Learn Smarter Podcast

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Ep 15: School Supplies (What you need and what you ABSOLUTELY don’t need) Aug 14, 2018

Show notes

What Rachel and Stephanie have to say about school supplies may shock you--they both firmly believe in a “less is more” approach. Students do not need 50 pencils hidden in different parts of their backpack or 20 erasers scattered about. In this episode, Rachel & Steph get extremely specific about what school supplies are needed--and how little students actually need to be successful. Don’t forget to go to www.learnsmarter.com to join our mail list to connect! Sign up below to get our list of school supplies.

Ep 14: Back to School (Part 2) Aug 07, 2018

Show notes

Today, Rachel & Steph walk you through how to prepare for going back to school. It’s the beginning of August, which means you and your student are holding onto those last vestiges of summer with all your might--or you may have already started school. It also means that you may be feeling the anxiety that the unknown of a new year brings. Today, they talk about partnership with your child’s teacher and calendaring for success. They also do a deep dive on big academic transitions (the leap that occurs from elementary school to middle school, middle school to high school or high school to college). Be sure to listen next week to the companion to Back to School (Part 1 & 2), when Rachel & Steph reveal their secrets about school supplies. Other episodes mentioned: Episode 02: How to Calendar Episode 06: (Dreaded) Homework Episode 10: ADHD and Executive Function

Ep 13: Back to School (Part 1) Jul 31, 2018

Show notes

Today, Rachel & Steph walk you through how to prepare for going back to school. It’s the end of July which means you and your student are holding onto those last vestiges of summer with all your might. It also means that you may be feeling the anxiety that the unknown of a new year brings. In this episode, Rachel & Steph talk about how to prevent “academic emergencies” by properly preparing and achievable goal setting. and partnership with your child’s teacher. They talk about calendaring for success. They also do a deep dive into big academic transitions (the leap that occurs from elementary school to middle school, middle school to high school or high school to college). Other episodes mentioned: Episode 02: How to Calendar Episode 06: (Dreaded) Homework Episode 09: What to do with your child over the summer

Ep 12: “My kid isn’t reading.” Jul 24, 2018

Show notes

We want all kids to love reading. In this episode, Stephanie does a deep dive on how she works with students who find reading challenging. She teaches us about how reading is comprised of two main components (fluency and comprehension). She gives a million ideas on how to support struggling early readers and students who struggle with reading in middle school and high school. Steph also provides a ton of resources and ideas that are centered around cultivating a love of stories. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Parents may feel anxious because their child is behind their peers in reading. For those parents, we want you to remember that it is your child’s own race. It also might be comforting to know that we often get calls from parents who are worried about the same thing. You are not alone. It does not matter if there are other students in your child’s class who are reading at higher levels. In the end, every kid will get there, at their own pace. There is one major concept we want parents to think about when it comes to their child struggling with reading and that is that most of the time it is not just about reading. We are not saying this to worry any parents. We are saying this so that parents can be aware. Usually, if a student is struggling with reading they are struggling with something else in particular. If you can remediate it now, there is less of a chance of it showing up down the road. Reading generates anxiety in students, especially when it comes to reading out loud in the classroom. A lot of teachers use a method called popcorn reading. Oral popcorn reading is when students are either expected to jump in and read a paragraph or sentence or are chosen by the teacher to read. Because students are nervous for their turn to read they tend to skip ahead and mentally rehearse their part while other students are reading. This causes them to miss out on listening (and therefore comprehending) which in turn puts them in a bad spot when their teacher gives a pop quiz or asks a question about the content. Similar anxiety can emerge at home for students who don’t love reading. Reading is primarily made up of two different components. One component is decoding (which is sounding out the words) and the other is comprehension (which is understanding what is being read). Both areas need to work together seamlessly in order for a student to be a successful reader. This brings us to the topic of fluency versus comprehension. When a child is a fluent reader they are able to easily decode and read words flawlessly. Often times, when working with a child who is struggling with reading the focus is on comprehension. Strategies for supporting reading with an emphasis on comprehension: Reading strips: To make your own reading strip, you can take a piece of paper and cut out the middle so that the child can only read one sentence or even one word at a time. You can also buy reading strips on Amazon. Have your child follow along with their finger: This will help them to focus on one word at a time. Take turns reading with your child Practice sight words: These are the words that do not follow rules. You can learn sight words using games, books, and/or websites Choose books that are at your child’s reading level, not their grade level: There is an application you can download and use called Book Fairs by Scholastic which will tell you the reading level of a chosen book. When reading to your child, make sure it is age appropriate and at their grade level--this supports vocabulary and helps maintain interest in books. Strategies for supporting reading with an emphasis on fluency: Choral reading: read simultaneously with your child. Slow down everything you read as your child speeds up to match you. Read a paragraph or sentence in a certain tone and have your child copy you Practice sounds Strategies for supporting reading with an emphasis on older students: Audiobooks: Have your student listen to an audiobook while following along with the physical book so that they are hearing it and seeing it at the same time Read together as a family and have family discussions about what is happening in the book Ask “why do you think…” and other guiding questions Post-its: Put a post-it on the page of a book and write the main idea (annotate) Freebie: Reading Trick for Younger Students Reading Tricks for Older Students Download Reading Tricks for Younger Students Download Reading Tricks for Older Students

