Lesson 7: Problem Solving for Success
Attention Span and Dawdling
Dawdling, arguing and daydreaming are common homeschooling challenges. Children use up enough creative energy thinking up ways to get out of doing their work to have written a best seller if that energy were properly channeled.
For some reason, children who never argued with their school teachers think they can argue with their mother during homeschool. They whine that they don’t want to do math today, for example. It is your task to make it clear that while you understand their desire, doing math isn’t optional. Suggest they simply work quickly and get it over with. This is really just another way of dawdling. As long as they are arguing, they aren’t working. Don’t allow arguing to be an option for spending time. Subtract any debate time from the clock and add it to the end of the day. If they want to debate the need for a particular subject, suggest they write an opinion paper for English!
Inattention is another problem, particularly for parents of ADD children. Most children will allow themselves to be distracted, however, whether or not they have a disability. As an adult with ADD, I have great sympathy for these children. It takes very little to distract me from something I did not want to do anyway. On days I did not want to work on this course, even doing the dishes looked attractive! Preventative action is the best way to cope with this.
Before beginning school, have your child go to restroom, get a glass of water to keep at his work area, and take care of any other pressing needs. Remove temptations from his surroundings. It is usually not wise to let younger children have school in their bedrooms, surrounded by toys. A boring living room or kitchen is better. Later, when they have more self-control, they can study wherever they like. Turn off the ringer on the telephone and let the answering machine pick up. Place a sign on the door that says school is in progress so off-track public school children don’t show up. Either keep the house quiet or put on soft instrumental music to block everyday noises.
Children with severe concentration challenges might benefit from having their view blocked. Science fair boards can be placed on the table or desk to block out all distractions. Eventually, you will want to remove this for brief periods of time that gradually become longer, since a child must learn to work in a busy environment. With training borne of desperation, I learned to write through any number of childish distractions, so it can be done.
My children often needed to be reminded to concentrate. It became tiresome for all of us to hear me constantly saying, “Pay attention.” Eventually, I had the children make signs that said, “Focus.” They placed these on their desks as a personal reminder. If I found their attention wandering, I could point to the sign without speaking.
Dawdling is usually a problem when children are doing dull, rote work, such as math. One way to resolve the problem is to create a personal competition in which the child competes with himself to improve his time. Not only does this add a little fun to the lesson, but it eventually leads to good work habits as the child becomes accustomed to working efficiently—most of the time! Watch him do five or ten problems one day, timing him. Tell him you are checking to see how fast he can work, so that he really pays attention. Use this time as a baseline, perhaps adding a few minutes for good measure. Each day, post the record time by his work area. Challenge him to try to match or beat it. Because your child may not have the same number of problems each day, divide to see how long to assign each problem. You will need to adjust for harder problems. For instance, long division will naturally take longer than short division. You may want to retest for each new type of problem.
There needn’t be any rewards or punishments. If you reward, the rewards will have to get larger as the child gets older. Praise is fine, but eventually the child should learn to work for the satisfaction of working.
When your child has a particularly good day, discuss what made him able to work well. If he has a difficult time concentrating, ask him to think about what went wrong. In this way, he may learn to analyze his challenges and come up with his own accommodations.
