When Should You Tell A Child NOT to Erase Their Mistake?

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I wrote a post on erasing Teach Your Kindergartener How To Erase Like a Big Kid and one on erasers Problems With Handwriting? You Need The Best Eraser , but there are a few situations in which you don’t want a child to run for the eraser.

  1. The child who stalls for time.  Some kids want to run down the clock on their therapy session or on their homework time, and realize that erasing can help them do just that.  The fun of rubbing the eraser on the paper exceeds the fun of struggling to write or struggling to answer a question.
  2. The kid that gets upset when they make a mistake.  Some children are oblivious, but some are distressed when they write poorly.  So upset that they lose some of their focus and ability to listen to your suggestions/instructions.
  3. The child who persistently traces over their original mistake.  These kids were taught with a lot of tracing in pre-K and K, and their brains have been trained to trace.  When they see the faint outline of their mistake, they have to struggle NOT to trace it.  Oops.

What SHOULD you do?

These strategies assume that an adult is helping a child directly.  You may not need to remain there for the entire homework assignment, but adult assistance is needed to get this train turned around:

  • Ask them to write the word again.  You may need to fold the paper so that their mistake is not visible, but a correct model is visible.  You may have to write a new visual model in the margins or above their work space.
  • Use Handwriting Without Tears pages.  Their workbook pages are designed to be simple but offer visual models across the page, not just at the left margin.
  • Erase the mistake yourself.  Adults can use more force and erase more effectively.
  • Make a copy (or 2) of your child’s homework so that you can ask them to start over again, but only if it is a short assignment.  No one wants to rewrite a long page.
  • Provide more instruction before they begin their word or sentence.  A reminder that certain letters are tricky or that they need to space words out How Do You Teach Word Spacing? can prevent errors.

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By Cathy Collyer

I am a licensed occupational therapist, licensed massage therapist, and certified CBT-i sleep coach in private practice in the NYC area. I have over 25 years of professional experience in adult and pediatric treatment. It has been a joy to help people of all ages improve their ability to grow and thrive! Occupational therapists are focused on enhancing a client's functioning in everyday life. We are practical healthcare providers, interested in teaching, adapting actions and environments, and building a client's useful skills for living their best life, regardless of their challenges. I am the author of five books, including "Staying In The Room: Managing Medical And Dental Care When You Have DID" and "The Practical Guide To Toilet Training the Autistic Child". I lecture on many subjects, including sleep, trauma, and development. Contact me to learn more about how I can help you achieve YOUR goals!

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