Ep 11: (Math Series) Math is a Four Letter Word Jul 17, 2018

Show notes

We know how students (and parents) feel about math. We get it and there are also some real reasons why students dislike math. This episode is full of simple and easy to implement suggestions about how to make math more manageable. Rachel gives away a ton of her math secrets. Don’t forget to visit our website www.learnsmarterpodcast.com for the freebie that lists all the suggestions and tips from this episode! Download Rachel's Math Rules

Ep 10: ADHD and Executive Function Jul 10, 2018

Show notes

Rachel & Steph do a deep dive on ADHD and how ADHD and executive functioning are connected. This episode is completely applicable to parents of all students this episode is totally applicable to your child and you will absolutely learn tips, tricks, and strategies on how to partner with your child in reading, writing, and math. They also discuss how executive functioning itself can be strengthened and the best ways to support your student. Other shows mentioned: Episode 02 “How to Calendar” Episode 05 “Executive Functioning (and why everyone is talking about it)”

Ep 09: What to do with your child over the summer Jul 03, 2018

Show notes

For a lot of people, summer is the best time of year. It is a time for fun and vacations. It is also a time to catch up on those things that were avoided during the school year such as cleaning out your closet. Summer is a time to relax, slow down the pace, and build some skills. We are going to discuss what you can do with your child over the summer. We understand that summer can become difficult as you try to plan what to do with your kids. Therefore, we want to dig further into how you can do things at home and how educational therapy works during the summer. It is important for us to get across the fact that we strongly believe kids should be able to be kids. We believe they should have a fantastic summer because they earned it. Educational therapy over the summer is about using the skills they learned during the school year, strengthening them, and previewing some of the skills coming up in the following school year in a more fun way. Summer is a much more relaxing time. We often have conversations with our clients in May about whether or not we recommend educational therapy during the summer at all. For a lot of kids, we feel pretty strongly that we either want to reduce them from two sessions to one session a week or we only want to see them for a short period of time and do a more intense approach. We also take into account the fact that most kids have a busy summer schedule packed with traveling out of town, camps, sports, and family weekends. Educational therapy becomes less consistent. There are a couple of ways that we determine whether or not we make the recommendation to see kids over the summer and how frequently we see kids over the summer. Our first key takeaway is to know your kid. Some kids can take a summer off of “school” while some kids need to use summer as an opportunity to catch up. We recommend that you ask yourself the following questions… What are my child’s strengths? What are my child’s areas of weakness? What did the teacher tell me throughout the year? We hope that you can use report cards and conversations that you have had with your child’s teachers as a guiding force to determine what kind of summer you would like them to have. Another key takeaway is to do things with your child that involve learning without the child realizing they are learning. You can use games, go to museums or zoos, etc. Social learning is a big part of learning. Kids are able to participate in social learning when they go to summer camp as well. There are a lot of ways to help your child build on their academic skills that don’t require you to sit down with them and fill out a worksheet. Here are just some ideas with you on what you can do with your student over the summer: Reading: We think is important for kids to do over the summer and continue to do is reading. Reading is important no matter the age of your student. We know that reading isn’t always a preferred task for kids. There are several ways you can work around this. Call it story time: Do not call it reading. Cultivating a love for stories and words is so critical as children grow up. Read a book as a family: This is a great opportunity to ask questions, make predictions, check for comprehension, and work on things such as main idea, summary, and vocab. For us, it counts if the student is listening to an audiobook or a podcast. As long as they are interacting and engaging with words and stories, and following an idea throughout a period of time, that is enough. If you are working with the student directly and decoding (breaking down the words) is a challenge for them then it might help to use an audiobook and have the student follow along in the book at the same time so that they can see the pictures as well. This will help strengthen the decoding and the comprehension which are the two main parts of reading. Read multiple books at once: Some parents get concerned if their child is reading a book separate from a book they are reading as a family at the same time. This is nothing to be concerned about. In fact, it can be quite beneficial for the child. How many times in life do you just focus on one thing? The answer, most likely, is never. You often have to remember different things about different situations. So have your child continue to read that chapter book on their own and do a book together as a