As the new school year gets underway, teaching your student good time management techniques is a life lesson that will set them up for success down the road.
Learning about time management will also limit the amount of stressful frenzy that accompanies a disorganized student, who is always searching for lost teacher notes, homework assignments or library books.
Here are some tips to teach your young student good time management skills:
- Use a planner. Some schools may supply a printed and bound planner calendar but if not, you can certainly find them where you find school supplies or online.
- The age of your student will determine how big a planner you need.
- Younger elementary school kids will need more space to write than a high schooler, so a larger planner will work best.
- Encourage your student to write down every homework assignment in the planner and also deadlines for returning note, library books and permission slips.
- Set a specific time for doing homework. Routines give structure to your student’s day and carrying over that structure from their school day will guarantee that homework is completed on time.
- Allow for ‘down time’ either by having a simple snack or by going to an after school activity first.
- Keep in mind their bedtime and how long it will take to complete homework assignments. Waiting too long after they get home from school will also give you a more tired child who has less patience to look at homework.
- Break large projects into smaller steps. Inevitably your student will bring home a book report or large project to complete and unless you enjoy working into the wee hours the night before it’s due, teach your student how to break this project into smaller parts.
- For book reports, look at the number of pages or chapters in the book and divide that number by the number of days before the report is due. That is how many pages or chapters they need to read each day (and allow one day for writing the report!)
- For larger social studies projects that has many components, look at the final deadline, sort out each component and the steps necessary to complete each one, and aim to complete one component each day (or a couple of days, depending on the project).
- The key is to work a little each day so it can be enjoyable and truly a learning experience rather than a rush job at the last minute with too much parental help.
Time management is a skill all adults should aim to achieve and having the basis of these skills as a young student is beneficial. As they say, “practice makes perfect” so teach them young and eventually you won’t have to supervise homework time at all because your student will become independent and confident with their time management skills.