I can't be the only one that experiences the 7th circle of h*ll during homework time. He's in 6th grade soon to be living in his own apartment. -_-

Gosh I don't know. Mine's going off to preschool next week but I hear from other parents that homework is really bad, even in kindergarten!

So what seems to be the problem? He doesn't want to do it? Maybe we can help you figure out how to handle it.

Don't scream, don't threaten, don't lose your cool. I'll give you, for free, the single best piece of advice that I got from my son's therapist that cost me $180:

You are the adult, they are the child. You hold all the cards. Bearing this in mind, you give your son a simple choice: At XYZ time of day you are to sit down and do your homework. If you choose not do your homework I will take XYZ thing (video game console, television, whatever). Every day you choose not to do homework I will continue to remove your favorite things. If that means you spend the rest of the school year in a room stripped to the walls with nothing in it but a bed and your least favorite clothes, receiving no presents for Christmas and birthday, then that's your choice.

Think of it this way, son. If I (or whomever) don't go to work, I lose my job and no longer get a paycheck. If I go to work and don't do my job properly, again, I lose my job and no longer get a paycheck. Doing my job means getting my paycheck which pays for both necessities and fun stuff.

Doing YOUR job means going to school and doing all of YOUR work, including homework. If you don't do YOUR job, you lose the fun stuff. Which choice do you want to make?

The trick is, you have to be dead serious and stone cold. He'll test you. You don't say a word, you pack up the WHATEVER (let's say XBox) and lock it somewhere. No discussion, no argument. And YOU CAN'T FOLD, AT ALL.

Oh, and he doesn't get anything back until he's completing his homework consistently for ONE MONTH.

The problem is a lack of consistent consequences. I don't care if your kid has ADHD, ODD whatever (mine had both, severely) don't let them get you mad and teach them that the actions THEY choose to make (this is a very critical part of the lesson) will have consequences. Good choices = good consequences.

Trust me, it will work. Don't negotiate, then you give the kid the power. They have to learn that the only power they have is over their own actions.

I agree with some of what was said above....I often tell my students and my own boys that their job is to go to school and do their homework, MY job is to work at the school, DAD'S job is to work for the state...etc...i also tell my boys that they can EARN something that they want to do like their video games or cartoon time...not like it's a reward, but for MOMMY, when all my work is done I get to read a book in my favorite chair....when DADDY is done with work he gets to ride his motorcycle...and when YOU are done with your homework, you get to watch cartoons...etc etc

however for 6th grade, this is when it started to become hard for ME to supervise and help with my son's homework because i just didn't understand it either....so he began doing his homework after school AT SCHOOL either with his special ed teacher or the after school tutoring program and that helped immensely because those teachers understood what he was learning

for what it's worth, i have a 16-year-old who is special ed, learning delays and diagnosed ADHD and an 8-year-old who is gifted and talented and testing way above his age level

I agree with the approach of alaskanlaughter. I have 3 kids but only the oldest (2nd grade now) gets homework. He is high functioning autistic with a recent ADHD diagnoses. I find that if I approach things in a militant way it creates conflict, the logical "reward" type way seems to work better. My son response better to reason than force.

I personally have difficultly enforcing homework because its my opinion its a waste of time for kids that don't need it. I was that kid that was gifted and my test scores were good. I didn't need the practice of homework. So right through high school I fought homework the whole way, unless it was a challenge. It was a waste of my time. So when my son, who despite his challenges is much brighter than I was at his age, tells me that he doesn't need to practice this stuff...well, he's right. I try to take the approach that we all have useless things to do, and he just needs to bite the bullet.

I can imagine it would be different if the child were struggling and they really needed the practice and their frustration was what was stopping them from completing the work.

Anyway, here, my son comes in from school and gets about 30 minutes down time, relax, play a game, have a snack etc...then he goes up to his room for home work. Today was the first day of second grade (and they came home with work) but so far so good. For him, I've noticed (during the past 2 years) that having that half hour or so to relax really helps him do his homework with more focus afterwards. When we used to try going right to homework after school, it was a nightmare. I think any reasonable person would want to relax for a little while after a long day before doing more work. So I give my kids the same courtesy.

