AIBU to insist my son does his homework on the day he gets it?

Stupid rule, one you're going to have to back down on in the next few months as the work load increases and he has more things to do of an evening.

Might seem sensible now, when he has only a few things to do and they are piss easy and take five minutes.

But if he comes home tomorrow with 3 assignments, some of which require him to do some further research/study, and he also has some extra curricular stuff, and the next day the same... you're going to get to a point where he's rushing and doing stuff before he has the information needed.

On top of that some teachers set homework that is an ongoing thing, so you do a bit this week then add to it after the next lesson, after some further self-guided study etc..

At my school two of our teachers would set 'block' homework, the whole terms homework in one go. It would have been impossible to do that in even the first week, let alone the first night.

The most I'd do is set aside 'homework time' so theres an hour or so, several nights a week that are clear for homework. If he doesn't have any or there are several more free 'homework periods' left that week, he doesn't have to do it in the first available one.

YABU you’re being controlling. I always did mine on a Sunday evening. You don’t need to dictate all of his life

Once they get to secondary other than a 'do you need to do your homework' comment I left dd to it.

I think having a rule about it is a bit OTT tbh, he's old enough to learn the hard way if he has to spend 3 hours doing all the homework on Thursday evening!!

No one is "micro managing" throughout secondary school. When we did it, we only "micro managed" for the first couple of weeks to establish the pattern and good habits. Luckily, for the first few weeks, his teachers were also pretty good with giving homework on the appointed day as per homework calendar, putting it up on the SMH app, and collecting/marking it on the right day. So it was "good habits" from both sides.

That sets the pattern/habit.

After that, we were "helicoptering" his homework, i.e. leaving him to it, but under the general principle of doing it on the day it was set wherever possible. We never checked he'd actually done what he was supposed to each day. Our input was simply a reminder every day after evening meal to do his homework first, before gaming or whatever. We relied on him to do the work and be honest when he said he'd done it, or had nothing to do.

That pattern/habit endured throughout the next five years. Just gentle "nudges" from us to remind him to do it or if there was something going on, like a family gathering, short break, weekend away, we'd warn him in advance to be fully up to date.

As a result of good habits, we never had the "Sunday night panic" of realising there were things he'd forgotten to do, never had him panicking about a revision test he'd forgotten to revise for etc.

Getting the habits/behaviour sorted from the earliest possible time avoids problems later on.

But how is you telling dc what to do and when, him taking on more responsibility and being given more freedom? It doesn’t make sense.
I’m not saying that he should be left to his own devices completely, but guidance rather than a strict regime may save you a lot of future hassle.
Dc using a timetable to put in homework tasks each week- where he decides which day he is doing each homework task and then sticks to it would be him taking responsibility.

It seems like a stupid rule to me.

With our kids, once homework ramped up a bit, we had a chat about how to plan their time. They soon get to know which subject set homework when, and how long they had to had it in so they got into a good routine. We kept an eye out for the first few months to make sure they had it under control which they always did.

I didn’t realise parents were supposed to get so involved with homework. Mine never did!

Did YOU do all your homework the day it was set, @orangesandlemonssaythebellsofstclements ?

You are catastrophising.

Leave him to figure it out, after asking him if he has what he needs in order to keep track of what might turn out to be multiple assignments. If he says he has a plan, let him be.

Observe quietly.

Let him sink or swim. Try not to let your anxiety get in the way of him developing his own good habits.

Remind yourself and your DS that he works for himself, not for you or even for the teachers.

If the work doesn't get done, that's on him.

See how he goes between now and mid term. If he blows off his homework, rushes through it at the last minute, hands in sloppy work, or seems to be developing a procrastination habit, then it would be time to sit him down for a solution-oriented conversation.

The one thing I'd ask him now is how he plans to keep track of what needs to be done and when it is due. Try to sound encouraging and tell him you have confidence he'll manage his time well.

Keep track quietly.

The thing I'd focus on where good habits are concerned is making sure he does household chores. He needs to be doing his own laundry, getting his own packed lunch and cleaning up the kitchen afterward, making sure his bag is packed at night and extra gear all ready to walk out the door in the morning. He should be responsible for getting himself up. He should be taking a shower every day and keeping his room tidy. He should be helping to get dinner on the table.

I think it will be hard to enforce for long. One big project or an evening event can throw it for a few days as it piles up so quickly. Better to get him used to working to a deadline than a on the day approach. That way he can manage around other activities in the week without getting stressed.

Let him learn to manage his own workload.

