Turn high schooler’s desire for a job into a lesson in real life

September 14, 2010 12:00 PM Filed in: High School

Dear Dr. Fournier: My son has worked all summer and has done an excellent job. He hasn't missed a day. He has enjoyed earning his own spending money. He now wants to work during the school year and has offered to help pay for his car insurance. We're so proud of the responsibility he has shown and helping with the car was his idea. We're afraid schoolwork might hurt if he works, but we're afraid of interfering with the responsibility and pride he is developing by working. To let him work or not to work - we can't make up our minds. Cindy S., Bloomington, MO

Dear Cindy: Your son believes he can perform his primary job - the demanding task of being a student – and still be responsible enough to work for a paycheck. That's quite an accomplishment and you should be proud.

The Assessment: Though this arrangement looks good on paper and is developing responsibility, you and your family need to stop for a moment and consider what message your child is getting about the world of work. As adults we must bring home a paycheck to cover basic living expenses first and if anything is left, then we can consider frills or pleasure items. Since parents already cover their basic living expenses, teenagers who work often get the message backward. They learn that the paycheck is for pleasure first, simply disposable income and entertainment dollars, and to “help out” with what's left over, like for his car insurance.

Is it any wonder that, as these children grow older, they remain tied to their parents’ checkbooks? In many families, the child's paycheck goes toward a new stereo or vacation with friends as long as parents are there to help out with the rent or credit card payments. I believe parents must emphasize the traditional work ethic of being responsible and self-supporting, and not the notion that work is only to pay for pleasure. If this is not instilled early on, these children may get themselves into debt or other financial strife for lack of understanding the financial order of operations.

What To Do: Work is an excellent opportunity to teach children about real life.

The first step is for your child to take a long look at the family expenses and all the basic necessities you pay for him - mortgage payments, insurance, telephone bills, utility bills, groceries, laundry, car, car maintenance, etc. Once your child is fully aware of what his life costs are, he should let you know how much he will contribute toward these expenses.

No matter what your economic situation, your child should be encouraged to contribute something – even if it is only a few dollars- to cover basic living expenses first before leaping to the pleasure purchases.

Since your son has only worked during the summer, he needs to be prepared to demonstrate how he will balance schoolwork and his paying job. Have him set up a system to keep track of every grade in every subject and average the grades weekly, also keeping a cumulative average for each grading period. Along with this weekly grades summary, have your child record how many hours he works each week at his after-school job.

As a condition for keeping his outside job, have your son show you his grades at the end of each week so you can monitor his school “paycheck.” By keeping the averages up-to-date, you will be able to see - before report cards come out - if your son's grades start slipping.

Your son needs to be prepared to have a plan of action to make sure his primary job of being a student doesn't become secondary to working for pleasure.

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Tags: Responsibility

Self-reliance: The key to understanding working capacity

August 17, 2010 05:34 PM Filed in: Elementary School

Dear Dr. Fournier: I read your very helpful article about using a timer to teach kids how long tasks take. I would like to try this with my 5th grade son. I especially like the idea of keeping the log showing the difference between the child's estimate and actual time it takes to do a task, however, I have a child who always underestimates how long things will take. What would you suggest for when the task takes longer than his estimate? How would you record this on the log? The timer won't help him keep track of the extra time it takes. Thank you for your interesting article. Lynne, Columbus, Ohio

Dear Lynne: School is about learning reading writing, arithmetic and much more. Yet all this learning is not enough for your child to be successful now or later. Along with the basic skills we must start early teaching our children the personal leadership skills that that with a firm knowledge base, will make them shine and be noticed. During the years of kindergarten through fourth grade, the focus of leadership is on developing responsibility.

Responsibility means your child knows that completing tasks and learning whenever these are due is not optional. Of course, we help our children learn responsibility, first by modeling and then slowly having them determine the steps they will take to be unstressed and responsible.

