Create plans for your child when young. Use the expression “Let’s make a plan” and then write it out as a series of steps. Better yet, make it a checklist, so the child can check off each step as it’s completed.
Keep a reduced but still present level of monitoring in place for the whole year. It may be hard to stick with it when things seem to be going so well, but it’s only with this duration of reinforcement that many kids maintain long-term improvements in sustained attention.
Don’t make any significant changes in the plan until your child has maintained improvements over one and preferably two marking terms (3 to 4 months). It’s not unusual for this plan to work initially, making parents and teachers overconfident that the problem has been solved permanently. But if you drop the plan altogether or become a lot less vigilant, your child’s performance is likely to return, even if only gradually, to preplan levels.
Make sure your child has the same assigned location in the classroom every day so the teacher knows that if she is not there, she’s probably off-task. We’ve used this system in public school classrooms for a number of years and found that success depends in good part on the teacher (or paraprofessional if there is one in class) maintaining the cueing and check-in system. The only way for this to be practical is for the student to be in a consistent location in the room.
Ellen never seems to get her second-grade work done. The problem began last year in first grade once students were expected to complete seatwork independently. Her teacher made some accommodations, such as reducing the workload, because Ellen was clearly a bright student who seemed to be able to master the lessons even though she couldn’t always get her work done. This year’s teacher is not so inclined, though, and work completion is becoming a bigger issue. Mrs. Barker, her teacher, first raised the issue at the parent–teacher conference that accompanied the end of the first marking period. “Ellen is such a social child,” she said. “She seems to be able to keep track of everything else going on in the class and wants to help other students when they get stuck, but somehow can’t find her way to getting through her own work.” Shortly afterward, Mrs. Barker started sending home with Ellen the work that she hadn’t finished in school with the instructions to get it done for homework. Her mother finds herself spending long homework sessions with Ellen trying to get her through the work.
Giving children developmentally appropriate chores to do is one of the best ways to begin teaching task initiation. Starting in preschool or kindergarten, this helps teach children that there are times when they have to set aside what they want to do in favor of something that needs to get done even though it may not be fun.
Don’t hesitate to reinstitute use of the cues and the timer for a few weeks if your child stops initiating assigned chores or other tasks over a period of a month or more. Sometimes kids need a refresher course.
Involve your child as much as possible in the planning process once you’ve been providing models for a while. Ask, “What do you need to do first? And then what?” and so on and write down each step as the child dictates it to you.
Once you and your daughter set up the desk as desired, make clearing off the desk part of the bedtime routine—initially, with on-site monitoring and supervision and eventually with reminders to start and check-ins when she’s finished. You may find it helpful to take a photograph of the space when you first set it up, so your child has a model to compare her work to. The last step in the process might be for your daughter to look at the photo and see how closely her desk matches it.
There are two sets of metacognitive skills that you can help your child develop. One set involves the child’s ability to evaluate her performance on a task, such as a chore or a homework assignment, and to make changes based on that evaluation. The second set involves the child’s ability to evaluate social situations—both her own behavior and others’ reactions and the behavior of others.
Remember that a child’s time horizon is much shorter than yours. For a plan like this to succeed, the end always has to be in sight for the child. So don’t get too ambitious in teaching this skill. Expectations that the child will save for months or put all his resources into savings are unrealistic. Remember that learning to save requires ongoing and long-term practice. Be prepared to use savings systems over an extended time period.
A designer uses their expertise in the service of others without being a servant. Saying no is a design skill. Asking why is a design skill. Rolling your eyes and staying quiet is not. Asking ourselves why we are making something is an infinitely better question than asking ourselves whether we can make it.
“You may be hiring us and that may be your name on the check, but we do not work for you. We’re coming in to solve a problem, because we believe it needs to be solved and it’s worth solving. But we work for the people being affected by that problem. Our job is to look out for them because they’re not in the room. And we will under no circumstances design anything that puts those people at risk.”