Op as a mother of 2 secondary school boys both doing reasonably well I agree with every post that has been made so far in the thread ( 1st page). You are clearly determined to go in the opposite direction . I appreciate you are acting out of best interests for your son's education. However 12 is the time when children begin to separate from their parents and forge their own identity. If you persist in "my way or highway " you will either end up with a rebellious teen or a man child. In either scenario school homework will be the least of your problems altogether

Then he will have learnt his lesson about time management. This is a big part of secondary school. If he gets a detention he will have to use that time to do the homework!

They need to learn to manage their own time. Otherwise you'll still be standing over them doing it when they're 16.

Besides, individual teachers usually set homeworks on specific days, with the same deadline each week, and some teachers give shorter deadlines than others. So it makes much more sense for him to work out a rough weekly plan of which subjects he will do on which days of the week, rather than have a blanket 'do it on the night it's set' rule. This will make the workload more even across the week.

How does that work when he's in the school play and rehearsing till 9 pm? Or he's doing A levels and he's been set two long essays on the same day, both of which will take at least three hours to research and write?

Thay all works until the day he gets 4 sets of homework on the same night, all due in for a week later, and he has a club that night.

Well done, it is not a stupid rule. It is the only rule if he is to make the most out of school and become an organised human being. Do not budge an inch!

My DS goes to a very homework-heavy school.

At the start of Year 7 I talked to him about planning homework;

1 Safest option - do it the day it is issued
2 Plan it for any night before it is due and hope you don't get another deadline that makes it hard to stick to the plan
3 Most risky - do it the night before the deadline

He tried 1 and failed to keep it up, so ended up scrabbling through 2 and 3. He ended up doing things on the bus on the way to school!

By Year 8 he was (mostly) doing the homework on the day it is set, and is still doing that now in Year 9. He never misses a homework or hands it in late (though o can't swear all pieces have maximum effort ).

Throughout it all, from the start of Year 7 I decided my role was a generic "got any homework you should be doing?" at some point most evenings and on a Sunday afternoon.

He is entirely self sufficient with regard to homework , and I put that down to him experiencing all the ways at failing to plan homework! He has seen what works and what doesn't, and settled on "his way". If I'd pushed a rule that he had to do it "my way", I think we'd still be fighting about it!

Let it go, let him fail while it's Year 7 and the worst consequence is a detention. Don't micromanage it now, and set him up with zero self sufficiency for when he has to plan revision etc later down the road.

As the teenager that left all homework to the last minute or ended up doing it in detention I think you're right to get him into the habit of getting it done and out of the way.

However I'd be flexible to a degree, you say this particular piece will take 5 mins so yes he gets it done today and out of the way. On the days he gets several pieces then he does the ones that are due first and works his way through them for a set amount of time then he can continue the next day so he's never spending all of his evening doing homework.

I wonder if you offer this as a compromise he will be more accepting and can see the reality of how long assignments actually take and enjoy the freedom of having finished it rather than never fully relaxing as it's still to be done.

I think it's a great idea & I'm very much a 'do it now & get it out of the way' kind of person however my son is not! He is a 'last minute Larry' & to be fair to him he never forgot his homework & did well at school (he's now at college) so he still thinks my approach is wrong. Good luck x

Mine were thrown in at the deep end by school when they started year 7. They had a LOT of homework… I was quite pushy with homework rules and standards for the first half term 😂 The school had a policy that homework had to be signed off by parents, so I had an excuse. My DC knew it was just to get them started and that once they had got the hang of managing their own time, I would leave them to it. It’s a lot easier IME to learn how to do that if someone teaches you good practice. Why is learning to manage time or research properly any different from learning French verbs or calculus? We don’t expect kids to learn those by experience or trial and error? We are all ND though so maybe what works for us is different.

We did the same for year 7 exams - made a revision plan together and taught them different revision techniques.

Of course, once they had a free reign, they slacked off and coasted 😂 But when they needed to get it together in GCSE years, they knew how best to work for them.

Does he understand why you are suggesting doing homework on the night he gets it? (Though it is a pain when they are given a week to do it!)
What is he doing if he isn't doing homework and is it going to build up over the weeks?
Think the cadets might be a carrot approach for him. If he wants to do this, and rules have been adapted for him then he needs to show some maturity about his homework.

It’s a good idea in theory and it does of course get it out of the way. It does depend on the homework as some are bigger projects that need research, reading time and time to collect materials etc.

You're deciding what kind of child you want to have and enforcing it on him.
Why not help him to work out how he wants to organise it, coaching him.
Would you like it if you were on your break and your boss or partner kept hassling you/forcing you about what they thought you should be doing? You'd tell them to go and take a hike!