Motivating a seven year old boy!

[tinkytot]

Hello

Just had a heart to heart with my son who feels he 'works all the time' and only has one day off! This follows an attempt from me to get him to complete his homework. We ask that he practises his spelling once each day and reads to us five out of seven days and every night he has a story that
I read to him. At weekends he has homework set by school that usually is complete within 20 mins or so.

How do you motivate your children? I feel really sad to hear he feels all he does is work and we really do not ask him to do more than the school sets. But it seems a shame that he is feeling this pressure so young!

Never experienced this with my older two children so all suggestions welcome.....

[Goingintohibernation]

Does he really feel he works all the time, or is it possible he is just being a little melodramatic? What your DS has to do doesn't sound excessive. As long as you are happy that he is getting plenty of down time, and has opportunities to do fun things, then I wouldn't worry too much. I'd be more inclined to tell him it is just stuff that has to be done, and the quicker he does it, the quicker he can get on with more fun things.

That said, I do find DS needs a snack and half an hour with his brain switched off staring blankly at the TV before it is worth asking him to do anything after school, so I don't know if that might be worth a try?

[tippytappywriter]

Could you alternate reading and spellings and have Sunday off? This way he might feel the pressure is off a bit?

[tinkytot]

I do think he is being a bit melodramatic as he literally only does his spellings which takes five mins and reads for five minutes. He does have down time and to be honest he has four hours after school finished and before bed so ten mins is really not bad!

It is monotonous but the struggle with him means it takes twice as long.

I wonder how others manage it......

[nonicknameseemsavailable]

my 2 are both currently at 'school is boring' stage.

we do reading most nights and spellings about 2-3 times a week (one only has them for 4 nights and the other has them for a week but we normally forget to do them). I tend to do spellings with them when they are in the bath, I call them out and they spell them out. do it quickly at the start then they can relax. they are cornered in the bath so can't get out of it either.

reading is a nightly battle so can't help there.

weekend homework - only the yr2 one gets any so we come in from school, have a snack then do homework then all done. bit of grumbling but I think she realises that is better than me nagging all weekend. Not sure how it will all work as they get older and get more, am dreading it.

I think you just have to find what works for you and if I need to resort to bribery then I do. realistic bribery, not silly stuff but things like 'well if you do it now then you can have some chocolate buttons or something'. probably completely the wrong thing to do but...

[tinkytot]

Thanks for the replies.

Any other advice?

[Ferguson]

An inexpensive and easy to use book, that can encourage children with reading, spelling and writing, and really help them to understand Phonics, is reviewed in the MN Book Reviews section. Just search ‘Phonics’.

If he has this book, it can take a lot of the 'mystery' out of spelling, so he will see the different patterns and categories that words follow, and NOT need to learn every word, but will become aware of the category it falls into.