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– Concerns and Strategies –

Task Initiation

Initiation

Initiation - The ability to begin a task or activity and to independently generate ideas, responses, or problem-solving strategies. (Robin thought about calling to check on the date of the reunion, but she just didn't get around to it until her husband initiated the process.)

Just getting started can be an issue.  It can be that a student does not get to the point that he has cleared his mind of other matters enough to focus on the task at-hand.  She may spend an inordinate amount of time in preparation, sharpening pencils, finding materials, putting everything in the right place.  She may have difficulty organizing his own thoughts and coming up with a plan of action for initiating a task.  Or, she may not adequately analyze the directions to have a clear understanding of the expectations.  

One possible cause of slow task initiation is that your child does not have the skills, understanding or knowledge necessary to do the task and is avoiding getting started.  It is essential that you establish beforehand that your child has the skills, support, and resources necessary to accomplish a task before implementing a plan with the expectation that the task is initiated and completed in a timely manner.  Inisisting that your child complete a task for which she does not have the pre-requisite skills will leave a negative associations with your child about the type of task and no confidence in the strategic planning process.

Strategies for Task Initiation

As parents, we may need to provide external structure for our kids until they become habituated to starting tasks in a timely manner. You may do any of the following:

  •     Start the task with your child

  •     Break larger tasks into smaller sub-tasks to reduce feelings of being overwhelmed

  •     Develop schedules and routines with set times

 


Recognize when he does start a task in a timely manner, comment specifically on what he did, and tell him why you appreciate the effort.


Joanie, you got your pencil, found your math book, opened your notebook, and have already completed the first three homework problems. I appreciate the effort you are putting into developing your math skills.  If you put in the work, you will understand more and more about math.  That is exciting.  Math helps us understand so much  of the world.

Sometimes a brief checklist helps a child clear his mind from thinking about everything that needs to get done and focus on one thing at a time. This list serves as a reminder for the evening and is not the place for details.  It can be very brief so that creating the list itself does not become another onerous chore:

   Do math problems
   Practice spelling words
   Study for science test
 


Use technology to help your child develop awareness of his tardiness in getting started on tasks.  For students for whom this is a persistent problem it may be necessary to chart progress over time.  You can find out how long it takes him to get started on homework each evening and then work on reducing the amount of time dilly-dallying.  Average the times for each week so that you can see progress over longer periods of time.  You can use the document on Task Initiation Tools to help structure your planning and monitoring. This tool provides a chart for collecting baseline data and another for strategic planning and monitoring performance.

 

I'll do it later

  • Avoid Procrastination

  • Behavioral Momentum

    • Let's say your car ran out of gas and you need to push it to the gas station. If this has ever happened to you, then you know that the most force is needed to first get the car rolling and then once the momentum is built up less and less force is needed to maintain the movement. Our behaviors are similar. For example, consider you are in the market to buy a new car. You go to the car dealership with the intention to spend $5,000. The clever salesman will try to build some behavioral momentum by mentioning that for a mere $50 dollars more, you could have the same model car but with a moon roof. You think, what is $50 dollars.... sure, let's get the moon roof! Before you know it, you're leaving the lot with spinning chrome hubcaps ($250), a BOSE sound system ($1,500), and a car horn that says AAAAWOOOOOGA (priceless)!!

      The same principles can apply to getting going on school work. Start by asking your child to do something very easy and simple. Select a request that is so easy that non-compliance is unlikely. Once you get moving, slowly increase your "behavioral momentum" eventually doing more and more difficult tasks. 

      Read more here:

    • http://www.butterflyeffects.com/articles/using-behavioral-momentum-to-increase-motivation

    • http://www.iseesam.com/teachall/text/behavior/LRBIpdfs/BehavMoment.pdf

  • Inaccurate estimate of time needed

 

I forgot to get started

 

I had trouble formulating my ideas

  • Mindtools is a career development site oriented toward business, but they do have a page on Overcoming Procrastination that can be readily adapted for use by teens and younger students who are more mature.

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