New Schedule

The last week or two (or three or four) has been like pulling teeth to get Doodle to do his school work. I think the reason is that he's finally at a point in which his studies actually make him study, instead of just breeze through easy stuff. In both language and math, we're doing third grade work. The boy is six years old, but third grade is where he needs to focus.

A typical math assignment has recently involved a LOT of fussing, being sent to his room, reading until his mind frame becomes more positive, coming back to math, more fussing... you get the idea, until finally over two hours have passed and less than half of one page has been completed- even though he's had the multiplication chart at his disposal the entire time. Then I force him to focus on using the chart, and he completes two pages in less than 10 minutes- not usually looking at the chart, after all!

So this week I tried something new: the alarm clock. Well, the alarm clock phone app, but same diff.

I have alarms set M-F from 9am-2:30pm, every hour, with an extra 1/2 hour thrown in at midday for a lunch break. At the top of each hour, when the alarm sounds, it's time to get into a school subject. (Currently, that's problem solving skills, language, math, history, reading and a variety of "specials" / electives.) The deal is, Doodle has to get his school work for a particular subject done within the hour and then he can go play. If he finishes work in 10 minutes, that means he gets 50 min. of play time. If he finishes in 50 min. (say, if he wastes his time due to fussing), then he only has 10 min. of play time left before he starts his next subject.

I must say, this has been a stroke of genius for me. Either that, or dumb luck born out of excessive frustration. Why? Well, here's the catch: Doodle has only a vague idea of how much work he'll have to do for any given subject. So if he zips through something, I can occasionally double up on an assignment. The result is that he could have a very short school day by the end of the week; or on other occasions, I won't have to stress about having enough time to run errands (take care of the twins, clean around the house, etc.) and still get through his curriculum.

At any rate, I've found this a much more effective way to get across my point that there's a limited amount of time in each day; and Doodle can decide whether he wants to spend it fussing before finally getting his work done, or getting his work done well and quickly so that he has the most possible time to do what he enjoys.