Maintaining Balance
A guide to the ‘good life’
for second graders!
29 April 2011
Objectives
• Share information on the
elements of a balanced life,
and
• Discuss what the
appropriate balance is for a
second grader.
Task 1
Complete the weekly schedule
for your second grader,
outlining time spent:
• working – school, homework,
tutoring, etc.
• playing / relaxing
• self-management
• sleep
• other.
Sleep
• children aged 3-10 years old
need between 10 and 12
hours of sleep a night, and
this data is backed up by
other authorities.
• Children who are regularly
‘sleep deprived’ will
potentially exhibit a range of
difficult behaviors.
Sleep
Recent research in Israel has shown
that “the performance gap caused
by an hour’s difference in sleep was
bigger than the normal gap between
a fourth-grader and a sixth-grader.
Which is another way of saying that
a slightly sleepy sixth-grader will
perform in class like a mere fourthgrader. A loss of one hour of sleep is
equivalent to [the loss of] two years
of cognitive maturation and
development.”
Sleep
So, how are you doing with your
child’s sleep hours on that
schedule?
Why not share with a neighbour
any issues that arise from this?
Is your child getting enough
sleep? How might you make
sure they do?
Sleep rules
1. Your child has to have a set
bedtime routine, a pattern of
events that he or she goes
through before sleeping
every night.
2. Make sure that once in their
bedroom your child has no
distractions
Play / Relaxation
Play is so important to optimal
child development that it has
been recognized by the
United Nations High
Commission for Human
Rights as a right of every
child.
Play / Relaxation
“The overriding premise is that play
(or some available free time in
the case of older children and
adolescents) is essential to the
cognitive, physical, social, and
emotional well-being of children
and youth.”
Kenneth Ginsburg,
The Importance of Play in Promoting
Healthy Child Development and
Maintaining Strong Parent-Child Bonds
Play / Relaxation
“We can be certain that in some
families, the protective influences
of both play and high-quality
family time are negatively
affected by the current trends
toward highly scheduling
children.”
“highly scheduling”
Check those schedules again –
how much ‘wiggle room’ or
slack is there, how much free
time?
Play / Relaxation
“The challenge for society, schools,
and parents is to strike the
balance that allows all children to
reach their potential without
pushing them beyond their
personal comfort limits and while
allowing them personal free playtime.”
Work
What does it look like for our
kids?
• school working hours
• tutoring
• homework
• therapies
School hours
Too long, too short or just about
right?
Discuss and share out.
Our contact time is about 5-10
minutes/day shorter than
many schools working 8:003:30. We have shorter breaks.
Tutoring
“After a full day at work what
the kids most need is
overtime, i.e. more work.”
Discuss.
Is tutoring cultural, i.e. a fear of
what might happen if we don’t
have tutors for our kids?
Homework
What do you think the research
tells us about homework in
second grade?
“A meta-analysis encompassing
research involving thousands of
students showed little correlation
between homework and test
scores in elementary school.”
Recap
So far we’ve looked at:
• Work vs. play
• Sleep vs. awake
Also want to take a quick look at:
•Independent vs. dependent
•Risk-taking vs. protected
•Online vs. offline
Independent vs. dependent
To what extent is your child selfmanaging?
Risk-taking vs. protected
To what extent is your child
encouraged to explore
beyond their comfort zone,
with some ‘exposure’ to risk?
Let them climb trees!
Take them camping, waterskiing,
horse riding, etc.
Online vs. offline
It’s a new reality but:
• What time is involved?
• What are they doing?
• How are parents engaged in
their children’s online lives?
Success vs. failure
Seems odd to want our kids to
fail but:
• We learn a lot from failure
(mistakes).
• We develop resilience as we
deal with the
disappointment.
So, let your kids fail occasionally!