Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything(84)
Amy told me that her real aha moment was when she asked Rachel, “I know doing homework is a struggle, but what do you think will happen if you don’t learn to tackle it?”
“Well, I guess I’ll have more free time,” Rachel said.
“True. But how would you feel if it was time to finish fourth grade, and everybody else went to fifth grade and you didn’t?”
Rachel’s eyes widened. “What?”
“And what if you’re still in fourth grade, and they’ve gone to sixth?”
The wheels turned in her daughter’s mind—this was a new concept. “I wouldn’t like that.”
“Okay, so it sounds like what you want is to finish fourth grade and keep pace with your classmates. That’s good—now we know what you want and where you want to go, so we can find good ways to make it happen.”
It turned out that this conversation was just as important for Amy as it was for her daughter. What she figured out was that Rachel wasn’t actually interested in mastering her homework. That was all Amy. What Rachel did care about was keeping up with her friends in school. So Amy put that aspiration in a new Swarm of Behaviors cloud, and from there, she could talk with Rachel about specific behaviors that could help her reach that outcome.
MATCH WITH A SPECIFIC BEHAVIOR
Since doing homework after school was the specific behavior in the swarm that kicked off their change-together journey, Amy and Rachel started with that.
MAKE IT EASY TO DO
The next step was to make it easier for Rachel to do. The biggest stumbling block was attention span. Rachel’s learning challenges meant that staying focused was a constant struggle—especially after a day of school. So Amy experimented with breaking up the homework into smaller tasks. They would do things in ten-minute increments—organizing school supplies on the glass table where she did her homework or making a list of worksheets she needed to complete. They tried taking five-minute breaks to jump on the trampoline between work sessions. They tried using flashcards and videos; they tried doing homework on the computer and on paper. Along the way, they strengthened any chink they found in the Ability Chain.
In all of this, Amy made her thought process clear to her daughter and asked for Rachel’s input. If Rachel pushed back on something, she’d make a deal with her—they’d try it Rachel’s way for five days and Amy’s way for five days and take notes on which worked better. Amy understood that she was not only helping Rachel get her homework done but was also teaching her how to experiment and manage her own behavior. She was teaching Rachel the Skills of Change.
FIND YOUR PROMPT
Finding a place in Rachel’s after-school routine for homework was critical. When they waited to do homework until after dinner, they were doomed. No matter what “make it easy” techniques they tried, Rachel was too tapped out to focus successfully. So they figured out that homework needed to be done soon after school. With that as a place to start, they got increasingly granular. Amy used the Tiny Habits Recipe format After ?, I will do for each homework behavior they tackled. They tried moving homework after a few different distractions, and iterated until they found recipes that worked: After we bounce on the trampoline for five minutes, I will take the worksheets out of my backpack. Exploring together, they learned it was important to break homework into smaller habits like organizing her school supplies, making to-do lists, and interspersing those tasks with fun bursts of activity.
CELEBRATE WINS TOGETHER
Amy also made sure to incorporate heavy doses of celebration into their Homework Habit Recipes. They played around with high fives, silly dances, and sticker charts to find the celebrations that worked best for each win. A naturally goofy, sweet kid, Rachel was all in on the celebrating. Amy also made sure to connect it very clearly to the behavior her daughter had just completed, giving her a strong sense of Shine and wiring in the new habit more efficiently.
TROUBLESHOOT, ITERATE, AND EXPAND
Rachel and Amy kept going back to the Swarm of Behaviors and incorporating new habits that helped her with homework and led to more and more success in the classroom. Some of these habits ended up embedded in her academic life. One habit that they created in fourth grade helped Rachel manage time and get things done. The recipe was After I get home from school(trailing edge: taking off my backpack), I will check my homework list and write down a guess of how long it will take me. Her celebration was built in—once Rachel had guessed how much time her homework would take, she could get excited about all the things she could do with the rest of her time that evening. This was only a number written on the top of a list, but it helped her learn time management. Rachel got better at understanding how long certain academic tasks took and prioritizing her to-dos accordingly. At first, Amy would help her review her estimates every few days and talk through what she guessed wrong, why it was wrong, and how she could course-correct. By helping Rachel take ownership of this habit, Amy was soon able to back off. This took some pressure off their relationship because the more skilled Rachel got at understanding her capacity and motivation, the less Amy had to get involved. Amy also saw how this improved her daughter’s overall ability to manage time, whether it was getting ready for school or cleaning her room. The habits she had cultivated in the academic arena spilled over into other parts of her life.