Wow, some really great advice I appreciate it. I can't elaborate too much right now (it's almost 11pm and need to get up early) but I do set a time for it to be done and consequences. My problem is follow through and arguing with him when I really shouldn't. I take things away but get suckered into giving it back within a week. I created these bad habits so I can only blame myself. I'm not a person that parenting came naturally, I've made mistakes. Just being honest. Tonight actually went well because I remained calm and he was more compliant. I notice the more I yell the more he resists. This is something I know I need to work on. When I was a kid and my parents yelled it worked. Not the case here.

More on this tomorrow....

Good for you! I'm with ReNew Me, set the boundaries and stick to them calmly. It's all a matter of choices and the choices are all his.

I've been a teacher for a long time and I've observed a lot of teachers. The teachers that do the most yelling have the least amount of control over their classrooms. Because yelling is an offensive move, and it puts a kid immediately in defense mode. They'll defend themselves any way they can and that evolves over time. At first they'll be upset, then they'll get mad, then they'll yell back and eventually they'll tune you out completely. It makes homework an emotional struggle when it's really not, it's a choice and the choice is all theirs.

You're doing a good job, don't fret! Homework sucks for everyone! I don't want to do mine either.

I don't know why everyone thinks parenting comes naturally, it doesn't. We learn how to parent from OUR parents. It's burned in, like a computer chip. If your child frustrates you, the odds are your instinct will be to respond EXACTLY the way your parents reacted when they were frustrated with you.

IMO, people who are "natural born parents" usually (there are exceptions to every rule) were regularly exposed to a healthy role model or mentor.

And honestly, if you yourself were an "easy" kid (they exist) and you've been um, blessed with a kid who is a "handful" it can create a challenge that results in that frustration I mentioned back in the first paragraph.

I'll pass along another lesson I paid hard money for: You are not your child's friend, you are their parent -- I was hugely guilty of this one. You will be their friend, one day, but not until they themselves are adults (and that's another whole trauma, reworking that relationship, learning how to stop interfering, offering unsolicited advice and so forth). Being a parent often means you aren't going to be popular (particularly through the teen years), but you must be obeyed. Your son is becoming a teenager, he WILL steamroll you (and all authority figures) if he doesn't learn to respect you.

I can't really give advice, as my oldest refused to do homework (said it was busy work and why should he do it if he knew the material and could ace the tests) and no matter what we did or said, it didn't help (he questioned EVERYTHING and didn't care what we took away or gave him). We ended up placing him in adult education, so everything was done online (so no homework) and in his own time. He graduated with all A's and 3 months ahead of his graduating class.

What I CAN do, is say, it will get better! He is now 21, has a job, got married and is living in Hawaii. He's happy and is taking care of himself and his wife...and I am proud of him.

We now have our youngest who is the complete opposite. 7th grade and we've only had to take the computer away once for slipping grades. He brought them right back up. Sometimes I wish I could have combined the two...it would have made those early years of parenting so much easier,lol

I found this thread interesting. My DIL is my grandson's friend. She pampers him, never follows through with anything, because she wants love and affection from him. He had trouble with behavior in pre-school and it's continuing now in kindergarten. The teachers don't brush everything off the way Mom does. He already says he doesn't want to go to school. I hate to see what will happen when he starts getting homework.

Same here. I give him 30 minutes to unwind but not much longer because he would put it off later and later so I had to lay down the law last year and carried it over to this year. He can eat and watch tv but no games or tablet until everything is done. That works pretty well most of the time.

I think it's too soon to tell but it sounds like she's in for a rude awakening. My son loved school until about 2nd grade. He just hates homework more than anything because he feels it's intrusive of his free time. I know the feeling since I was a kid many moons ago so I try to remember I was once in his shoes. Thankfully he has a lot of friends otherwise he probably wouldn't want to go to school at all.

