I cannot tell you how much I love this question. “How will you know when you’re done?” Why is it so magical?
When we ask someone this, we are asking them to envision a final product or their goal. Maybe a child is working endlessly on a drawing and says “it’s still not done” or they are playing a game and saying “I’m not done yet”. Next time this happens, ask them- “how will you know when you’re done?”
This makes kids focus on their goal and envision a final product. This also helps them articulate what they are working toward. Maybe a child says “I’ll know I’m done when I can’t think of anything else to do”. This child would benefit from making a list of everything they want to accomplish so they can step away and come back later.
A child who struggles with stopping game time might say “I’ll know I’m done when I’ve [accomplished certain task]”. This lets us know what motivates or drives our child.
But what to do if they won’t have time for these goals? We can let them know and still give them a goal to focus on: “you have 10 minutes of game time left. What would you like to have done in 10 minutes?”
Finally if you have a perfectionist, try using this question to get them to focus on their goal and how they can measure it. Have you ever started cleaning your kitchen and ended up cleaning the whole house? Sometimes we need to force ourselves to have a stopping point, and “how will you know when you’re done?” can help!
I hope you’ll give this a try!
