school

From Procrastination to Emotion Regulation

savannah — Tue, 20 Aug 2019 09:50:56 +0000

From Procrastination to Emotion Regulation

savannah Tue, 08/20/2019 - 04:50 Aug 20, 2019

Back-to-school season is upon us, and with it, all of the exhilaration, nerves, and busyness of a brand new school year. But if you’re a student, it isn’t long before the hype of a new school year starts to dwindle, and you begin to see the reality of a long-hard year of homework. If you’re anything like me, that means getting overwhelmed, burying your head in the sand, and praying that your work gets done without you. But if that doesn’t work, you figure you can get it done tomorrow, right? Sound familiar? If you can’t seem to kick your nasty habit of procrastination, here are some tips to help you on your journey of growth. Just kidding, the journey starts now.

Recognize the root of the problem

At its core, procrastination isn’t about being lazy, or a lack of discipline, or whatever other lies that crept into your head. We procrastinate because, for a variety of reasons, we haven’t developed the most effective ways to manage the powerful negative emotions associated with specific tasks. Thus, when faced with the anxiety and stress triggered by, say a daunting assignment, we cope by avoiding the event that triggers the anxiety (i.e., the assignment) rather than addressing the anxiety itself. In other words, procrastination is about emotion regulation. Understanding this is a pivotal first step toward initiating self-change because it helps us to zero in on the root problem and develop an appropriate action plan to address it.

Follow the trail of your negative emotions back to the thoughts and beliefs that caused them

This discipline takes practice, and it requires that you give yourself both the physical and mental space identify what you’re feeling and why you’re feeling it. So, the second that the thought of avoiding a task pops into your head practice letting in. Don’t drown out the anxiety with Netflix, social media, or any other distraction. Instead, go for a jog to clear your mind. Write in a journal. Do whatever you need to do to give yourself the space to think it through. Ask yourself, “what is it about doing this thing that’s making me want to put it off?” Are you worried that you won’t do a good job? Does the thought of spending that much time on a task or assignment seems daunting? Is the task itself something you find inherently unpleasant? Do you have unrealistically high standards for yourself and avoid doing things that you can’t do perfectly? Don’t worry about solving anything in this step. Just try to understand why you feel the way you do.

Take baby steps

Once you’ve figured out why you’ve been procrastinating, replace those negative thoughts with positive ones. Give yourself a pep talk! Remind yourself of the times that you’ve faced similarly tough challenges and have overcome them. Acknowledge your anxieties but don’t allow them to rule the day. Remember that the only way to “eat an elephant” is one bite at a time. Take baby steps toward completing the task or assignment by breaking it up into smaller subtasks. Make a checklist of subtasks to be completed and cross them off as you work to remind yourself that you’re making progress. Start with easier assignments to gain confidence as you go. Trick yourself into overcoming that initial hurdle of beginning an assignment by giving yourself a time limit that feels manageable to you. For example, tell yourself you’re going to work on a project for only 30 minutes. At the end of the 30 minutes, you’ll likely find that the assignment wasn’t so bad after all and want to continue.

Practice self-compassion

Once you’ve followed all of these steps, and even before, give yourself some compassion. Recognize that overcoming deeply ingrained habits like procrastination takes time and you will make mistakes along the way. Treat yourself with the same grace and understanding that you would a dear friend. Challenge yourself, but remember that hiccups are inevitable. When you find yourself falling into old habits, recognize it, dust yourself off, and try again without giving in to the temptation to self-criticize. And just like that, you’ll find yourself taking the necessary steps to overcome procrastination. Before you know it, tackling assignments right away will become second nature to you. The journey from procrastination to regulation is a tough one, but it’s far from impossible. So why wait? The time to start tackling procrastination is now. You can do it!

by Anny Duran

school

emotions

Language English

5 Things You Can Do to not Drive the Teacher Crazy on the First Week of School

savannah — Tue, 30 Jul 2019 11:33:01 +0000

5 Things You Can Do to not Drive the Teacher Crazy on the First Week of School

savannah Tue, 07/30/2019 - 06:33 Jul 30, 2019

Pretty soon summer vacation will be over, and children from all over the world will put on their newly purchased clothes and sneakers and head back to school. Here are some things you can do so you and your child don’t drive the teacher crazy.

