Homework: Six Strategies to Prevent Your Child from Getting Into Overwhelm
By Ellen Mossman- Glazer M.Ed. Life Skills Coach, Behavior Specialist.

1. Plan ahead. Shift gears before homework burn out sets in. We adults need quick pick-me-ups through the day; coffee breaks, power naps, a few deep stretches to keep alert. So do our kids. Work with your kids to help them discover their personal strategies to refresh and refocus.

2.Take many mini breaks. Plan for them so your student can look forward to a periodic relaxer. This is a good strategy to help kids with ADHD or Asperger Syndrome, or High Functioning Autism. If focus and concentration on a non –preferred activity is a challenge, you can build time on task. Break every 15 minutes or every 5 minutes if that’s where you can start with success.

3. Use their talents and interests to motivate at work time and enjoy at break time. At the pre-determined break time, it might be one round of table hockey or ten minutes with the colored markers or….just be sure to establish the rules ahead of time, something like “ this is a ‘mini break’ and a privilege and I trust you to stop and get right back to work when the time is up.” A minute timer is handy to keep nearby and you might be pleasantly surprised at how your child monitors his own breaks.

4. Just stop working for a while or for the day. Let the brain recharge. Loosen up on your homework rules when you know it makes sense, but make it a rare event. You know your child’s limits: when she will respond well to an extra push and when she is unable to push forward another bit.

5.Begin to handle a small piece of long-term projects as soon as the assignment comes in. Bigger projects are an opportunity to help your child learn to organize with mind mapping techniques.

6. Keep in steady contact with teachers. Be pro-active in preventing overwhelm in the form of an avalanche of assignments. Incomplete homework may suddenly show up, buried in folders or at the backpack bottom, and it all comes out as the grading period is coming to a close. Most teachers are happy to work on homework systems with parents to avoid late-semester chaos when it is too late anyway to catch up on those lost grades. If your child has an IEP, work together with the school to help your child make the best of his modification plan. Or follow that model; create a working relationship with your child’s teachers; set up a weekly meeting or phone call for a homework progress review or communicate in writing daily through a planner book.

Very Important Final Tip: Practice these steps before you have a homework crisis on your hands!

Copyright Ellen Mossman-Glazer 2005. All rights reserved. You are welcome to share or reprint this article, providing it remains as written with all contact and copyright information included along with a link to http://artofbehaviorchange.com This content is coaching and education and not intended to take the place of psychological services, where advised and appropriate.