Does Your Child Forget Hisher Homework

Writen by Audrey Okaneko

I used to get at least one phone call per week from my daughter. She was just frantic. She had left her homework at home and needed me to rush it over to her at school.

On the weeks she remembered her homework each day, I would get a phone call that she had forgotten her lunch and could I please bring her lunch to her as she had no money to buy lunch.

I did bail her out for a while. Then I decided it was time for her to take full responsibility and live with the consequences if she did forget something.

I worked with her to develop systems that I hoped would help eliminate these frantic phone calls and would aid her in remembering all of her materials for school.

In the evening we would develop a check list of everything she needed the next day. This list would include all homework items, along with any books needed. Often a free reading book was needed in class. We would add this to our list. Our list also included lunch, jacket and anything else that was needed the next day.

We then put this note on the front door. We had to leave through the front door in the morning and so we put the note where I knew we'd see it. A quick glance at the list would tell my daughter if she had everything she needed.

We then began a day planner. As she went through her day she would write down not only homework assignments but also what items she needed to bring home from school. If she wrote down her math homework, but left the book at school, she could not complete the homework. It was her responsibility to check her day planner to make sure she had everything she needed to bring home. With this day planner, she also knew exactly what her assignments were. No more calling friends to find out what the homework was.

We also put money in her backpack that would cover the cost of one lunch. So, should she forget her lunch at home, she always had the money to buy lunch at school.

We also developed a packing list for spending the night at a friends' house. Again, it never failed that something was left at home, either a gift, if it was a party, or a pillow or maybe a toothbrush. This packing list made it a snap to throw everything into a duffle bag and not leave something behind.

Checklists and a day planner took us from several calls in a month for forgotten items to almost never forgetting anything at home, or at school.

Audrey Okaneko is mom to two girls. She can be reached at audreyoka@cox.net or visited at http://www.scrapping-made-simple.com