Follow the drop-off and pick up rules

For some reason, parents don’t like to follow the safety procedures the school has established for drop-off. They either drop off their kids outside on the curve, or they get out of the car and insist on walking their children to class every day. I shouldn’t have to tell you that all those adults without credentials shouldn’t be walking around a school. It’s just not safe! Remember to put away your cell phone when you are dropping off or picking up your child. I’ve witnessed no less than four bumper hits and near misses of little humans, this year and I wasn’t even out there every day! Rules about security, parking, and drop-off are there for a reason. Follow them and stop complaining about them.

Read the school instructions

Read the school instructions for the first day of school and all subsequent communication from the school. Don’t ignore information from school and then complain that you don’t know what’s going on. I had a parent last year who was angry because she was never informed about the promotion ceremony for kindergarten. I told her that she was welcome to talk to the teacher but not to forget to check her child’s backpack and her phone as our school sends information via actual newsletters, email, phone messages, texts, Facebook and Twitter. Schools are especially careful to send instructions for the first week of school, so read them.

Get the correct school supplies

Send your child to school with the supplies that are on the list and don’t put your children’s name on the supplies unless otherwise asked to. Sending children with trapper keepers and things teachers didn’t request is puzzling and a huge waste of money. Buy the brand of crayons the teacher asked for and resist buying the cheapest ones at the dollar store. These things need to last all year, and some brands are so cheap that they won’t make it to the end of the week. They are great for restaurants to pass out with the children’s menu but terrible for 180 days of use. If teachers asked you to send your child with a water bottle or an extra set of clothes to leave in the classroom in case of an emergency, do it.

Be kind, not sarcastic

Make every effort not to be sarcastic with the school staff or with your student’s teacher when you feel overwhelmed. The first day of school is stressful for the administration, and it can be easy to answer with sarcasm or anger when you find out that your student didn’t get the teacher you requested, the teacher has a rule you don’t agree with, or your child and his best friend got separated and no longer have the same teacher. Contrary to popular belief, teachers don’t have the entire summer off. They are usually working on lesson plans for the next school year or taking the required courses they need to keep up their certification - at their own expense. So, don’t greet them on the first of school with the usual “at least you had the summer off” snarky comment. Thank them for their hard work and never use sarcasm with a teacher.

Attend parent orientations

Make every effort to go to the parent orientation meeting at the beginning of the year. Your student’s education is a partnership. The school can’t accomplish much if parents are not full participants of their student’s education. During orientation you get to know their teachers, see the classroom your student will spend six hours of their day, ask questions, meet other parents, learn class procedures and expectations and get an idea of the class schedule for your student, etc. Teachers spend a great deal of time preparing for that initial meeting. Don’t blow them off. Being on the same page will only enhance your student’s education experience.

Teachers have 20 to 30 students to deal with, don’t add to their already stressful first week of school. Follow those five simple suggestions and become a teacher’s favorite; one of those parents that teachers adore.

by Eva Fleming

school

parenting

children

Language English

Backyard Science

savannah — Tue, 20 Aug 2019 10:39:17 +0000

Backyard Science

savannah Tue, 08/20/2019 - 05:39 Aug 20, 2019

Learning isn't something that only happens in school. I talked a lot about failure in one of my past blogs, but along with failure is learning. Striving to learn helps you grow as a person. When someone is usually talking about learning, their minds tend to think of school. Learning is much more than finding out what the quadratic formula is or what DNA means (Deoxyribonucleic acid. Thanks, Mr. Sankey.) That's the only science fact I remember from my three years in middle school. But learning is so much more than school.

Figuring out how to do basic house repairs (none of which I can do) is a way of learning. Instilling into your kids the thirst for knowledge is setting them up for success in life. No one will have to sit them down and teach them how to do something. They will go and figure it out themselves. And it is your job as a parent to encourage that kind of extra-curricular learning. Here are a few ideas you can do to help encourage learning outside of the classroom.

