Skill Builder No. 3: Accountability

Skills Guide Content

Goal: Creating accountability plans with people that are interested in your student’s development

Accountability “buddies” are really effective ways to stay on track, predict the “pain points” of a project or class, and make plans to address and complete them. If you find your student often saying: “No one helped me,” or “No one told me what to do,” then you know they are struggling with accountability to their responsibilities.

The student is expected to set a check-in date/time, meet with the person and review their work. The student should be prepared to share their list of work/projects, predict what will be hard or is not yet understood, and make a plan to get that issue tackled. Then they go do their work, and come back to the accountability person at the next agreed upon time to review what they accomplished, and repeat the process again.

Activity from Planner

Accountability means taking responsibility for your own stuff. Sometimes we need help with this. An accountability buddy can help!

Circle who you plan ask:

• friend
• classmate
• counselor
• teacher
• parent
• neighbor

1. Plan a time
2. Talk about what you will work on
3. Talk about what will be hard
4. Talk about a plan for what is hard
5. Set a time to talk again

Extended Activity

Accountability is a long word that means taking responsibility for your own stuff. If you find yourself saying: “I didn’t know,” “No one helped me,” or “No one told me what to do.” Then you aren’t being accountable for your own responsibilities. Yet sometimes, we do need someone else’s assistance. Accountability buddies can help you reduce stress and pain, allowing you to refocus on the task.

Accountability buddies can be a friend, a classmate, a counselor, a teacher, a parent, or a neighbor — someone who is interested in you as a person and wants you to do well. This buddy isn’t going to help you do the work, answer your questions about the work, or get mad if you don’t get things done.

Instead, this is a relationship about respect. You are asking for the person’s time and interest. An accountability buddy will listen to you, ask questions, and be interested in your progress.

You have these responsibilities:

• Talk with them once a week or more often at an agreed time
• Tell them what you are working on and the due date (show them you know what you are responsible for)
• Tell them about the complex parts that might cause you some trouble (be honest with problem parts)
• Tell them the steps you will take to address that problem (yes, this will mean more studying, researching, or learning, but now you know what parts will take longer)
• Talk to them again at the next appointed time, review, and add new items. For most people, this will be 1-3 times per week.

Regularly doing this builds repetition and relationships to motivate yourself to finish hard, unpleasant things.

Now let’s put it into action — pick a challenging task and ask someone to be your accountability buddy. Maybe they are up for hearing about it on the spot. Perhaps they can give you some of their focus and time later in the day. Set up your next talk so you can share your assignments, challenges, and progress.

You can ask someone to be your accountability buddy in one of these ways:

1. Send a text message and say, “I could use some help staying motivated. Do you have 5 minutes to chat?”
2. Catch them in the hall and ask, “Can we talk through the English assignment at lunch?”
3. During family dinner, say, “I want to do my part to stay on track with school work, but it would be helpful if I had some regular check-ins. Can we plan that?”

Who will you ask?

What are they helping you stay accountable to?

When is your next check-in?

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