Why Your Teen Procrastinates - It's Not Because They're Lazy

It’s Sunday night and your teen is rushing to catch up on homework they put off until the last minute. They procrastinated…again. They know procrastination only increases their stress, so why do they do it? Are they lazy? Do they lack self-control? Why won’t they just do their work?

We get it. It’s frustrating.  

Yet even when it seems like there’s overwhelming evidence to the contrary, at Village, we believe that it’s unusual for people to engage in completely irrational behaviors. While “x” behavior might appear ineffective from one perspective, from another it may be quite beneficial. 

Consider procrastination: from the perspective of finishing one’s schoolwork, procrastination is a completely unreasonable approach. But let’s say the real goal is to avoid anxiety. From that perspective, procrastination is extraordinarily valuable. 

When procrastination becomes a Sunday night ritual (or an every night ritual), it’s time to stop and check-in. Consider: What is this really about? Is it actually the homework or is there something more going on? 

Research suggests that procrastination stems neither from laziness nor a lack of self-control. At its root, procrastination is a form of emotional regulation. People procrastinate in an attempt to avoid uncomfortable experiences, and let’s face it, for most teens, doing homework is not pleasant.

For some, homework might simply be boring; for others, homework might be accompanied by a sense of dread, resentment, or self-doubt. For the latter group, asking them to “just do their work” is tantamount to asking them to, “just confront that feeling you’re desperate to avoid” and to do it, you know, right now.

I know few people who would jump at that prospect. 

So where does that leave you? 

When working toward behavior change, we believe our first task is to help young people identify how the behaviors they would like to change are actually benefiting them. In other words, we ask them to consider what the function of the behavior is. 

Then we explore whether and how they might be able to get those benefits in another way. So, if the real benefit of procrastination is avoiding anxiety, that’s where we put our focus. 

In our experience, young people often feel like they only have one tool in their toolbox to achieve a particular end. If procrastination is that tool, then of course they’re not going to want to give it up: they’d be left with nothing in the face of whatever uncomfortable experience they’re trying to avoid. So rather than take away what they perceive to be their only tool, we help them expand their toolbox with the goal of helping them transition to more adaptive ways of living.