Is your Child Behind in his Work? What Method can you do to Help him?

Even though my blog is typically about social skills, the other part of my expertise is executive function, specifically as it pertains to a child’s school work. It is vital and imperative that your child remains current with his school work. For example, you do not want hear that your child is behind in three or four assignments because by that time, catching up with that work could be overwhelming. Teachers today have more and more responsibilities, including IEPs, testing, CSE meetings, regular faculty meetings, etc. I am not making an excuse when teachers do not “catch” children before they fall behind. However, our children need to become accountable for their own work as an end goal.

What can you do if you hear that your child is three assignments behind in Science, for example, where he was supposed to read chapters and answer questions as related to those chapters? If your child was current in terms of reading his chapters, then he could read each chapter in a leisured way, while at the same time picking out the most important elements. However, if it is unfortunately too late for that, another method is necessary to follow. 

After explaining to your child that this is NOT the optimal way for reading his chapters when he is caught up, teach him to read the chapters JUST to look for the answers to his questions. In order to do so, he has to learn how to skim the chapters so that he can find the answers to those questions. In order to teach him to skim, before you tell him t do so with his Science, have him try that method out with a book that he likes to read. Sit with him and skim a short chapter yourself, in the hope that he will model the art of skimming by following your example. Then, use the same technique with his Science chapter. Caveat: Only skim a few paragraphs for him in order to model the skimming technique. Then, have him skim a few paragraphs so that you can see if he has picked up the technique. At some point, it is important to fade your help out, so that he will become accountable and responsible for his own work. However, now, he must catch up on his work, while learning an effective technique for the future. 

Another point is to create a schedule WITH him that includes the weekend days. Map out when he will do his work, which work he will do, and when he will do it. Place this collaborative schedule in full view, perhaps on the refrigerator, so that he will see it every single day. He should check off the work that he does each day. How do you get him to do his work if all he wants to do is to play video games on the weekend? Since you have already worked on his schedule together, incorporate that after he completes 20 minutes of work he can play 15 minutes of video games. Once he completes his work, his time is his own! Please let me know how these methods work.