3 Easy Ways to Teach Time Management to Kids

In a saturated digital world, here are three easy, simple ways we can teach time management to kids.

3 Easy Ways to Teach Time Management to Kids

We’re living in a time where everyone has good intentions for their kids by putting them in multiple advanced classes, adding more extraneous lessons to their curriculum, or simply causing them to context-switch more times in a day than kids did in the early 1900s.

We can sometimes forget that kids have the innate desire to achieve with excellence everything the parents are teaching them, but sometimes they don’t realize they need to learn how to manage their own time and or thoughts. This is where we need to pause, and offer some management tips just as you and I do as adults.

Here’s 3 easy ways to teach time management to kids. Although this list is not the ‘Three Commandments’ it’s a bite-size list you can apply right now and begin to see results in the next week or so.

1. Turn your child’s routine into a checklist.

1. If they’re younger, make the checklist age-appropriate (fun, bubbly, animal, NASA, Albert Einstein quotes, etc).
2. Have them co-manage the checklist and review it daily as that gets them in the habit to own the process.
3. At the end of the week celebrate what you achieved, and work on what you didn’t, the idea is to keep the process flowing over time – it’s not perfection, but consistency is how you win the game.

2. Establish rules for electronics.

1. Help them get in the habit to focus on one thing and master it, before they jump to anything else – especially mobile devices.
2. Set rules for when they can use mobile devices for anything other than school work – this is setting them up for success because in the workplace if they’re texting their friends during business meetings, you know what will happen.

3. Be a coach, not a micro-manager.

1. Kids are trying to learn new things and they’re trying to focus, so coach them, don’t micro-manage them.
2. Being a coach will help them know it’s ok to make a mistake, and that it’s also ok to think big about ideas.
3. Displaying this attribute will allow them to take ownership in their work and feel accountable for whatever they need to achieve, learn, create, build, etc.

It’s a short and long-term investment in your children to teach them time management skills. Using Lessontrek as a lesson planner they’ll be able to manage their lessons under your leadership while being actively engaged in their day-to-day coursework, and be able to see the fruits of their labor.

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Author:

Jason Pessemier is a U.S. Navy veteran and grew up as an Air Force brat having lived around the world. He served as an Aviation Electrical Engineer and after he was honorably discharged he used the G.I. Bill to earn follow-on college degrees as well as a Master’s degree from Bob Jones University. He built a fast-growing software company and co-founded a second one along with some friends who were homeschool parents. He has been working full time at Microsoft while growing Lessontrek organically.