Is Your Child Unproductive?
Watching your child struggle is the worst feeling. Of course, you want them to succeed in everything they do, but sometimes it seems like they can’t get ahead. If you realize your child is having trouble completing tasks, is easily distracted, or doesn’t seem to know how to prioritize, it may be time to talk to them about productivity.
These signs offer signals that your child is unproductive, and if left unchecked, your child may start to feel overwhelmed and stressed. With guidance, your child will learn to be more productive and accomplish their goals.
Pay attention if your child has these issues:
- Trouble Completing Tasks in a Reasonable Time Fram
- Easily Distracted and Have Issues Focusing
- Lack of Goalsetting skills, and They Don’t Know How to Prioritize
- Don’t Start What They Plan and Don’t Finish What They Start
- Have Unrealistic Expectations and Suffer from Perfectionism
- Allow Others to Pressure Them
- Act Out Emotionally
Helping your child with goalsetting will give them something to work towards and provide a sense of accomplishment when they reach their goals. You can also help them create a plan to achieve those goals. This may involve breaking down tasks into smaller steps or teaching them how to prioritize their time better.
Encourage your child to take small, reasonable steps daily to achieve their goals. With a little effort and support from you when they need it, your child will learn to be more productive and may even surprise themselves with what they can accomplish.
Help them learn how important it is to protect their time, so they avoid overscheduling – a leading cause of overwhelm in the unproductive child. An over-scheduled child is always busy, but everything is just too much, so nothing ever gets done. When nothing gets done, the pressure will overwhelm them because kids typically care a lot about what others think and allow that to pressure them more than they may realize. Children thrive with reasonable schedules more than they do with a lot of clutter and disorganization about how they’ll spend their time.
When you help them get stuff done and mark it off their list, they will learn how it feels to be genuinely productive. In addition, as a parent, you can instill a sense of pride in their success by making it a point to celebrate accomplishments. Too often, children are not given enough credit for their achievements and think their parents are just being nice when they praise them. Instead, children need to understand that their parents are proud of their accomplishments and that they have worked hard to achieve them.
When you help your child learn what true productivity feels like and that it does not require continuously being busy all the time, they will be more likely to enjoy getting stuff done in record time so they can enjoy their downtime more. After all, everyone deserves to have a good life that doesn’t just involve things that are work.
