Embedding Small Homework Successes for Easily Distracted Kids

Julian hated doing homework. It seemed to take all afternoon and he often ended up feeling frustrated and angry by the end. His mom realized that part of the problem was that Julian was easily distracted.

When Julian sat down at his desk to do his homework, he was usually up within a minute or two doing something else. He might be bouncing a ball, petting the dog or looking out the window. What he was clearly not doing was his homework!

When Julian and his mom sat down to brainstorm possible solutions, they came up with setting a timer to go off every 3 minutes. If Julian was still working on his homework when the timer went off, he put a tally mark on a piece of paper otherwise he just reset the timer. If Julian was able to get 10 tally marks in a day, he earned 30 minutes of playing with his favorite video game.

The fact that Julian could feel successful every 3 minutes by focusing on his homework really helped him out. If your children struggle with homework, how can the task be broken down into smaller steps where they can feel successful?