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It’s Sunday. Deb is upstairs in her room. She has a little math and history homework, and then she plans to run outside and play with her friends. Before she starts, she goes downstairs to eat breakfast.

After breakfast, her sister asks Deb to help her find her socks. At 10 am, Deb brushes her teeth and returns to her room. Deb’s backpack is downstairs.

Deb goes downstairs to get her backpack, and mom reminds her to bring her laundry up from the den. Deb picks up her laundry and stops for 30 minutes to watch cartoons with her little brother.

It’s already 11:15 am, and Deb returns with her laundry and backpack to her room. Deb takes out her math work. “Where is my pencil?” Deb fishes out a pencil, but it needs to be sharpened. “Oh well, I’ll go sharpen in Dad and Mom’s room.” She sharpens the pencil and returns to do her math homework.

“Where are the instructions? I must have forgotten to write them down. I’ll call Betty to ask her for help.” Deb goes down to the kitchen phone to call Betty. “Betty, what are we supposed to do for math?’ Betty can’t remember either. Deb returns to her room and takes out her history homework. “It’s not too hard to color on the map….”

By the time Deb finishes her history homework, it’s 4 pm. It’s too late to go play outside.

Task initiation is the ability to begin projects without procrastination. Most kids need adults to help them start their work. Parents do all kinds of things to help kids get started, including remind, cajole, reward completed tasks, implement consequences, nag, do the work with the kids, and so on.

For adults who also struggle with task initiation, managing our kids can be overwhelming.

Here are some steps that parents can take to change the family culture of procrastination:

• The parents are the executive CEO’s who manage the family. It’s very important to support each other and work together to set goals and make decisions.
• Partner conflict will interfere with the function of the family, so a high priority must be placed on addressing conflict.
• Assess Executive Function strengths and weaknesses in the parents as well as the children. Leverage the strengths of each family member to bolster the family system.
• Don’t be ashamed to seek out professional help if you need it.

Home can be a very difficult setting to plan and implement solutions to problems. Here is an excellent resource you can use to map out the changes you would like to see happen in your family:

Here’s a link to a blog post about a family who used Innovator’s Compass to solve packing school lunches:

http://redtri.com/what-this-lunch-hack-taught-our-whole-family/

References

Ben-Ur, E. (2017). Innovators Compass. Retrieved from Innovators Compass.org: http://innovatorscompass.org/about/

Dawson, P., & and Guare, R. (2016). Chapter11: Avoiding Procrastination/Task Initiation. In P. Dawson, & R. and Guare, Smart But Scattered Guide to Success (pp. 153-163). NY, NY: Guilford Press.

Tuckman, A. (2012). Chapter 10 Self-Activation: Starting Then Finishing. In A. Tuckman, Understand Your Brain, Get More done The ADHD Executive Functions Workbook (pp. 119-140). Plantation, FL: Specialty Press.