family. Reading a book as a family can be great bonding time. Everyone can take turns reading a chapter (if your child feels prepared enough). Prep your chapter: Let your child know that it is going to be their turn to read a section of the book that you are reading as a family so that you can go over it with them ahead of time. This gives the child a chance to preview it before they have to “perform” it in front of their family. An example of a great bonding experience would be reading Harry Potter together as a family. Depending on the age of your child you can have them read a few sentences here and there and when finished you can follow it up with the movie. Read a menu: A lot of families go out to eat at restaurants. If you know you are going to a certain restaurant, even if your family has been there several times before, ask your kid to help you out in finding something new to eat. You can have them go online to the restaurant’s website and check out the menu. Ask them to go through it themselves and give you some new suggestions on what to eat. There are usually pictures on the menu that you can use to steer them in a certain direction. For example, say you are planning on going to California Pizza Kitchen for dinner, you can tell your child, “I would really love a new salad idea and a new pizza idea.” This gives your child specific tasks and allows them to feel important as they decide. Obviously, your child has to be of a certain age for them to think this type of activity is fun. You can also extend the reading experiences to the grocery store. However you want to approach reading with your family, just make sure you are engaging with words. Writing: The next area that you can work on with your child over the summer is on writing. This is another area that can be difficult for a lot of students because they are looking at a blank page. Whenever you are looking at a blank page that you are responsible to fill with your own thoughts and ideas it can be somewhat overwhelming. However, it does not always have to feel like an academic exercise. Start a blog over the summer: Blogging (online or on paper) is a great writing exercise. Your child can recap what they did each day during summer by jotting down quick notes or bullet points rather than writing out complete sentences. A bonus with this form of writing is that it can hold great sentimental value later on down the road. At the end of summer, you and your child can sit down and look back on all of the fun and interesting things you did. The reason why we are specifically calling this writing exercise a blog rather than a diary is because kids these days do not really know what a diary is--they all know what a blog is. Your version of a diary and your child’s version of a blog is essentially the same thing. We suggest calling it a blog so that the buy-in for your child will be much higher. Write a newspaper article: If you take your kid to a sporting event or another exciting event that they are interested in you can have them write an article about it as if they were writing it in the newspaper. This can be another way to engage your child in writing in a way that is enjoyable for them. They can read their article to another family member that didn’t get to go to the event or you can have your child stand in front of you and read their article while you record them on your phone. Articles give your child a framework. In a newspaper article, the W’s (who, what, when, where, why) are usually upfront in the first few sentences. This is great rehearsal for your child to be able to grasp all of these key points and address them. Write a play: Make up a play or they can write a play based off of a book they have read. If your child has siblings they can create parts in their play for them so that way everyone in the family can get involved. Let them talk: When it comes to writing, we understand that not every student wants to sit down and physically write or type something out. That is why we feel that it is absolutely acceptable for a child to generate ideas and have someone else type it. They do not necessarily have to be the ones putting the input into a word processor or on a piece of paper. It is about them generating ideas, putting them in order, and having them make sense. You can also use ‘voice to text’ in Chrome, Google documents, and Word documents. Story Wars: Story Wars is a great website that allows your child to add on to someone else’s story. This is a collaborative writing exercise and kids LOVE this because they get to see what someone else added to their own ideas. Make a podcast: You can also have your child do a podcast and record it on your phone. Generating ideas and generating content is what we are all about. Math: The next area that would be great for you to work on with your student is math. There is a lot of math aversion out there. We came up with some ideas that we feel would be fun and beneficial for you and your family to do. Casino night: You can teach kids how to play Blackjack using candy rather than money. Blackjack is a game that will allow your child to learn fast math. Teaching your child to gamble might seem alarming for some of you but you do not have to refer to it as a gambling game. You don’t have to call it Blackjack at all. Inherently, it is just a card game and you can approach it however you like. Imaginary Budget: You tell your child that they have “one hundred dollars” to spend at a certain store that they love. You have them go online, figure out what they would want to buy,...

