Ask the Expert: How Can I Stop My Children from Procrastinating on Their Homework and School Assignments?

Whether students feel overwhelmed with the amount of homework they have or they have difficulty with time management, it is important for parents to help students learn how to meet due dates on school assignments by teaching them to not procrastinate.

To help our students successfully finish school assignments in an efficient manner, we need to think about some of the typical causes of procrastination and plan solutions for each possible cause.

1. Anxiety: Feeling nervous is the No. 1 reason students underperform academically, both in school and at home. To help your child overcome anxiety, first of all check yourself. “Am I feeling nervous about my child’s ability to complete this task successfully?” Without realizing it, as parents we often fuel the anxiety fire by putting undue emotional pressure on our kids. So make sure you are feeling calm and confident, and then help your child to feel the same. Talk about how proud they’ll feel when they finish and give them lots of praise and encouragement. 

2. Feeling Overwhelmed: Sometimes procrastination is the result of a child perceiving the task as too large or too difficult.  Check that they understand the material. Help them break up a large assignment or a more complicated problem into definable pieces. Encourage, encourage, encourage!

3. Lack of organization: For a project due in two weeks, help your child make a daily schedule of what tasks he needs to finish each day. For daily homework, help your child organize how much time they may need for each task. Help them keep track of their daily progress with check marks or stickers.

4. Motivation: Some students need more help getting motivated than others. Intrinsic (internal) motivation is the most important to cultivate. Again, as parents we need to check our own feelings: “Am I feeling positive, viewing this assignment as a great way to learn more about a topic and to develop my child’s creativity or seeing it as a stressful chore that we need to get ‘out of the way’?”