Dr. Yvonne Fournier
Dear Dr. Fournier:
I read your helpful article about using a timer to teach kids how long tasks take. I would like to try this with my 5th grade son. I especially like the idea of keeping the log showing the difference between the child's estimate and actual time it takes to do a task. However, I have a child who always underestimates how long things will take. What would you suggest doing when the task takes longer than his estimate? How would you record this on the log? The timer won't help him keep track of the extra time it takes.
Thank you for your interesting article.
Lynne
Columbus, Ohio
Dear Lynne:
As our children go from grade to grade, both the amount and the complexity of what they will be asked to complete and learn will increase. That is why starting to learn how to judge the amount of time a task will take is vital to your son’s future success.
ASSESSMENT
As children grow older, they will increasingly be expected to make commitments. They must know how to judge a task based on what are they able to do and in how much time. Without this knowledge they may commit to complete tasks with the best of intentions, but find that they have bitten off more than they could chew. The leadership skill that will help resolve this issue is the skill of self-reliance.
Self- reliance is about trust. In life, if you can’t trust yourself, why should anyone else trust you? Before accepting a commitment, make sure that you are capable of honoring your word.
When making a commitment, your child must know how to do the task or be willing to learn, and must agree to having the task complete when it is due. Should he commit, he is saying, “I trust myself to get this task done well as was requested.”
WHAT TO DO
Lynne, your son underestimates the time tasks will take. The danger of this underestimation is that he opens himself to procrastinating. Too often procrastination results in rushed, poor-quality work. For some it even means not having the work done when it is due.
The inability to estimate how much time a task will take (working capacity) has additional potentially negative consequences. The outward appearance of lack of responsibility often results in judgment labels such as careless, disorganized, lazy, inattentive, unfocused, and unreliable. Even if your son responds with what he would consider “reasonable”
Have your son write his homework assignments in the order that makes the most sense for him to complete, given the other responsibilities he has for the specific day. Next, have him write the time he will begin each assignment and the time he believes it will take. Once he has assessed the entire evening’s work, have him use a timer for each assignment. For example, he will begin his social studies assignment at 5:30 pm and he expects the assignment will take 30 minutes. Once he begins the task the digital timer should be in a place he can see while he works. Should the timer go off, he should once again ask himself how much more time the task will take. He should start the timer again.
He may set it for 20 more minutes, yet he completes the task in ten more minutes. Now he knows that the next time he has a similar task he should budget 30 + 10 = 40 minutes.
As he sets criteria to judge each task, your son will get better at judging his working capacity for any given task. The other benefit is that many children intuitively find better, more efficient strategies. Knowing that he is at 40 minutes sets the stage for him to decrease his time on a task by using his creativity to find more efficient strategies.
Children who do not develop an intuitive knowledge of their own working capacity are setting themselves up for failure. This will be a source of stress because they will not trust themselves to do what is expected in school and later in life. A typical example of this is when parents are caught spending the night doing a project that the child has due the next day and was not completed due to the mismanagement of time.
After two weeks help your son identify the tasks that he severely underestimated. It could be reading a science section and answering the questions. He may read and understand quickly but the questions ask for many specifics and they must be written in full sentences. The analysis of why he underestimated could be that your son only gave himself time for the reading, believing that answering the questions would be quick and easy. Instead, the opposite was true. Conversely, look for the assignments that were overestimated. The math problems he thought would take an hour actually were done in in forty-five minutes. Similar math assignments may seem less daunting the next time they come around.
Each time he begins to organize new assignments, have him go back to the log of similar assignments. Now he has a guideline for good decision-making through effective estimation.
As your child carries out the “research”
CONTACT DR. FOURNIER
Have a question about education, education-related issues or your child’s schoolwork or homework? Ask Dr. Fournier and look for her answer in this column. E-mail your question or comment to Dr. Yvonne Fournier at drfournier@hfhw.net.
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http://www.prlog.org/