Ep 08: A Session in the Life Jun 26, 2018

Show notes

Show Notes One of the most common questions we get is “what happens in a session?” This is very difficult for us to answer because every session is so individualized and so specific to the age, gender, interests, developmental abilities and psychoeducational goals of each student. In this episode, we “sample” what a typical session is like AND we learn from each other! This is a fun one and we hope you enjoy!

Ep 07: Educational Therapy vs. Tutoring Jun 19, 2018

Show notes

We are frequently asked questions regarding the difference between educational therapy and tutoring. This is a hugely important topic for us. We are going to dig into the differences between the two, how the two can work in tandem, and how sometimes tutoring can work against the goals of educational therapy. This is the second post of our educational therapy series. Be sure to go back to blog 06 where we discuss dreaded homework for the first post in our educational therapy series. What is the difference between educational therapy and tutoring? We get asked this question all of the time. We are happy to clarify this mystery for you. We know there is confusion about this so we have broken the topic down into seven main points of comparison. The definition of ed therapy and the definition of tutoring: Educational therapy is about strategy. It is about building a toolbox of strategies, how you approach learning, and the classroom environment. Educational therapy is much broader than tutoring. An ed therapist is a case manager for the whole team which includes the child, parent, teacher, tutors, psychiatrists, therapists, etc. An ed therapist is interested in supporting the whole child. Educational therapy is a long-term play. A common misconception is that ed therapy is just for students with a learning disability but that is not true. Students come to us for a variety of reasons--anywhere from test anxiety to a desire to learn how to be a more efficient student. On the other hand, when it comes to tutoring it is really all about tactics rather than strategy. Tutoring is short term. It is about content and classroom curriculum. Tutors teach specific subject matters. Usually, a tutor is not going to communicate with the teacher or be a case manager on behalf of the student or the family. Tutoring is a shorter term solution. While an educational therapist is an expert on learning, a tutor should be an expert in their subject area. There is a caveat to this in that there is a slight overlap between educational therapy and tutoring. Sometimes an educational therapist has to cover a content area in order to teach a strategy. Educational therapy definitely does support classroom learning and content areas but has a much wider, more global view on how strategies can get used over the long term. When considering the difference between educational therapy and tutoring just remember that tutoring is very focused and educational therapy is global. Education of ed therapists versus a tutor: An educational therapist is highly trained usually with a masters degree in special education or learning. There are only a few master degree programs in the country and only a couple of them offer a certification in ed therapy. We met each other at the California State University of Northridge program which provides certification in educational therapy and Masters degrees in educational therapy and special education. Figuring out who is an educational therapist can be difficult because anyone can call themselves an educational therapist. As a field, we do not have licensure the way that speech and language pathologists or psychotherapists do. One way to tell if the professional that you are working with is an educational therapist is to check the Association of Educational Therapy website to see if they are listed as an educational therapist. The Association of Educational Therapists, or AET, has guidelines and course requirements that provide some oversight internally. There are people who are not members of AET but who have still met the qualifications to be an educational therapist. Ask whoever you are working with for more information if they are calling themselves an educational therapist. Although it can be a little tricky, generally, educational therapists are a member of AET and sanctioned to practice ed therapy by the association. As for tutors, they do not have to have formal training. They could be people who are gifted in a content area or simply may have taken the class your child is taking. Tutors may also be teachers within your local area. Goals of educational therapy versus tutoring: The main goal of an educational therapy is to no longer need educational therapy. We strive toward independence and autonomy in learning, school, and life for your student. Meanwhile, the goal for tutoring is to give support in a subject area. How and why the relationship ends with an ed therapist versus with a tutor: An educational therapist is constantly working themselves out of a job. We terminate a relationship