Back-to-school tasks: Make them a joint venture

Around this time of year parents start getting inundated with back-to-school emails. The school supply shopping list. The class placement email. The chromebook policy email. The list goes on and on. For many parents, this steady stream of correspondence can feel overwhelming, and create a sensation that they have so much to do to get ready for school. But in reality the back to school season does not amount to parent homework. In fact, those who involve their child in the process of getting ready for school and share the workload actually unlock an excellent opportunity to build, practice and leverage key executive functioning skills.

What are Executive Function skills? 

Executive function skills are a set of processes that all have to do with managing oneself and one’s resources in order to achieve a goal. These skills include one’s ability to manage time, plan out tasks, organize physical and digital materials, initiate work and follow-through on goals, among other areas. Executive functions live in the pre-frontal cortex of the brain, which is the last region of the brain to fully develop, and maturation of these skills does not take place until early adulthood. Thus many preteen and teenage students still present with deficits when it comes to effective processes, systems and tools, and benefit from continued instruction and practice in these areas.

So how do I start to shift the onus to my child?

Instead of taking on the to-do list yourself, try collaborating with your child to work through the back to school readiness plan. Start by reading back to school emails together to help them gain awareness of the tasks at hand. You might consider setting aside a daily or weekly time for “going through the mail” together so that there is a routine related to checking email. If your child seems resistant or skeptical at first, try offering (or asking!) the rationale behind the new routine. Other students may respond to pairing a non-preferred task (aka reading back to school emails) with a preferred task (ex. listening to music). There is no one “right” way to motivate your child. Be open to finding a buy-in piece that works for your family.

Flagging action items

As you collaboratively read through emails, work with your child to identify outstanding tasks, as well as their due dates. Do you need to purchase school supplies? Submit forms? Turn in a check? Mark down key dates? Etc. Talk to your child about the best way to create a master to-do list. And remember that just because you love an old fashioned pen and paper planner doesn’t mean that your child needs to follow suit. There are plenty of excellent digital tools out there; Google Keep, Google Tasks, etc. The important thing is that your child buys into some system for aggregating, prioritizing and organizing tasks; You can always do the fine-tuning later. 

Calendaring

As mentioned above, due dates are critical. Help your child visualize the deadlines by marking them down together on some sort of physical or digital calendar. When does school actually start? What day or days are they free to work on ordering school supplies, corralling sports uniforms and equipment, setting up their home workspace, etc.? Allocate blocks of time for specific tasks on the calendar and practice adjusting in real time as conflicts arise.

Leveraging self-advocacy

Learning to ask questions is actually a life skill, and here is an excellent platform for rehearsal. As you comb through emails, identify questions that crop up and work together to pinpoint who to ask for help. This affords an opportunity to create a teacher/staff/coach contact list and/or save key email addresses for easy reference moving forward. It also might allow you and your child to talk through issues related to professionalism. What is the correct way to address your teacher in an email? What does courteous and clear phrasing sound like? Etc.  

In net

Working with your child to wade through the flurry of back to school emails is actually an exercise that – pardon the expression-  kills two birds with one stone. By involving your child in the task, you accomplish the twin goals of lessening your own workload and also teaching key executive function skills, such as self-awareness, planning and time management and self-advocacy.