Kaizen Method Against Children’s Laziness

We become more tolerant of laziness with children than with adults. However, there comes a time in childhood where we are concerned about their lack of activity, something that happens especially with adolescents. To improve this situation, the Japanese give us the Kaizen Method, a recipe for children to be more willing to work.

Sometimes it’s not just laziness to do housework or tidy up their room, it may also be difficult for them to quickly finish schoolwork. In the same way, they may be lazy even to do activities that should be to their liking. Therefore, it often happens that they lack motivation and put off doing things they have to do with no option to refusal.

Why are children lazy? How to help them transform that laziness into energy? The Kaizen Method seems to suit our requirements. The technique practiced by the Japanese in this scheme, works and applicable in most situations.

How does the Kaizen Method work?

We have already seen how laziness works in children. They linger on everyday activities, math problems, or a simple favor to Mom. They are also lazy to get up early or go to brush their teeth, let alone pick up toys. For all this there is the rule of the minute, let’s see what it is about.

The Kaizen Method, or the rule of the minute, operates in a positive way. In Japanese what the name of the technique means is the wisdom to change. It is considered a very effective method to defeat laziness and laziness. In general, it pretends that we do not leave things unfinished and that we be more persevering when dedicating ourselves to a task.

Fortunately, this method is effective for both children and adults, therefore it could help us to improve as well if we need it. The process to achieve this is as follows.

Process

• With perseverance and dedication, we schedule a daily task, which must be done at the same time every day. To do this, we set a one-minute timer, the exclusive time to finish the goal. Since it is about a minute, the child cannot complain about the activity assigned to him. The counting clock allows time to motivate you and tell you to hurry.
• Remember that the scheduled task must be the same every day at the same time. That is, if you have trouble ordering your toys, every day you will have that schedule on your list. For a minute he will be dedicated to cleaning up his mess.
• It is important that we be constant, that we remain with him while he does his job. Let’s also not forget to actually place a clock with the minute count. This is the time that you must adhere to to ensure that you will do so without delay
• For children the Kaizen Method is effective, because they internalize it and see it as a game. It will be fun to run to finish in the estimated time. We don’t ask for much, just spend 60 minutes on a task

• In the case of homework, the minute rule is applied in scales. One minute for this operation, one minute to complete this reading, one minute to color this map. Marking the time of each job allows greater concentration and makes it possible that the time spent on this task is minimized
• When he gets used to it, he will not do without pressure, he may no longer care about the time and will do everything automatically. Once we notice its improvement, we can increase the homework time to 5 minutes and later to 10. Soon, it will become a habit that cannot be controlled by laziness.

The origin of the Kaizen Method

The Japanese Masaaki Imai, created this technique taking into account the reasons why we are lazy. Although it is also applicable for adults, in the case of children, they try to avoid tasks that are complex for them from the beginning. They also face laziness when they know that their rightful activity can take up a lot of time.

Lack of motivation and thinking that they are unable to finish successfully, also affect the delay in their work. Sometimes the lack of consequences is the main reason for laziness. If we are not very firm to make sure they comply with something, and at the same time nothing happens if they do not, they will avoid it in different ways.

Masaaki Imai believes that the gradual adaptation process creates very deep habits. According to the name of the method, the idea is to gain inner knowledge in order to change. At the same time, change should not require great effort, so that there can be motivation and resistance.

Cover image courtesy of kwanchaichaiudom