The annual winter vacation has arrived, and while celebrating the holiday, the headache for many families is the reasonable planning and timely completion of children's holiday homework.
For more than 20 days of vacation, many children are prone to delaying homework again and again, and finally evolving into the last few days of bad homework.
This phenomenon not only brings about the low quality of homework, but also develops the bad habit of procrastinating in children, and also wastes an opportunity to improve children's time management skills.
The arrangement of the holiday itself is the child's own business, but the child's self-discipline is weak, so it needs the supervision of the parents, so is the child procrastinating because of chronic child, or is it too lazy?
If you don't realize the real reason behind procrastination, just blindly urging your child, the result will only be counterproductive.
Procrastination is actually a manifestation of anxiety
Many people think that the reason why children procrastinate is that most of them are too lazy, too poor self-control, and poor time planning, resulting in unorganized work.
But some parents will find that even if they help their children to make time planning, and the work that should be done at each time is clearly written, the child will still procrastinate.
At this time, parents will be confused, how to solve the problem of procrastination in children?
Procrastination is the act of failing to self-regulate and postponing what you have planned to do in the face of harmful consequences.
An article in the New York Times once said that the cause of procrastination is actually because people are anxious about starting or completing any task or decision, and procrastination is used as a mechanism to cope with anxiety.
Procrastination is inherently irrational because we know something is harmful to us but we have to do it.
So why do we still fall into the irrational cycle of procrastination?
It's because we can't control the negative emotions that arise when we want to start or finish something.
Emotional regulation determines whether or not to procrastinate
Many people may find it strange, are we just procrastinating because we are in a bad mood?
Like the reason why children are procrastinating in writing homework, is it just because they are not in the mood to write?
In short, yes.
Dr Tim Pychyl, a professor of psychology, also mentioned: "Procrastination is a problem of emotion regulation, not time management. ”
Procrastination is not a personality flaw such as laziness, nor is it too poor time management, but more importantly because of the challenge of completing certain tasks and the negative emotions that arise: boredom, anxiety, restlessness, depression, and even self-doubt. It is possible that the task itself is repulsive, for example, the child hates mathematics, but is now asked to write several math papers, and will instinctively resist.
Studies have shown that many people tend to blame themselves after procrastination, which is called "procrastination cognition". Just like when a child is procrastinating in writing homework, he knows that he will be reprimanded by his parents afterwards, but procrastination can temporarily make his psychological comfort, and he will still choose to procrastinate.
We chagrin at "why didn't you get things done as soon as possible" and the pressure exerted by such an idea usually leads to further delays.
Why is that? Because when people think about problems, they are more focused on the feelings of the moment.
Therefore, to solve the problem of procrastination, the most important thing is not to completely avoid negative emotions when facing new challenges, but to find a way that can not only reduce the sense of challenge at the beginning of the task, but also not produce chagrin in the future and form a secondary injury.
The "Pomodoro Method" treats procrastination
The "25+5 Pomodoro Work Method" is a great way to treat procrastination.
First, applying this method requires preparing a countdown tool that sets a time of 25 minutes, and studies have shown that 25 minutes is the most appropriate time to be able to concentrate attention, while younger children can shorten the time.
Then add a task, such as completing a math paper in those 25 minutes, and let the child concentrate on doing only one thing in this allotted 25 minutes. After 25 minutes, take a 5-minute break and start the next Pomodoro again.
The first key point of this method is "25 minutes": completing a thing in a high degree of concentration in 25 minutes is challenging for children, but also has a sense of familiarity, because in school, children usually spend about 40 minutes in a class, and take a 10-minute break after class, but lack the fun of interactive communication such as lectures, continuous quiet writing of homework, and concentrating on 25 minutes is already a challenge for children.
The second is the "rhythm": the child's body adapts to this pattern, and as soon as the tick sounds, the attention will be concentrated.
The secret of the pomodoro method is not to be interrupted, and this is the key to allowing children to concentrate.
Interruptions are divided into internal interruptions and external interruptions: internal interruptions may be the drifting of children's thinking such as wandering and imagination, while external interruptions may be the ringing of mobile phones and the laughter of children playing downstairs...
External interruptions, such as the need to go to the toilet, drink water, etc., are not allowed in principle during the Pomodoro time, but if they occur, they need to start again and re-time.
Under normal circumstances, the reason why the child procrastinates is basically caused by internal self-interruption, so what should we do when the child encounters internal interruption?
In fact, it is very simple, that is, to record the "interruption" and continue.
For example, if a child suddenly thinks of something to eat, a game, or other unrelated things, we can tell them to take a pen and record it, and then "put it aside" first, and then solve the things that are to be done in this Pomodoro.
Because sometimes one of the thoughts that comes up in a child's head may be that they want to escape from what they are doing. What we need to do is to accept the child's ideas calmly, record them, and then find time to do it after the Pomodoro is done.
All in all, when encountering the problem of procrastination in children, what we have to do is to give children a little time to adapt, a little space to exert, a little self to release, and find the most appropriate solution.