Once responsibility is firmly engrained, we are able to move on. The next leadership skill is self-reliance. Why? As our children grow older, they will increasingly be expected to make commitments. They must know how to judge a task, based on what they know about themselves: what are they able to do in how much time. Without this knowledge they may commit to complete tasks with the best of intentions. Yet we all know that good intentions are not always enough.

Self-reliance is about trust. Spell out the rule: In life, if you can’t trust yourself, why should anyone else trust you? Before accepting a commitment, make sure that you are capable of honoring your word. Honor and respect must be given to you by yourself first, before you can expect anyone else to do the same.

When making a commitment, your child must know how to do the task or be willing to learn, and must agree to having it done when it is due. Should he commit, he is saying, “I trust myself to get this done well as was requested.”

The Assessment: As our children go from grade to grade, both the amount and the complexity of what they will be asked to complete and learn will increase. That is why starting to learn how to judge the amount of time a task will take is vital to your son’s future success.

What To Do: Lynne, your son underestimates the time tasks will take. The danger of this underestimation is that he opens himself to procrastinating. Too often procrastination results in rushed, poor quality of work. For some it even means not having the work done at all when it was due.

Inability to estimate how much the time a task will take (working capacity) has additional potential negative consequences: the outward appearance of lack of responsibility often results in labels such as careless, disorganized, lazy, inattentive, unfocused, and unreliable. Even if your son responds with what he would consider “reasonable” excuses, he has set himself up to be a be considered a student that cannot be trusted.

Have your son write his homework assignments in the order that makes the most sense for him to complete given the other responsibilities he has for the specific day. Next, have him write the time he will begin each assignment and the time he believes it will take. Once he has assessed the entire evenings work, have him use a timer for each assignment. For example, he will begin his social studies assignment at 5:30 pm and he expects the assignment will take 30 minutes. Once he begins the task the digital timer should be in a place he can see as he works. Should the timer go off, he should once again ask himself how much more time the task will take. He should start the timer again.
He may set it for 20 more minutes, yet he completes the task in ten more minutes. Now he knows that the next time he has a similar task (even if it is in science) he should budget 30 + 10 = 40 minutes.

As he sets criteria to judge each task your son will get better at judging his working capacity for any given task. The other benefit is that many children intuitively find better, more efficient strategies. Knowing that he is at 40 minutes sets the stage for him to decrease his time on a task by using his creativity to find more efficient methods.

Children who do not develop an intuitive knowledge of their own working capacity are setting themselves up for failure. This will be a source of stress because they will not trust themselves to do what is expected in school and later in life. If they cannot trust themselves, why should anyone else trust them?

After two weeks help your son identify the tasks that he severely underestimated. It could be reading a science section and answering the questions. He may read and understand quickly but the questions ask for many specifics and they must be written in full sentences. Analysis of why he underestimated could be that your son only gave himself time for the reading thinking that answering the questions would quick and easy. Instead the opposite was true. Conversely, also look for the assignments thought were overestimated. The math problems he thought would take an hour actually were done in in forty-five minutes. and will seem less daunting the next time it comes around.

Each time new he begins new assignments, have him go back to the log of similar assignments. Now he has a guideline for good decision-making through effective estimation.

As your child carries out the “research” phase on learning how long different task really takes he is going to be ready for future grade levels that will expect more done in less time. Knowing his personal working capacity work is a powerful tool to build trust in himself and be trusted by peers, teachers and parents.

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Tags: Responsibility

Simple instructions, sometimes not so simple

August 03, 2010 12:00 PM Filed in: Elementary School

Dear Dr. Fournier: I get so frustrated with my son. I tell him to do things and he starts and then forgets everything else. When I get angry, he says he can’t help it - he just can’t remember. He cries when I punish him. Even after he is punished, he still does this. He just doesn’t listen. Kerry, TX

Dear Kerry: It is easy to confuse hearing and listening. While your child may be hearing your instructions, that does not mean they have learned to add the mindfulness and attention required for listening.

The Assessment: Parents can help their children develop the mindfulness necessary to capture the message intended once we know hearing is not an issue.

