Summary: Teaching time management for kids requires a simplified approach to standard time management skills.
Time Management Skills Are Taught, Not Caught
Something I’ve been pondering for some time is how to teach time management skills — like the use of a day planner — to my children while they’re young. I didn’t really learn this stuff until I was much older, so it took me a long time to make it (mostly) a habit. I’ve been trying for a while to sort out exactly how to go about simplifying things so I can teach them to my little ones.
At five, Ariel does not, of course, need an entire Day-Timer! She really doesn’t even need a notebook of her own; she’s rarely away from home without her daddy or me. But she does need to be gradually learning these skills.
Time Management for Kids (including Pre-Readers)
I decided to start with a to-do list. This will teach her to:
- figure out what she needs to do,
- write it down, and
- monitor the list as she completes items and marks them off.
As she gets a little older and as we go along, we can focus on different aspects of this and add on skills. For now, this is plenty.
Now, she isn’t quite reading and writing yet. She’s close enough that I think she can begin to work on this, and yet she can’t write herself a list because she can’t spell the words. So here’s what I decided to do.
We bought her a small (6×9″) clipboard, which I will hang on the wall someplace she can refer to it easily. (I don’t want her to be carrying anything around with her yet, because I know she will lose it. She isn’t ready to keep track of it yet, although, at some point, that will be part of the skill set she needs to learn.)
I keep a stash of scrap paper that is regular printer paper cut roughly into quarters (from printer goofs, etc.), and this will fit on the mini clipboard. She is to make herself a list each morning of what she needs to do, and cross off each item as she completes it. Except that, for the time being, she has stickers.
I used return address labels for the inkjet printer, and some graphics from our desktop publishing program, to make her stickers with symbols of the things she might need to do on a recurring basis (excluding her morning routine, which is on a list on her bedroom door):
- helping empty the dishwasher,
- writing thank you notes,
- tidying the living room,
- etc.
(I was a cheapskate, and printed two to each label, then cut the strips in half.)
Ariel can put a sticker on her paper for each item she needs on her list. At the end of the day, she can throw the page away. When she learns to write, she’ll write her list instead.
What’s your best tip for teaching time management skills to kids?
Updated Oct. 24, 2020. Originally published Dec. 9, 2007.
My children had a morning to-do list of things they needed to get done before school. I didn’t mandate what time they had to do each thing, but I did put them in a logical order for them and gave them an ending time (when school started at 8:45). Then they had a planner with the week at a glance that listed the school assignments in each subject for each day so they knew what was on their agenda for the day. Our family calendar had extracurricular activities listed and those were regular occurrences, so they became habitual. Their daily chores were part of a month-long rotation on the wall, so each person knew their two or three daily family tasks and weekend tasks, as well. I love your sticker idea for the very littles!