I too pampered my son but out of guilt. I felt responsible for bringing him into a horrible marriage that is now over. I stopped pampering when he was 5 and became a disciplinarian. It took me a long time to break him of habits.

Renew, I agree with everything you say but I do believe some have greater maternal instincts than others and it kicks in very naturally. My Mother was great with kids and would've had 5 if my Dad agreed. She always thought it was strange that I had no desire to have a daughter or a 2nd child.

Honestly, I put liking children right up there with liking anything else, from dogs to yogurt. People get offended when I say what I truly feel, which is that I don't like children. *shrug* That doesn't mean I didn't love my own son, I would have killed for him. But I had virtually no positive interactions with kids growing up so it's no surprise I have nothing but negative associations regarding the children of others and my feelings about them. Why it's okay to say you don't care for dogs and not children leaves me baffled, tho. I don't abuse dogs, i can be perfectly cordial to them, I just choose not to keep them in my home.

I have a friend that I talked to about having a 2nd child several years back and I was a little surprised by her reply - that she regrets her 2nd child and if given a do-over she would only have the one. I know she loves both of her children but she advised me against it. I didn't get offended, I appreciated her brutal honesty. Most women would deny that to the grave.

I don't regret my son at all, just regret who I had him with. If I was younger I would probably have another with my soon-to-be new husband but we missed that window.

I don't have negative associations, I think my son is great. He's just a butt during homework sometimes. I could do without some other people's kids though. Working with the public my entire life I have seen it all. Sometimes the parents are even more obnoxious but that's another thread.

Renew me, I think the reason that its more socially acceptable to say you don't like dogs rather than kids, is dogs and kids are not equal. Kids are human, dogs are animals. The problem may be that you are comparing children to dogs or yogurt. They are not a hobby, an animal, or choice of cuisine. That may be why some people get offended. However on the topic of acknowledging children are people, while I love my own kids, as a general rule I tolerate other children, and sometimes out right dislike them. But I think that comes from that I find other people annoying, and when I see children of obnoxious people, all I see are the future pr*cks of the world that someday my kids are going to have to share this planet with. Yuck.

Also despite the many dysfunctions of my childhood, my mother was the child of a cop and former soldier, as well as my dad was the child of a cop and former marine AND attended catholic school. While there was no way they could ever have afforded private school for me, I was raised rather strictly behavior wise, and I am the same with my kids. Its a challenge because my oldest has many behavioral problems and social challenges, but despite all that I can see the hard work paying off. He is 7 and holds doors for EVERYONE, says please and thank you, and when he meets someone, he shakes their hand and introduces himself (most of the time). These are little things that matter to me and when I see ADULTs that are too rude to do this, I cringe at the example they are setting for their kids. And often those are the kids I cannot stand.

I feel similar about dogs lol even though they are different than kids, well behaved dogs with responsible owners are a pleasure. Annoying, barking, jumping dogs on the other hand are annoying. I think the difference is if someone has an obnoxious dog, I have no issue telling them, I don't like your dog, please keep it away from me. Whereas, with a child, I wouldn't say that! lol

So far so good here with homework. But the year is just starting, we'll see as the year goes on.

Novangel, I agree with your son's opinion on homework and school to an extent. I have thought many times about homeschooling but I truly believe that teachers go through their education for a reason, and that me being untrained, I highly doubt I could deliver an education of the same standards. Had I been a teacher (and not a nurse) I would probably home school my kids. I think the school system does not (and of course cannot) address each student's needs individually and that much of what they do can be a waste of time for some kids. My son just said to me a little while ago over breakfast that what they are doing in math is boring. Its far below his level, and if he were homeschooled I could have moved on from it. The capacity to learn at a young age is unmatched the rest of our lives. Moving the work along for kids and always keeping it new and having them learn would be the best kind of education. But unfortunately, that really requires one on one teaching.