Before trying to develop this skill in your child, begin by listening to yourself. Think of a typical set of instructions you give your child and count the individual steps required.

For example, you may give what you believe to be a simple instruction: “Bring me your laundry and make sure it’s ready to be washed before I get busy with dinner.” However, this command requires at least seven steps:

1. Go to your room
2. Get your dirty clothes
3. Take them to the laundry room
4. Separate them by color
5. Add them to the right stacks
6. Empty out all pockets
7. Do it before dinner.

Although parents view their instructions as simple and to the point, they are often quite complicated for children.

What To Do: Kerry, begin by giving your child an instruction that has no more than three parts. Once you have said the instructions, go over it again and teach your child to separate the tasks with you.

“Let’s see how many things you have to do. First, go upstairs,” you might say while holding up one finger. “Second, get your dirty laundry. Third, bring it to the laundry room.” Next, ask your son to find one word to represent each of his three fingers, such as

1. Upstairs
2. Laundry
3. Laundry room.

Now your instructions have been broken into individual tasks and clarified. By having your son give one-word summaries, you will also know that hearing has taken place.

Once he can complete three tasks with one instruction, move to four and then to five. By then, see if he can quantify and summarize (find key words and create a sequence from these: upstairs, laundry, laundry room, separate, group, and done!) on his own.

Your son's ears are responsible for hearing, and his mind is responsible for listening. Try not to confuse these two skills - one is innate, the other you must help to develop with practice and patience.

Mindful attention from our children begins with calculated and thorough teaching by parents.

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Tags: Skills, Strategies, Responsibility

Emphasize gains, losses in child’s approach to tasks

July 13, 2010 12:00 PM Filed in: All Levels

Dear Dr. Fournier: You say parents should not tie material rewards to their children’s grades. To my regret, I pay my children for grades and chores. I thought that since adults work for pay, children should work for pay, too. Now each time I ask for help I am asked, “How much are you going to pay me?” How do I get out of this trap? Chuck B., Little Rock, Arkansas

Dear Chuck: It is common for parents to use a system of punishments and rewards when they are dealing with their children. It seems natural to reward a completed job, or to punish a child for not handling his or her responsibilities, and many parents out there will argue for this kind of system. The assumption is just as you said, “I thought that since adults work for pay, children should work for pay, too.”

However, let’s stop and think about this for a moment. At the office, if you have not completed the work you were expected to do, we do not hear an employer come in and say, “If you complete the employee handbook, I’ll give you $5 for each paragraph and $1 for every sentence,” or “Bring in your stereo. You’ve lost it for a month for not getting your work in on time.”

The Assessment: A child’s hopeful question, “How much are you going to pay me?” is often followed by a predictable response when parents refuse to buy into a reward system: “But you get paid for the work you do…!”

Yes, adults work hard to make money and pay the bills, but children have the idea of working to collect pocket money for fun. Parents are not responsible for hiring their children to go to school or to be a contributing member of the household. If a parent makes the choice to pay their child for success in school and for chores at home, the child is silently being told that their motivation is directly tied to our wallets.

In the workplace, adults may find themselves taking on additional tasks or carrying work home without the expectation of extra pay. Just imagine responding to a supervisor’s request with the question “How much are you going to pay me?” It could jeopardize future promotions, job security, and the paycheck.

Life will give our children enough opportunities to work for money. As parents, we must teach children to carry out responsibilities regardless of the time, tediousness, or discomfort that the task may require.

The responsibilities that come with being a contributing member of a loving and caring family should not be for sale, nor should success in school. Whenever a child asks, “What do I get for it?” your only answer needs to be, “The opportunity to learn how to love, care and avoid suffering losses in future relationships.” Your child needs to take ownership of his accomplishments and he cannot do that if his success is bought and paid for. Genuine motivation cannot fully develop when it is tied to the promise of an external reward.

What To Do: Introduce your child to a new vocabulary, Chuck. It is a vocabulary of decision-making. Many children base their decisions and choices solely on the promise of instant gratification. The responsibility that you will have in this situation is to guide your child toward making decisions based on a rational assessment of gains and losses.

