Let’s begin with a story,
There was a girl named ‘Tiara’ who was around 15 years old. She always used to struggle with her school work and was always used to getting late for the deadlines because of the overuse of technologies, procrastination, and online games. Her parents were concerned about her and without any choice, they started telling her to focus more on her studies. But, instead of taking all that positively, Tiara felt her parent’s concern as nagging and she started spending most of her time alone in her room or outside her home with her friends.
Next week, Tiara had her project presentation at school. She sat the whole evening and finished her project in a hurry. The other day, she submitted her project but her teacher noticed she didn’t do her best work. Her teacher asked her to re-work her project and submit it by the end of the day. Tiara got frustrated and yelled at her teacher for making her do the extra work because she thinks her teacher is being harsh on her. The teacher felt off about the behaviour and called Tiara’s parents to complain about her behaviour and her take on the project.
Now, imagine a story where Tiara has a planned way of doing things, is well-organised, disciplined, focused, and has responsibilities towards her own things. Things would have been on a better note if Tiara would have been trained in a way that manages to make a great balance between her studies, social life, and her own daily chores.
What is self-evaluation?
Self-evaluation is a challenging technique used to assess one's own tasks or behaviours, check one’s progress, and process used to achieve the desired future results. It can also be known as self-monitoring. It involves keeping a check on our work-related behaviours such as fixing errors or reviewing our mistakes or our social behaviours such as apologising, responding to social norms, and situational consciousness. Teens who evaluate themselves are more likely to be independent, confident, and work efficiently.
When self-evaluation is needed?
Self-evaluation is indeed a good habit to form in teens as it will be beneficial in the long run. But, how to identify the right time for your teen/tween to start self-evaluating themself? A few of the major roadblocks that might give you the signal to stop and rethink the path your teen is taking are mentioned below:
If your teen gets into overdrive to finish the task at hand without evaluating the completeness or identifying any errors.
If you need to remind your teen to complete their work first and then get into something else.
If your teen has trouble recognizing when their problematic behaviour is negatively affecting others.
If your teen is having a hard time evaluating his/her behaviour and making changes based on those observations.
According to a research study published in the year 2021, it was stated that self-evaluation is helpful for teens and young adults who are suffering from depression. This can improve the treatment process using various self-evaluation measures.
Ways of self-evaluation for Teens:
Prepare checklists: Designing a checklist on a sheet of paper and writing down all the tasks and goals on it will help teens track down their progress and help to manage their time as required for each task. They can create weekly or monthly checklist sheets and ‘tick’ or ‘cross’ each task after completion or if not completed.
Be your own assessor: It is a less constructed way to help your teens evaluate themselves by teaching them to assess their task or behaviour from someone else’s perspective. Ask them to sit and think or re-read (in case of a written task) while evaluating themselves as an evaluator and try to be unbiased. Self-assessment quizzes or surveys can be used to help individuals identify their strengths and areas for improvement. Being your own best critic helps you in identifying your weaknesses in a constructive way and the solutions to make them better.
Ask reflective questions to Yourself: Reflective questions help to rethink the completed tasks and evaluate them. It helps your teens to access what they did right and wrong, what were/are the challenges, and where more focus is needed. It gives a perspective to evaluate how satisfied your teen is with their own work and asks them to evaluate themselves honestly on the basis of their strengths and weaknesses.
Encourage them to practice self-reflection. Encourage them to take time to think about their actions and behaviours, and to consider how they might have acted differently.
It's important to remember that self-evaluation is a skill that takes time and practice to develop. It's normal for tweens to struggle with self-evaluation at times, and it's important to be patient and supportive as they learn and grow.
We wish you happy parenting!
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