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

Good for you. It’s called being a parent. Kids need a lot of guidance and structure. Once they have sat GCSEs I would leave them to it but not before. Lazy parenting and low standards seem to prevail unfortunately.

Children shouldn't have homework. They're in school five days a week. That should be enough.

I get where you’re coming from, but I suggest taking a different approach whereby you ask him to suggest a plan for how he is going to tackle homework and what are his strategies for if/when there might be a lot of assignments around the same time. Working alongside him and showing him how you have to manage things like this in a work environment can be empowering for him rather than a “my house, my rules” approach. We did this with my DD (20) who learnt to plan her work during secondary school and she regularly submits uni assignments in good time. Time management is a skill to learn and develop rather than a rule to follow. Your son may not get it right first time, but he will learn more through experience.

You are not helping him develop independence by enforcing rules like this. If it is not due for a week why do it straight away seems a daft life lesson!

Totally unreasonable OP.
I sincerely hope that you never come across any real problems with your son

As long as he does his best and hands it in on time then leave him to it!

Obviously, it's a sensible idea to do homework on the night it's set in general. However insisting on this extra rule for homework that's far more stringent than the school policy, and by making it a contentious issue from the outset, I think you risk giving him the impression that he's doing the homework to appease you rather than for his own educational benefit.

If you enforce this rule before he's even had a chance to prove whether or not he would have been able to stay organised independently, he won't have the opportunity to experience the consequences of his choices. By micromanaging him, you might be shielding him from getting overwhelmed with too much homework in the short term, but he won't have as much life experience to handle these choices for himself in the long term.

It's hard for parents to adjust to secondary school, especially when the school share the info with you so it feels like they're expecting you to take responsibility for making sure pupils do their work, when really they expect the pupils to take responsibility, with support and oversight from the parents where needed. It's incredibly hard to strike the right balance as a parent, and it will take some time (and experience of homework over the next weeks and months) for both of you to adjust.

It's natural to worry about the transition to secondary schools but it sounds like you're trying to impose additional rules on DS for problems that don't actually exist yet.

If he starts getting a ridiculous amount of homework, then you will see that in the app and you can raise concerns with the school. And if he doesn't actually do his homework on time, then you can deal with that situation as appropriate.

But I think you're worrying disproportionately about future problems that don't currently exist. At least give him a chance to fuck things up first before you punish him!

That's exactly what we did as long as he had no other commitments. No negotiation. We started the "habit" from his first day. Evening meal at the dining table, and then straight onto his homework. Once done, the rest of the evening was his own. Only exceptions were where he clearly had too much to do in an evening, and then we'd look at hand in deadlines and pick a homework to be deferred a day or so. We started as we meant to go on and made it a habit. Far easier that way. He carried on doing it like that throughout secondary right up to GCSE years. We never had any last minute panics where he'd forgotten to do something or left it too late he ended up having to do it instead of another activity or other homework.

We've no idea what he did for sixth form, we didn't get involved and the school didn't put homework on an app, but he never seemed stressed, and got straight A*s in his A levels, so he must have been doing something right.

I voted YABU. Now is his time to learn to take responsibility for his work. If he fails, he does so when it doesn’t matter. If is punished by school for missing a deadline it will have more impact than you micro managing him.

Support him by all means but by managing for him he’s not learning the skills he’ll need later.

And how is that teaching him to manage his own time? Stupid rule. They won't give him that much in a week that he can't cope with it.

He’s just started secondary. It’s a big change. Your approach sounds a bit heavy handed. Agree he needs to learn to manage his time and that some days he might be too tired or not in the right frame of mind. Plus he’ll have some which is more urgent and some which he can leave a few days while he does the urgent stuff. I think you need to find a way of being more supportive.

My house is never so tidy as when I have an essay due!

I voted YABU as I think it’s really important they learn to manage their own time and tasks once they hit secondary school. That means you letting go a bit and if necessary letting him make his own mistakes/ miss a deadline.

By all means help him learn to organise himself / prioritise with a planner etc but don’t micro manage the actual doing of the work.

I don't think my parents had a bloody clue what homework I had by the time I was in high school, never mind whether I actually did it or not. It was my work to do in my own time. If I didn't do it, the school would dish out the consquences - it had nothing to do with them.

I’d let him manage his homework’s himself. I did once mine went to secondary school. If he hands it in late or doesn’t do it then the consequences are on him and him alone. A gentle reminder and let him crack on. You’re encouraging his independent which is only ever a good thing.

You know your son and his character best, not all children are self-motivated at this age or able to quickly learn from consequences. It's your responsibility in this situation to guide him, and help him learn how to make sensible decisions and plan his commitments. At 11yrs old most parents still need to be very involved, and having a rule like this will start him off with good habits. However, do be aware that you also will need to model flexibility to changing situations. Expect to be gradually less directing and allow him to experience more and more responsibility, so that each academic year develops these life skills further.

YABU to "make him" or impose "your rules" about the 'best' way to manage his time on him.

Some people like to 'power through' everything they have to do, then relax.
Some people like to come in from work (school in his case) and have a complete break - be that resting / watching tele / playing a sport / cooking / whatever, then feel in a better frame of mind, to start the next challenge.
Some people work really well to deadlines, but struggle to get motivated before that.
Some people like to get everything out the way as quick as possible.
Some people get waves of energy and lethargy and will do something much better when in the right frame of mind.

What your job as a parent is, is to help him learn to manage his own time and to recognise that his way of doing things is probably unlikely to be the same way you would do things.

By all means, suggest what you consider to be good habits. By all means show him how work will pile up if he leaves everything. Definitely let him take the detention or whatever if he doesn't get something done on time - that will be his learning curve. As parents, our job is to provide them with things like the space to work, and the knowledge of different options, but then to stand back and let them work it out.

The rules are silly though.

Wow. DD has been obsessed with planes since she was 2 but they still made her wait till year 8. She’s having a blast there though.

It is funny. My parents pretty much let me get on with it homework wise, even though I’m chronically disorganised. They were always on at my younger brother about it though, and he’s much better at getting stuff done than me.

Not a good idea.

Reasons why this is not a good idea:

Some homework is long and involved. This is best left for the weekend when they are not tired after school,

Some homework timetables mean that lots of homework is set on one day but various pieces are due in tomorrow/the day after/next week. If he gets six pieces of homework that will take hours and hours it's unreasonable to do it all on the day it is set. It should be spread out.

@ItTook9Years I'm still exactly like that too. I have a 10,000 word report due in on Monday and I've spent a lot of today doing completely unrelated things!

I regularly got 4 bits of homework a day in year 7 tbf, it was peak homework year for some reason. I did it on the bus on the day it was due nothing's changed

I think that as it's his responsibility OP, he’ll have to remember to do it himself and face the consequences if he doesn’t.