Each time your child is faced with a choice, they must ask the question: “What am I willing to lose for the sake of what I will gain?” Help your child adopt a plus and minus system of understanding and balancing possible gains and losses. It could be as simple as asking, “If I don’t help dad with the yard work, what will I gain and what will I lose?” Your child will ultimately realize that he is gaining an afternoon of freedom, but will learn that he is choosing to damage trust and cohesion in the family. This is an important understanding not only for the short term repercussions with the family, but also for his long term development in how he will participate in creating and maintaining future relationships in his adult life.

The same plus and minus system also applies to school, where your child has the choice of doing poorly or doing well. When using the gains and losses strategy in this context, stick to the responsibilities that apply to all courses, such as not completing homework. We all have the right to experience failure, but if a student chooses to do poor work, he or she needs to understand that the choice has been made for both short-term (in school grades) and long-term (in life opportunities) losses for the minimal gain of avoiding work.

After you discuss these gains and losses, work with your child to develop her own definitions of doing well and doing poorly in school, then do the same for the responsibilities she has at home with the family. These can be different subjects and may change during the school year. This will give your child a measuring stick for his choices. Write down your short-term and long-term expectations and have your child clearly set out the losses he should be choosing. Giving up an afternoon to yard work in order to be a contributor to a happier home life is a loss worth taking.

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Tags: Responsibility

Students: Don’t ruin college chances by picking wrong classes

May 11, 2010 12:00 PM Filed in: High School

Dear Dr. Fournier: Our son is in the eighth grade and the school year will be over in a few weeks. Today, he brought home a list of courses to choose from for his ninth grade year. He must register for the courses now so my wife and I have been looking over the options and discussing with him what he should take. He has picked what I think are too many tough courses and it seems like too much to me. I don’t want to dampen his spirit because he’s excited about starting high school and says he can do it. Should I just let him decide? David E., Blacksburg, VA

Dear David: When children enter high school, they reach an educational turning point. For the first time, schools ask them to become collaborators in determining their future.

As collaborators, they must understand the privilege of selection and with that privilege goes the responsibility of thoughtful reasoning before decisions are made.

The Assessment: Selecting courses for high school is like charting a route on a map to arrive at a certain destination. In charting both road maps and academic maps, one concern is paramount: You must know where you are headed to avoid wasteful detours.

Setting goals to reach your destination is especially important for students entering high school. Unless they have a plan for the future, they cannot become true collaborators. Instead, they will continue to do as they are told, do as they see others do, or do as they please based on the amount of free time they want now or in their senior year of high school.

In order to draw a complete academic map, students must know why each course is a good choice for their destiny and how these courses need to be timed to reach their goals.

What To Do: David, you should help your son find his own academic path. This does not mean that as an eighth-grader, he must decide today what he plans to do with the rest of his life but he should have some idea of his destination. Once he starts on his path, he can always take different twists and turns, but he needs to stay turned toward his goal.

Here are some guidelines to use for helping him prepare realistic goals:

Make a plan: Have your son write his planned destination after high school. This could be college, vocational education or work. For example: “I will major in psychology in college,” or “I will go to vocational school to learn how to be an airplane mechanic.” Let your child know that changes to this plan are always okay. He may want to start with a general field of interest such as, “I like to work with computers,” and fine-tune his choice as he learns more about possible careers.

Research the destination: Have your child research his planned destination. If he plans to go to college, have him visit the library and check grade point averages and high school course requirements of at least three colleges that are viable choices for him. If a particular college is the destination, have him write for a catalog and general information on the college or go on its website and view and/or download this information. Or if he plans to go directly to work, have him call three places that hire high school graduates and ask for the company’s employment requirements. With this information, your child now has the parameters for making his decision because he has defined the possible destination.

Match high school courses to destination: Have your child review all course offerings at his high school. He should mark the courses required by his state for graduation and spread these out over his four years of high school.

