_thumb.png "Type is not meant to box you in; it is designed to help us understand ourselves and others better.")
I have to keep nagging my child to do her homework!
Homework can be a constant source of friction in the home. Many parents feel that without a constant push, their children will not complete homework assignments.
At one workshop a parent said, "I realize I have been nagging my child to death over her homework because I think she needs to sit down and do it right away, and she keeps saying, "I'll get to it, I'll get to it, I'll get to it.'"
The child was around 12 or 13 years old. We asked, "Does she get to it?" The mother replied, "Yes, but I always worry that she is not getting to it and that she won't plan well so I kind of push her to do it."
This is a very common response when we have families experiencing homework issues with children who have a style that's more "deadline activated." Because parents are afraid the child won't get the work done, they spend a lot of time nagging. But when you keep nagging, you send a secondary message to the child that says, "You cannot direct yourself. You need me to be your outside agent, making sure you can get through life successfully."
That really isn't the message we want to send them. We want them to feel the autonomy of self-management, knowing that they can handle it, that they can take of it. If something happens and they do not get their work done this time, they have an opportunity to solve that particular challenge and fix it for the next time.
We know children with a Perceiving preference can struggle with the timing of their learning. They are often not born with a good sense of timing the way children with a judging preference are. These children seem to actually come into life with this internal clock that says, "It's going to take me this long to get it done and just in case, I'll put some extra minutes in there to be sure that I can get it done." The Perceiving child grows up underestimating how long something is going to take. They might benefit from a bit of ?data collection? advice.
You might say, "Can you get all those definitions written in ten minutes, 15 minutes? Let's just time it for the next two or three times and just see how long it will actually take you. It might be shorter, it might be longer, but that's good data for us to know. Let's gather some data and see if we can make this a decision that's based on solid information." Now it is not you managing them, it is the data managing them.
If all of a sudden, they look at it and say, "Oh it took me 25 minutes the first time but it only took me 20 minutes the second time but the third time it was still 21 minutes." Then you say, "Okay, now that's great information for you for budgeting. How much time do you need to have in order to complete the homework assignment?" It changes the role of the parent from the nagging parent who is trying to make the child do something, to a facilitative shadow that's helping the child use their own skills when working with homework, and with many other issues in life!
When your style is very different than your child's, it's sometimes hard to appreciate their way of completing tasks. Before you take over the management of a project, as a parent you can ask yourself, "Is this what my child needs in the moment or might they need something else?"
We want to focus on the outcome: did the homework get done on time? Did the child get a chance to manage their time successfully? If so, then both of these important skills are being reinforced; without nagging!
