All About Careless Children

[jedamum]

all about careless children

http://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/forum/viewtopic.php?t=316&start=0
mods pls merge. TQ.

[imacsg]

Hi Jedamum,


Thanks a lot. I will read it.

[claire]

Hi

My child is very careless in his work. Lately, the number of careless mistakes in the practice papers (done in school) have caused him to loose alot of marks.
AM worrried for him as he will be sitting for his PSLE this year.

Any parent here has any advice on how to help him? — we have been reminding him to check his work and be focussed while on any assignment/task/exam paper. Besides just being careful & focussed, how can we as parents help ?
Thanks .
claire

[verykiasu2010]

one of most important help : don’t scold and shout


use psycho like : be fair to yourself, losing marks is not fair to you … most kids care about marks

[claire]

Hi,Thanks.

I have been very patient with him. Sometimes, I feel helpless as to how to drive home that message to him; what "being careless" may mean at the end of the day. Yes, it would mean alot of difference in his grades.

[Trina]

My experience is that the child may not fully understand what it means to do checking. For some children, checking means quickly flipping through the pages to see that there's an answer to every question.


I adopt a prescriptive method for my child i.e. developed a checklist for each subject/area. Using comprehension paper as an example,
1st step - read the passage one more time to understand contents
2nd step - check for spelling error or omitted words
3rd step - look at the whole paragraph where the answer can be found to avoid omission of information
4th step - cover the question and see if you can deduce the question from the question. If not, may have to modify the answer.

For Maths, the child should try to find the answer using another method to test check his answer is correct.

Have noted less instances of careless mistakes since we adopted this \"systematic\" checking approach. But there is no way to totally avoid careless mistakes. After all, even us adults commit them so how can expect kids to be perfect?? :roll:

[jedamum]

similar discussion here.

http://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/forum/viewtopic.php?t=316&start=0

[ruyu]

ChiefKiasu:

Heheh... I think we all have the same problem :).


When in P2, careless mistakes were peppered across my son's exam papers... and not limited to math either. I have identified some possible causes:
1. He did not realize that his answers were incomplete.
2. He was over confident, zooming into an answer without checking out the rest of the answers in mcqs.
3. He lacked focus and concentration, or was simply bored out of his brains during the test. He always completed his tests way ahead of time so that he could do other things.

(1) was easy to solve by going through the papers and explaining how the questions should be answered in complete sentences and with obvious working steps. The hard part was getting my son to implement them consistently. So now if he makes those mistakes, it is not because he does not know better.

(2)+(3) can be solved by drilling into him the discipline and techniques of checking his work in various situations, but this is more easily said than done during the exams when we are not around to police him .

I've tried both carrot and stick approaches, and neither were useful nor sustainable. It all boils down to how important the exam is to him, not us parents. My message to him has now changed to \"it doesn't matter to us how well or badly you do, as long as there are no careless mistakes in your exams, it shows that you have done your best and we will be most proud of you\" He seems to be responding quite well to this, and there were hardly any careless mistakes in his latest midterms. So we are keeping our fingers crossed.

number 2 depicts me

[raisintan]

Hi,


Need some advice from experienced parents. My girl is P3 and since 2nd half of P2, she started being very careless esp. in Math. I’ve tried various methods and advised her umpteen times how to go about checking. She’s still very careless and that’s really upsetting me. I’m at my wits end. Appreciate any advice. Thank u

[raisintan]

raisintan:

Hi,


Need some advice from experienced parents. My girl is P3 and since 2nd half of P2, she started being very careless esp. in Math. I've tried various methods and advised her umpteen times how to go about checking. She's still very careless and that's really upsetting me. I'm at my wits end. Appreciate any advice. Thank u

Hi,

Any advice or sharings from experienced parents pls?