What Kind of Time Management Skills Are You Learning from the Adults in Your Life? | New York Times - The Learning Network

"Do your parents model good behavior when it comes to things like being punctual, finishing tasks on time and allowing themselves appropriate amounts of unscheduled time?" summarizes Shannon Doyne, The Learning Network. 

 

Photo: The Learning Network

Are your parents good at managing their time? What habits, if any, have you picked up from them?

In “How to Be a Modern Parent,” Perri Klass, M.D. and Lisa Damour, on the topic of how parents can help their children learn time management skills, write:

We all know the cliché of the overscheduled child, rushing from athletic activity to music lessons to tutoring, and there will probably be moments when you will feel like that parent, with a carload of equipment and a schedule so complicated that you wake up in the middle of the night worrying you’re going to lose track. But it’s also a joy and a pleasure to watch children discover the activities they really enjoy, and it’s one of the privileges of parenthood to cheer your children on as their skills improve.

Some children really do thrive on what would be, for others, extreme overscheduling. Know your child, talk to your child, and when necessary, help your child negotiate the decisions that make it possible to keep doing the things that mean the most, even if that means letting go of some other activities.

Remember, children can get a tremendous amount of pleasure, and also great value, from learning music, from playing sports, and also from participating in the array of extracurricular activities that many schools offer. However, they also need a certain amount of unscheduled time. The exact mix varies from child to child, and even from year to year. On the one hand, we need to help our children understand the importance of keeping the commitments they make — you don’t get to give up playing your instrument because you’re struggling to learn a hard piece; you don’t quit the team because you’re not one of the starters — and on the other, we need to help them decide when it’s time to change direction or just plain let something go.

Read more... 

Source: New York Times