backpack to land and to complete the assignments they have because you’ve already designated and set up the space as I shared in my last article. Before they begin, they can refer to the list of assignments that they made during the day and prioritize and check items off as they are completed and place them in the spot that you’ve designated for your review. Once everything is done, they can prepare for the next day by taking what you reviewed from the assigned tray, folder or slot and putting it in their backpack to take it back to school and leaving the backpack in a chosen spot so that it’s not forgotten in the morning. The next day, the process starts all over again.
These tools, systems and routines all come together to help support your young person and contribute to fewer lost, forgotten and incomplete homework assignments and overall academic success. The habits created as a result of the systems and routines that you create will become instilled in them and become part of who they are, setting them up for success throughout and beyond their school years.