Select electives carefully: Have your child mark additional courses he wants to take. These electives should be strategically selected and based on reasoned thinking. Your child may want to explore a subject he has not taken before but might enjoy. Some elective courses may support the child’s destination; others may not.

Avoid overload: Have your child list how he will distribute these courses during the four years of high school in a way that minimizes overload. Have him write the grade he must get in each course for each subject in order to end up with a grade point average that will open doors later in college, vocational school or in a job. Your child will then be able to weigh how much work he will need to put in each year of high school to meet or exceed grade goals.

Now your child is ready to collaborate with his teachers and guidance counselors to determine what he needs for the future. Any child that has not completed his own rigorous inquiry about state graduation requirements, elective courses and where he is headed in life will not develop mind wealth. This is also a child not ready to speak with a counselor about subject planning for his high school career.

Our nation has too many students that go to teachers, advisors or counselors for all the decision-making on classes. If they do this for four years of high school, it should be no surprise to parents they will do this in college and end up with a degree that leads to a dead-end street.

The first and most important step for your child to learn now is to take ownership of the present with a self-developed compass as to where he is going.

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Tags: Responsibility, System, Strategies

Seniors: Graduation NEVER ends; Parents shocked

May 25, 2010 12:00 PM Filed in: High School

Dear Dr. Fournier: Our son the senior, has been dancing around the living room for the last three weeks. Parties, lunches, celebrations and such have started leading up to the prom and graduation day.

He thinks this is his greatest hurdle and that life will be a piece of cake from now on. He also fancies himself an adult as he will turn 18 two weeks after graduation. His mother and I keep telling him that because he made good grades and a high ACT score that got him in a highly respectable college does not mean he can rest on those laurels.

What advice would you give him and others graduating in a few weeks from high school? Marvin G., Atlanta, GA

Dear Marvin: Graduation.

It’s a magic word this time of year, particularly for seniors and their parents. The magic comes from the expectation of proms, parties, celebrations, and caps and gowns. You’re seeing this already in your son. He is immersed in senioritis, the period of time when students want to fall back on their achievements and to merit new privileges.

Graduation is also a time of mixed feelings, a time when students look back and ask, “Is it over? Is this all there is? How did it go by so fast?”

The Assessment: The shock may be even greater for parents. We remember not just the last four years of school but the day we brought the baby home from the hospital, the horrible nights of colic, the birthdays, the scraped knees, the first date and so much more. Each set of experiences changed us, giving us depth, happiness, and renewed energy watching our children grow and develop physically, intellectually and emotionally.

And along the way, we also experienced sadness.

Rather than being a time of magic, high school graduation is really an artificial event. The graduations that really count – those events that change us and provide new beginnings – are the graduations of life. Some of these turning points are predictable such as, getting your first job, getting married and having children, yet many are not.

What your son is about to begin learning, Marvin, is that we all have a series of graduations in our lives, a time of closing out the past and going on to new challenges. Graduations in life have little to do with school and everything to do with personal growth and learning.

What To Do: For high school and especially for college graduation, give your child the gift of insight.

Think back to your own life and pinpoint your personal graduations – the times when your dreams became nightmares and when your fears brought success.

Find a way to capture these graduations of life, whether in writing, through illustrations, on audio recordings, or in a Graduation scrapbook with photos, clippings and mementos. You may even set up a new scrapbook or journal for your child to record the next series of events that will lead to the next graduation of life.

Getting a degree may lead to a party – what you did to get the degree says whether you truly expect graduation or not.

By sharing your personal history, your child can learn that hindsight gives us direction, vision gives us a road map, and that living through gains and pains gives us the learning that prepares us to go forward. Too many children give up on themselves because they have not measured up to school’s definition of success.
Help your child understand that graduation is not just an end – it’s much more a beginning with new opportunities for success.

The true yardstick is not an artificial graduation tied to a school calendar and a piece of framed paper, but real-life turning points that push us in new directions.

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Tags: Responsibility