S1.E7: Breakin' it Down - Raising Thinkers Podcast

Today is a shorter post.  It's about helping your child to prioritize and think about what needs to be done first.  It’s about breaking down a larger task into small, achievable pieces to focus on one part of a task at a time. This can be done in different ways for children of different ages,  Starting with the very youngest ones all the way until they're in high school. If I'm honest, sometimes even as an adult, I need help breaking down a task for myself.

Let's begin by looking at why we should spend time helping our children learn how to do this. When we have a large task to complete as adults, we naturally think about what comes first, second, third, so on and so forth. For kids it just looks like a giant mountain.  This can be extremely overwhelming and cause them to not want to try or for many, it prevents them from even beginning at all. While some children like the challenge, many can be intimidated.  This is where you step in as a parent.

Whether it's with homework or just wanting to accomplish a grandiose goal  such as becoming a concert pianist, there are always steps to the process.   We need to help our children take it one step at a time. When children are young, we break things down for them. We only give them a portion of their food at a time so they don’t just play with it. We don't give them five toys to play with, instead we give them one or two.

The same applies as they get a bit older and start developing their own projects. For example, if they want to build their own dollhouse with cardboard (like I did one summer with my sister), we ask them to make a plan first. Then you help direct them to gather the materials.  Next, they start with the ground floor before they start trying to build the roof.  After they’ve done the construction, then they can move on to the interior decor.  

In projects such as these, it's always a great idea to make a checklist or a timeline with them so they can see all the steps that they will go through in the process.  Then they can move themselves along the timeline (clothespins are great for visual timelines) or check the items off the checklist as they progress. This gives them a greater sense of accomplishment.

If they are working on their assigned tasks for school for the day, whether it's homework or some sort of project, we help them make a list or even tell them just to do this one part first.  As a teacher, sometimes I literally cut apart a task for my students. If a page had multiple instructions or problems, I cut the paper apart and give them one piece at a time. This gave them a quicker return on their efforts and helped them to want to finish “just one more.”  You can do that sort of thing for your child as well. Some children really just need to see one portion at a time.

As children get older, it's more about learning how to set their own priorities.  I remember when I was in middle school, my mom always helped us to make a study schedule when our final exams were coming up. She helped us break it down and prioritize which classes we needed to study for and when.   We were able to determine how long we needed to study for each class depending on our own areas of strength or weakness, but she encouraged us in the process of making a plan. Once we reached high school, this empowered us to be able to develop our own plans and to break down the seemingly overwhelming task of studying for many exams into manageable pieces.

No matter how old your child is, breaking things down into the smaller chunks will inevitably help them to tackle a larger problem. Later on, as they head off to the university or into the workforce, this skill will help them as well.  And what does this have to do with thinking? It's about processing and prioritizing, there's tons of thinking within that process itself. The more you model this and help your child learn to break things down, the more they will be able to be successful at making independent choices in the future.  It will help them to put first things first and to continue from there.