For Wake-Up Call, Try Early Bedtime

My first-grade son's teacher says he frequently "zones out" and doesn't finish assignments in class, even simple things like coloring each number on the page a certain color. She says he has a desk full of unfinished papers. I told her to send them home; that he'd do them and return them to her promptly. Is there anything else you'd suggest?

That's exactly what I would do.

I would also, however, ask the teacher to not let future unfinished classwork accumulate (she shouldn't have to begin with), but to send it home the day it should have been done. Then I would tell my son that papers the teacher sends home will mean not only that he finishes them at home, as soon as he arrives home, but that every assignment sent home means he goes to bed 30 minutes early. In other words, three papers sent home means bedtime is 90 minutes early that evening. That combination of consequences should send him the wake-up call he obviously needs.

 

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