Energy Levels
Your kids’ energy levels vary throughout the day. Don’t fight it, ride the wave and adapt your lessons to suit. A vital part of maintaining consistency is not demanding anything unreasonable, impractical or flat out impossible. By keeping track of their energy level you know what they’re capable of at different times.
A graph makes this look wonderfully scientific, but don’t be fooled, it’s not. This is just a visual guide of the impression I got from my kids. Testing this experimentally would be fun though – you could ask kids to do star jumps or times table questions at half-hour intervals through the day to see how many they get. Your kids will differ. Maybe their body clocks are an hour later, maybe their lunchtime lull is gentler, or their afternoons more productive than their mornings. Your kids will also vary from day to day based on how well they slept the night before and how taxing the day has been. That whole graph could be shifted down (or up) and you need to spot that to adapt. Watch and learn from your children, so you know how much you’re asking of them.
The “energy level” is roughly how well they can concentrate. Around 11:30 a.m. on this graph shows a real dip in energy levels, when in fact by then my kids would be bouncing off the walls and fighting each other. They needed a run around the garden and had an excess of physical energy, but none left for concentrating and behaving.
Give your kids taxing tasks only during the times they have the most energy. A new maths topic? That’s one for the early- to mid-morning, or early afternoon if you’re feeling adventurous. Composing poems? Likewise. Just before lunch is the time for games outside, colouring or reading a book, and so is the end of the day.
Trying to run difficult lessons during drops in the energy levels is a recipe for confrontations and standoffs. Make allowances, increase your patience and lower your expectations. There’ll be time later to broach the tough topics. If they’re struggling now, then back off. Bring the tricky exercise to a premature end and swap in something more relaxing. Consider this when designing your timetable, and day to day when choosing how to fill each lesson.
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