with the child when we see that the child is completing work independently and that the student not only knows the strategies but is able to select which strategy to apply in a variety of different situations. This happens slowly but eventually, the student is seamlessly self-selecting how to approach a task and completing successfully without any intervention. We tend to “push kids out” of educational therapy. The goal is to no longer need us! For tutoring, on the other hand, it ends when the student gets over a hump in the class or at the end of a school year. The student is now understanding the concept or whatever it is they were struggling in that class. Tutoring can end for the summer but educational therapy does not. Educational therapy can continue after the school year ends or during school breaks. The reason we work with students year round is because it is a RELIEF to work on skills and strategies without the pressure of school simultaneously. We don’t want to lose momentum and it is a great way to preview the following school year and/or what is coming up in the near future. How growth is measured differently by an ed therapist or a tutor: In educational therapy, growth is measured by psychoeducational goals that are achieved. As an example, let’s say we have a student, named Sarah, who struggles in math. A goal for this student that we might give is, “Sarah will benefit by increasing her ability to automate her math facts through songs, skip counting, and long-term rehearsal.” We know Sarah has achieved this goal once she can successfully skip count her numbers and be able to fluidly recall math facts on demand using her strategies. It’s not just about grades. It’s about a students growth in an area of previous struggle. Their accomplishments go from being dependent on outside support to being able to tackle a similar task at a later date without the support. Using an analogy of a bike, when you first begin learning to ride a bike you have training wheels. Once you have mastered how to ride the bike you take the training wheels off. Our goal is to get our students to ride two-wheelers. The measurement for tutoring is truly just grades. The helpfulness and helplessness of tutoring: Ed therapy and tutoring can actually work in tandem with each other with the educational therapist being the leader of the team and the tutor supporting learning by using the strategies that the educational therapist is providing to the student. This is when tutoring is very helpful. It is supporting the mission of independence and autonomy. Whether or not we would make the recommendation for tutoring partially depends on how far behind the student is. We are very careful about tutoring because it has the potential of becoming the reason that students learn how to be a little helpless. In tutoring, learned helplessness can arise in a variety of ways. One way is that the child learns to lean on someone else to do something for them because either they just don’t want to do it or because it is too hard. In the case of the student who struggles in math, for example, learned helplessness is when he/she waits for the tutor to come to start an assignment or goes back to school the next day with question marks on all of the problems without even trying to do it on their own. Do you want to be paying for tutoring when your child is in college? We want to be clear that we are not anti-tutoring at all. We just advocate for a mindful approach to tutoring. How to determine whether your child needs an ed therapist or a tutor: Overall, educational therapy covers academic, non-academic, and socioemotional parts of learning. This includes organization, problem-solving, attention, self-esteem, metacognition, self-advocacy, and motivation. It also addresses the emotions and the behaviors surrounding learning. Tutoring is much more appropriate when your child does not understand a specific concept or subject area. Your child likely has strategies in place for how to find the answers but still is not quite able to put the pieces together on their own. We both frequently make the recommendation for tutors because we see its benefit! It is something that works in tandem with what we do. It certainly does not run the whole gamut of what educational therapy offers. Download the pdf of the Ed Therapy vs. Tutoring Chart If you have a question about what is right for your child feel free to connect with us on Facebook in our Smarties of the Learn Smarter Podcast group or e-mail us. You could always book a strategy session which you can do by clicking the "Work with Us” link on our website. Show Notes: So...what IS the difference between educational therapy and tutoring? This is definitely one of the most common questions Rachel & Steph are asked. In this episode, Rachel & Steph discuss the major differences between an educational therapist and a tutor. Topics discussed include: definition, educational background, goals, monitoring of progress, helpfulness vs. helplessness, and HOW to determine if your child needs an ed therapist or a tutor.

