How to Teach Your Child Time Management Skills

It's the parents' duty to help and teach their children time management skills to help them be productive in their studies and in the enjoyment of their play time.

It’s important for children to learn to organize their responsibilities every day and use their time wisely. Going to school, doing their homework and having time to play… they can do it all with a little organization and better time management. The parents’ schedule determines their children’s daily lives.

When both parents work outside the home or when only one parent runs the household, a child’s life usually fills up with activities. Their time seems to be fully engaged.

However, the fact that children jump from one activity to another doesn’t mean they know how to use their time wisely. It’s likely that not even their parents know how to manage their own time well. Both children and adults should have time management skills.

Your Children Need to Learn the Value of Time

Your children probably hear you say “Time is money” or “I don’t have time” quite often. If your children are young, they probably don’t understand what you mean. Children have no sense of time nor know how it influences peoples’ lives.

As they grow, they gradually start understanding concepts like “today“, “tomorrow”, “right now”, and “later”, among others.

Teaching them the value of time begins with the crack of dawn. There’s a time to get up, get dressed, eat breakfast, and go to school. Those first minutes of the day represent the first major opportunity you have to teach your child to make good use of their time.

Then, when they come home from school, they must organize themselves to do their homework, go to their extracurricular activity, and then play. You can teach your child that’s there’s time for each activity and, after they finish, they can enjoy well-deserved time off.

On the other hand, it’s wrong to occupy all of a child’s time. And this is precisely what most parents do: overwhelm their children with activities. Instead, children must learn that, if they’re responsible, they can enjoy free time they can use to do whatever they please. That’s the greatest reward.

How to Teach Your Child Good Time Management Skills

You probably already know that the example you set for your children is critical. If you’re always in a rush to take your child to school and you’re late to pick them up, you’re not setting the best example of time management skills.

Organizing your daily agenda can help your child perceive that you organize the time you spend at work, at home, and for quality time with the family.

Also, you should organize the time they devote to homework and studying. They shouldn’t do their homework right before bed. The projects that take days to complete or the study time required to prepare for a test can’t be left for the last minute.

Thus, helping your child organize their responsibilities is the best way to teach them time management skills.

You also need to instill in your children the idea that the more effective they are at doing their homework and fulfilling other responsibilities, the more free time they’ll have.

The most important thing for children is their play time. Thus, we must take advantage of this interest to teach them to value the importance of being well-organized.

Help Them Organize Their Time

Having free time to play is the greatest reward for a child who was able to manage their time. Here are three key recommendations to help them make good use of their time:

Establish reasonable schedules

Your child should have a schedule to learn to follow. It has to include time to play, study, watch TV, exercise, or surf the Internet.

Children like schedules. However, this doesn’t mean you should never be spontaneous or flexible.

Design and promote routines

• When your child gets out of bed, they should know that they have to get ready for school.
• They have to do their homework before they can play.
• They have to pick up their toys before taking out others
• Before going to bed, children need to leave their backpack ready for the next day and take a bath.

Routines help organize time and create harmony.

Distribute roles and responsibilities

Roles enthuse and motivate children to fulfill their responsibilities. Your child should know that they’re responsible for “something” in the house.

Similarly, if you have two or more children, you should assign roles and responsibilities to each one. For example, one can be in charge of walking the dog and the other of watering the plants.

Final Reflection

Moreover, effective time management allows them to promptly fulfill all of their responsibilities. This way, they’ll be able to enjoy deserved rest and leisure time to play and entertain themselves.