Making Homemade Bouncy Balls

Ingredients:

1 Tb of Borax
½ Cup of Warm Water
1 Tb of Cornstarch
2 Tb of White Glue Food Coloring
2 Plastic Cups
1 Plastic Bag

Instructions:

In a cup, mix the Borax and warm water.
In a different cup, mix the glue, cornstarch, and food coloring.
Add the glue mixture to the water.
The glue should begin to harden after 8-10 seconds. Use a plastic fork or spoon for fishing it out of the water.
Start Rolling the mixture into a ball. The more you roll the ball, the harder it will get.
When done, store the ball in a plastic bag, so it does not dry out.

Making bouncy balls is just a fun experiment that lets the kids get their hands dirty, but not make too big of a mess. If you lay a trash bag on the workspace, then all you have to do is gather it all up and throw out whatever is plastic and wash off whatever isn’t. And now your kid knows how to make bouncy balls. They can brag to all of their friends about their new collection.

Building a Marshmallow Spaghetti Bridge

Building a spaghetti bridge is a fun and time-consuming activity that helps teach kids to critically think while also planning ahead for any mishaps that may occur. Also, there is something unique about making something that isn’t a necklace out of pasta. Plus, it’s inexpensive with minimal mess.

Ingredients:

1 Box of Pasta (Spaghetti or anything like it)
1 Bag of Marshmallows (I prefer the mini marshmallows)
1 Marker

Instructions:

Sit down with your kids at a computer and look up some pictures of simple bridge layouts, something that shows the basic shapes of bridges. Find one that they want to build.
Once you decide on a design, it’s time to start measuring how many pieces of spaghetti you are going to need and measuring them out.
I always like to start with the base of the bridge and build on it. Use the spaghetti as your beams for building the bridge, and the marshmallows as the joints to hold it all together.
Now run wild with it. But be careful, you don’t want to have any of the spaghetti snap mid-construction.
After the construction is all done, test it. See how much weight your bridge can hold. I recommend using pennies as your weights. If the bridge breaks, then ask yourself where did it break and how can we make it better?

I love this project because it teaches so much more than “bridges.” It takes careful planning, critical thinking, and a lot of patience to build. And when it’s all said and done, you will have made something with your kid that they will be proud to show off.

Making a Story Book

Kids love to tell stories, but if we are honest with ourselves, they aren’t always great at telling them. So help them write a story. Learning to layout and organize your thoughts into a cohesive and articulate idea is a skill way too few have nowadays.

Things you need:

Paper
Stuff to color with (crayons, markers, colored pencils)
3-hole punch
1 Binder or folder

Instructions:

Ask your kids if they want to write fiction or nonfiction and help brainstorm all the different ideas they could write
Help them outline their ideas into an order that makes sense
Have them write out their story (and if you are making a picture book with them, then tell them not to draw anything yet.)
Go over their story with them and help fix plot holes in their story. Be their editor. (Editor only, do not author the story.)
Now that they have a fully cohesive story have them draw it out.
Put it in a binder or folder so that it is all together and can be read as a book.

Teaching isn’t just the sole responsibility of a teacher. And learning doesn’t have to be some annoying thing your kids hate. It can be a fun activity that excites and stimulates the brain. The best learning happens when you don’t realize that you are being taught something until it’s all said and done.

by José-Andrés Alegría

education

children

school

Language English

How to Lessen the Stress of Homework

savannah — Wed, 14 Aug 2019 09:06:13 +0000

How to Lessen the Stress of Homework

savannah Wed, 08/14/2019 - 04:06 Aug 14, 2019

Homework is already stressful, to begin with, so why make it any harder than it has to be? It tends to be the everyday stress that comes along with school. Which only gets worse when you have practice after school, or when you have a big project due soon. So how can you make it that homework is nothing more than just a passing thought? First things first, you have to reframe your mindset. Is homework fun? Not at all. But at the end of the day, it's supposed to help you learn. You get what you put into it. It's like practicing your jump shot or dance routine. Like them, homework is there to reinforce what you might have learned in school, and if you didn't get it in class, then it's good practice.