Ep 06: [Dreaded] Homework Jun 12, 2018

Show notes

Homework is definitely something that is hard for a lot of families. We know how much of a burden it can be. We, as educational therapists, have to maintain clear boundaries on homework. We are not homework helpers. We are not homework coaches. We teach skills and strategies. If needed, refer back to blog 00 in order to better understand how education therapy is different from tutoring. We justify the discussion of homework in our world as ET’s because it’s all the other parts of homework that we work on. It’s strategy, approach, how to handle a difficult concept, grit, time management, prioritization, task initiation, project management, etc. It is never about completing homework in session but rather managing homework, stress, approach, and efficiency. We have a lot of opinions when it comes to homework. We strongly believe that kids should be able to be kids. We do not want to delve into the debate of whether or not homework is a good idea. Regardless of the various arguments about the benefits of homework, it is a reality that homework is a part of the vast majority of student lives and something that we (parents, educational therapists, and teachers) have to teach our students to manage. We know how hard homework time can be in your household. We know how stressful it can be when your child is not doing their homework the way that you think they should be doing it. It can be stressful when your child is either not getting it done at all or not turning it in. Or when they are doing it incorrectly. There are so many different aspects of homework but we are going to give a generalization about how to help you get through homework time. What Homework Should Be: There are various things that homework should be. For starters, homework should be a reinforcement of concepts. There are a lot of schools that do the flip model of having the students learn the material at home and then do homework in school. However, most students attend traditional schools where they are learning the material at school with their teachers and doing the reinforcement piece at home in the form of homework. In elementary school, there is reading, writing, and math homework. In middle school, there is homework that is due on different days and more long-term assignments or projects. (Be sure to refer back to blog 02 where we discuss how to calendar in order to better understand how to manage homework!) How it is managed will vary depending on the age group of the student. The daily struggle of homework involves creating time. After school time can be a battle for students. Most of the time, kids come home from school and do not want to start on their homework right away because they are just burnt out from the day. This can lead to a big fight between you and your child and the rest of the time after school becomes about getting homework done rather than family/quality time. Most students who struggle in school actually work twice as hard as their peers to produce half as much. It is important to remember that your child is not defying you in particular. Starting their homework and getting it done is very hard for them. Their day is so long while they are at school. If you were to break down how many daily transitions, projects, concepts, ideas, and responsibilities students manage in school, you would very likely see that it is a lot more than we have as adults and working professionals. Plus these kids are also dealing with situations beyond the classroom such as learning how to navigate social relationships and who they are as little people, and figuring out what they like. All of it is exhausting and it plays into why they are avoiding homework. Homework can remove the love for learning for a lot of students. This is heartbreaking for us, parents and teachers. That is why we do everything we can to preserve that love for learning. One of the frequently asked questions we get asked is how long homework should take. Here is the simple answer: if homework takes hours when it shouldn’t, there is a problem. What is developmentally appropriate for a second grader is not taking two hours to complete homework every night. However, a high schooler should be doing two hours of homework every night. Therefore, you must take into account how old your kid is and what is developmentally appropriate for them. This means being aware of what is developmentally appropriate for your child specifically, not for their chronological age group. You might have a ten-year-old, but where they are developmentally is closer to a seven or eight year old. That needs to be taken into account. We only want to hold our children to the level they are currently. Often the students that come to us for help have an area of challenge in math. This brings up an issue we have with drill and kill math assignments. When it comes to the subject of math, it is so critical that students understand concepts. So, why are fifty of the same type of problem being