Monday, August 17, 2020

Let Us Do Your Homework Tonight

Let Us Do Your Homework Tonight In this case, it is probably better to brace yourself, take a pill and like in any confusing situation go to sleep. Tomorrow, telling about your yesterday’s headache, don’t forget to say to the teachers that you did not dare to skip school even due to poor health and lack of homework. If they ever had headaches, they’ll understand. If your children feel supported and loved, and if everyone is going to bed mostly happy, make yourself a tinfoil star and put it on your computer right now. (Or, if you hate crafts, eat an Oreo.) You are winning. Hours of their day are spent not on memorizing facts and learning new concepts, but on social interaction, games, and daily classroom tasks. You have not suddenly become a home-school teacher overnight. Unless you were already home-schooling your child, as I do, the responsibility of reading, writing, and arithmetic still lies with their school. While teachers and school systems are working on ways to best meet standards in this new, uncharted world of large-scale virtual learning, parents can calm themselves. If you would like more information about Executive Function Skills, Island Educational Services has a lending library with a variety of resources for families and teachers. Once you have relieved yourself of the burden of educating your children, you can shift your focus to teaching them how to cope with the unexpected. This is a time to lean in to your children, providing them with extra love and support. ” Try to ask questions that need more than a “yes” or “no” answer. Not certain of where to start, they put off the task as long as they can. As they realize more time is passing, they become more and more anxious and eventually a sense of inevitability is created ~ I can’t do this task. In younger children, this is often expressed as tears or acting out while in adolescents, there may be slamming doors or outright lying about the task being completed. What if you really have a headache and the project is up for tomorrow? Spend the time you would have been commuting cooking together. Spend your lunch break eating as a family and read together afterward. Then he came up with his own plan of when the chores would be completed. Taking ownership of the tasks and knowing what was expected reduced our arguments and my complaints. While he still needed the occasional nudge, he learned how to start tasks on his own without a lot of excuses or tears. First, stifle the thought that the student is lazy or doesn’t care about his or her work. Instead, think differently about how to ask questions. Start game night traditions if your evening sports are canceled. Agree to a family walk once a day, before work requires your online presence. Your children are going to remember how they felt during the COVID-19 outbreak, not what they missed in math class. The greater risk to our children, and ourselves, is the stress we are adding to all our lives by believing that parents have to take on the full weight of education. The lesson to be learned from home-schoolers is that what kids need goes far beyond classroom instructional time. Instead of asking, “Have you started on your writing assignment? ” ask the question differently, “Are you a bit overwhelmed about where to start? ” or “What do you think is making this assignment so difficult to start? We have several wonderful “coaches” who can help students set up systems, create strategy sheets, and provide successful study tips. There are also several websites who have good strategies and ideas; the National Center for Learning Disabilities and LD Online are two excellent sites with additional links. Finally, with the student, create a plan of how a task will be done. When my son started struggling to start chores after school, we created a checklist for each task he was to complete. The checklist included my expectations for each chore, the items he would need to complete the chore (broom, sponge, etc.) and how much time might be needed for each task. A typical homeschool schedule for elementary school kids only has about two to three hours a day. The balance of each day is filled with exploration, reading, household tasks, and learning to manage boredom.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.