Pick a place

Find a place where you can't take a nap, or be distracted by food or people. And make this place the area where you always do your homework. Every time you sit down there, your brain should know that it is time to go to work. It's kind of like when you go to work, and your mind knows that it's now time to work and not nap even though there are days when I want to take a nap at work. A quiet space where you can buckle down with little to no distractions will help you in the long run when it comes to the day to day stress of homework.

Prioritize what needs to get done

After you have your space and settle into it, the next step is listing out what's due and when and what needs to get done today. Sometimes you have math homework that's due tomorrow and some history homework that's due three days from now. So why would I do the history homework first? Prioritizing is all about time management.

You know yourself better than anyone, so you can have a rough idea of how long each assignment will take you. My college roommate would save his 4-page papers for the night before they were due. (I am not encouraging this, but he got away with it because he knew that he needed 5 hours for research, writing, and editing.) When I had a reading assignment, I would plan it out, so I did not have to read the whole thing in one day. I know I can read about 60 pages in an hour. So if I had to read 100 pages for class, I knew that I needed about 2 hours to read it all. Always give yourself time for breaks.

Learn the tricks

There is this thing called the Pomodoro technique for when you are doing work. It goes like this; you decide what task you are working on then you set a timer to 25 minutes and work until it goes off. After 25 minutes, you get a 5 minutes break. After the fourth break, you get to take a 30-minute break. The mind can only hold focus for so long before it becomes wasted energy. Be smart with what time you have and don't try to cram all the information in at once.

Background noise

If you're anything like me, then the fourth thing on this list is a must. I need some background noise when I study. I tried having the T.V. on, but that just ended up with me watching T.V. I can't listen to music with lyrics because I will start writing down what I'm hearing. So my solution is Lo-fi. It is the best study music ever! It is a hip-hop jazz beats mixed with some electronic elements. No lyrics but the calming melodies help put my mind at ease while I do work. And if music is too distracting, look up some white noise like rain or a waterfall. Or if you're like my one friend who cannot listen to anything when she studies, then do what she does. She puts on headphones and leaves them unplugged that way you block out noise, and people are less likely to bother you.

Make it a routine

Routines make life so much less stressful. Why should you have to worry about making time for homework when you can make it part of your routine? There is mental relief in knowing that at least one thing has been taken care of in your day. Routines make the stressful, stress-free. Homework used to be the bane of my existence. But with a little discipline and a readiness to work, then maybe it can be less stressful. Homework is meant to help reinforce what you learned and help practice what you don't understand. But the day-to-day grind of school can increase stress and anxiety, so plan accordingly. Make a space where you can work with little to no distractions, make a list of what needs to get done and prioritize, help yourself focus by playing some white noise, studying in increments helps keep you focused in the long run, and lastly make homework a routine and alleviate the stress that homework brings.

P.S. Know the difference between recognition and recollection

When you study, do you remember the material or are there keywords and phrases that trigger your memory? Don't just absorb information and data dump it onto a test, never to remember it again. Actively studying will allow you to remember without any hints or clues to guide you along.

by José-Andrés Alegría

education

school

Language English

school

From Procrastination to Emotion Regulation

Recognize the root of the problem

Follow the trail of your negative emotions back to the thoughts and beliefs that caused them

Take baby steps

Practice self-compassion

The College Student Struggle is Real

With Determination and a Good Plan You Can Achieve Your Goals

5 Things You Can Do to not Drive the Teacher Crazy on the First Week of School

Follow the drop-off and pick up rules

Read the school instructions

Get the correct school supplies

Be kind, not sarcastic

Attend parent orientations

Learning to learn

When Your Children Aren’t Being Themselves

Backyard Science

Making Homemade Bouncy Balls

Ingredients:

Instructions:

Building a Marshmallow Spaghetti Bridge

Ingredients:

Instructions:

Making a Story Book

Things you need:

Instructions:

Learning to learn

How to Lessen the Stress of Homework

Pick a place

Prioritize what needs to get done

Learn the tricks

Background noise

Make it a routine

P.S. Know the difference between recognition and recollection

The College Student Struggle is Real

From Procrastination to Emotion Regulation