assigned? You really have to be mindful of what the reason behind the assignment is. This brings us to a point that might be controversial for some of you but we hope that it can help you to reframe the area of struggle in your household. If your student is spending three hours a night completing math homework, and there are tears and fighting about it, cut them off. Nothing will happen if they don’t complete the assignment. Are we really worried about the grades of an elementary aged student? Or even a middle school student? Of course there are exceptions when it comes to private schools and we do acknowledge that element. However, if you are trying to get into a middle school or high school in a private school setting, this is a conversation with your child’s teacher about what is happening at home. Our ultimate need as educational therapists is our desire to really preserve a child’s love of learning and three hours of math homework does nothing to help. When your relationship with your child becomes all about their struggle with homework you must take a moment to decide what is really important. Is your child’s happiness more important than the fact that they have fifty addition and subtraction problems when they are in first grade? Try to put this into perspective because it really is not about what your child can and can not do when it comes to fifty addition and subtraction problems. It really is about helping them to be successful. This might include setting a goal of a certain amount of problems that is appropriate for them. In the end, you are the parent and we are empowering you to make these decisions. We are not telling you to wash your hands of the homework and just forget it. Rather, we hope parents make decisions and choices based off what is reasonable for their child. With older students, a common homework issue is that the student is starting homework at 9:00 PM. There is an ideal time to start homework (and it’s not 9 PM). As an example, let's think of a car. When it is really cold outside and you start your car, you usually leave the engine running for a moment in order to let your car warm up. How much longer does it take for the engine to warm up in order to get driving? This is the same concept as after school. If you wait a really long time between when you get out of school and when you start your homework, it is like you are starting all over again and your brain has to warm up. If a student is beginning assignments at 9:00 PM they are most likely not getting to bed until 11:00 pm and that does not leave enough sleep time for any student who is waking up super early for school. The pattern of a 9:00 PM start time tends to be common amongst students with ADHD. They wait for the sense of urgency that arises when they realize that they should be going to bed soon but they still have things that need to get done. Ideally, you want to create that feeling earlier in the day. That requires parents setting a cut off time for homework and whatever does not get done by that time does not get done at all. (This tends to work better for kids who are still intrinsically motivated.) It really requires that the child fully believes and understands that after a certain time, there is no more homework in the household. This will create a more healthy and appropriate sense of urgency for the student. Of course, this approach requires that parents are okay with things potentially not getting done. There might be a couple of times where you as the parent insist on an 8:00 PM cutoff and your child will feel the natural consequences of their choices. However, with consistency and boundaries, your child will be able to adjust to an earlier start time. It is all about the follow through. With any behavior plan or with any family structure, if you decide that you are going to do something you must stick to it in order for it to be effective. As we give various ideas and strategies for dealing with homework please keep in mind that you should not be trying all of them at once. It will not work. You need to pick a strategy that makes the most sense for the problem that is bugging you the most. Pick the problem that is most urgent in your household and assess that one. If there are several problems, use a triage approach. Decide which issues are minor and which are more important and need to be dealt with first. If the main problem for you is that your child refuses to start homework before 9:00 PM, then creating and shifting the sense of urgency for your child will definitely be a game changer for you. We must take the time to consider the working parents in our audience. Not all parents are going to be present during homework time. In this case, there usually is an adult who is with your child during the afterschool hours. You as the parent must empower the adult and teach them how you want things to be done. Inform them of the rules, boundaries, and structures you want to be set....

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