Advice please ! My son is SO SO slow doing his homework...

[orangetulip]

Tearing hair out here... a simple homework assignment will drag on for hours and hours, when if he got down to it he could do it in 1/2 hour.
It's not ability that's the problem - it's all the other things: procrastination, lack of concentration, just a general reluctance to knuckle down, concentrate and get it done.
We have tried everything - chocolate bribery, encouragement, telling off, sitting with him, leaving him on his own, saying he can have a friend round when it's done...
I don't want to be pushy, but we're facing secondary school tests soon, and inability to work to the clock is going to be just a bit of a problem. PLus it's taking over the weekends !
Any advice please ?

[sittinginthesun]

How old is your son? I think he is probably older than mine (year 3) if you have secondary tests, but I have approached this by setting aside a half hour for each piece of homework, telling DS in advance that homework will be done then, setting a timer and sticking to it.

If it doesn't get done, then it gets handed in as it is.

TBH, it works for us because he is quite motivated, and he is at an age when it isn't such a big deal if it isn't finished.

I just remember from my own school days that learning to work within a deadline was always useful for tests and stuff.

[anthonytrollopesrevenge]

I have the same problem with my DS who is 8 and in yr 4. I might try out sittinginthesun's timer idea, I'll try anything as I am getting desperate! But everything that orangetulip says applies to DS too - particularly the procrastination and it drives me insane. I will look back at thus thread in the hope of finding more good ideas.

The only homework DS is happy to do is tables and spelling. This is because he has a competition going with 2 other boys at school about who gets the best results. The school has weekly tables and spelling tests . All 3 boys are similar ability and the competition has really improved his spelling, he was already good at maths so this would be difficult to improve, still, it keeps his interest up. Not sure how to replicate this for others though.

[maddiemostmerry]

Also say timer.

My son (year 5) is very slow as he is a perfectionist. School say "minimaddie, you have two minutes to write a title" and so on to get him though his work.

They also told us to use this technique at home and if he hasn't achieved it in the time slot to carry on with the work.

Is he like it at school as well? If it's just general faffing at home be quite strict with him on the time and send the work back to school after 30 mins with a note explaining why he hasn't got it done.

[orangetulip]

Thanks so much all... we have some success in that I tried the timer thing.. it sort of worked in that I said he had 30 mins to do Maths homework. He got to 30 mins and it wasn't quite done, but I let him run over a little bit because he had been concentrating fairly hard.. so step 2 I think is to try again but just be a bit tougher about stopping at agreed time. Forgot to mention, he's 10.

Amazing thing was that he did 15 Questions in 35 mins, and when he realised his friend was trying to get him on Skype, managed to polish off remaining 5 questions in 2 mins...so state of mind, as I said

I asked about what happened at school in tests and so on - they said timing wasn't a problem - when I asked him about this he said it was because at school it 'was for real'. Puts me in my place