How to Teach Children Effective Time Management?

Too often kids and parents feel dissatisfied and disillusioned in the educational process. Parents might get frustrated in their efforts to help their children succeed, whereas a child might get frustrated getting up to his parent’s expectations. Now the question arises, how can parents help their children to be successful and find joy in learning? Parents can help their children thrive in school, and in life, by having pragmatic expectations of their children’s abilities and by helping them to develop independent work habits.

Working successfully with a child on school assignment needs understanding of the child’s developmental abilities. It is quite usual for parents to expect a child to remain quiet and still while doing learning activities, but research has proven that brains function better when movement is part of the learning process. Most children require some movement every fifteen or twenty minutes or so to concentrate. Making movement, a part of the activity is an immense way to inspire most advantageous learning and also interest and joy in learning.

If parents try to put movement into the activity and had also made an attempt to capitalize upon child’s natural gift for wonder and fun, they can present the activity to child as a game. By doing so he would not only have been overjoyed to practice his spelling words, he would also learn them more speedily and parents can have had a good time too. For instance, parents can keep the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle in different places around the room and each time a child wrote the correct spelling of a word, he would have been allowed to get a piece of the puzzle. When all of the pieces were collected this way, he could put the puzzle together. The time he would spend assembling the puzzle would not only be his reward for learning and writing the correct spelling, it would be a rest break for him before starting the next learning activity.

Parents can persuade child’s efforts to work without help. Most often, in their aspiration to help their child achieve good education and relatively best scoring in the schools, parents set the bar too high, anticipating more from their children than their capability is reasonable under the circumstances. If expectations are unrealistic, children practice failure more than they carry out success. They learn to avoid learning lessons rather than to take pleasure in their achievements. Parents can easily help children to draw a plan for how to learn and remember the spelling words. The plan can comprise writing each word five times while spelling it out loud as the child walked around the room, mobilizing his whole brain for learning by integrating movement into the activity. The next step in the plan could be a test of the words while the child balanced on one foot (weird as it sounds, research reasserts that students devote better attention when engaging in balancing activities). And the plan can also include a five to ten minute break (maybe to compose a puzzle) after finishing the test. Similar exercises and plans can be formulated for making children learn other things like mathematics, science or general knowledge.

Developing independent work habits sets aside a child to feel like a flourishing learner. The feeling of success advocates more focus and commitment towards the studies in the children. Parents can help their child mainly by evidently showing confidence in their ability to succeed. Children who are motivated to believe in success are much more liable to persist when the going gets sturdy. They do not become deterred by minor setbacks. They understand and find it easier to control the situation, and get over from the setbacks if any, in shorter times and they have in their educational experience.

One characteristic of independent work habit is learning effective time management skills. Helping children develop effective time management skills improves their grades and gives them the chance to spend more time with their family and friends. Parents could supervise the amount of time a child gives to each task. For instance, a mother can tell her child that he has thirty minutes to practice spelling words, and if he gets at least 90 percent in the practice test, then he can use two hours for an activity of his choice like reading story books, solving puzzles, or any sports activity, this way a child will feel rejuvenated and he will easily accept and complete the task you want him to do.

Parents can work more successfully with children by integrating movement and fun into homework activities and by formulating strategies and procedures for management of homework. When parents take a child’s leanings into consideration in teaching independent work habits to him, the environment of the home is improved and both parents and kids have fun and get pleasure in doing schoolwork and homework.

Teachers and parents both need to work together to assist children in pursuing a well-balanced lifestyle. The matter of school performance should be kept separate from other activities of a child’s life. If teachers and parents both, promote quality education, a strong sense of involvement with the kids, and encourage their performance with positive reinforcement, a well-balanced lifestyle can be maintained.