It is obviously difficult for you to monitor your child’s independent work while your child is in the class.  The only way you can do so is with the help of your child’s teacher.

     The best way for you to become involved with monitoring your child’s independent work in class is to set up a home-class behaviour system.  This system involves three parts.

Part 1

Sit down with your child and create a reward/consequence contract.  In it, you should include rewards for your child when he or she works independently in class and consequences when he or she does not work well in class.  I would like to suggest that you incorporate natural consequences in this contract.  That is, assuming your child doesn’t work independently in class, a natural consequence would be for him or her to complete the unfinished work in place of his or her ‘free time’ at home.  For example, let’s say your child comes home from school and you find out that he or she did not work independently.  Then, you should have your child complete the work he didn’t do in class in place of his video game time at home.

Part 2

Create a sheet that your child’s can easily tick off indicating   whether or not your child worked independently.  Ask your child’s teacher for a copy of the classroom timetable.  Use the schedule from the timetable to create your own sheet.  Your sheet should have two boxes for each period (i.e. math, reading, science, etc).  One box should state, “Worked well independently,” and the other should say, “Did not work well independently” (see the behavior tracking sheet in the resource section at the end of this book).  Have your child make sure to give the sheet to the teacher at the end of the day.  If your child fails to do so, include this behaviour as a consequence that is included in your contract.

Part 3

Check the sheet.  If your child worked well independently, give him one of the rewards from the contract.  Conversely, if your child didn’t work well, follow up with a consequence.

     The most important thing to remember is to maintain  consistency.  The longer you continue with this strategy, the more effective it will become.