Year 9 - an hour of homework on weekdays unreasonable?

Do not feel like a failure - the teenage years will destroy you if you let it.

I agree with the posts regarding backing off with the homework and establishing some ground rules at home.

My DS, just completed GCSE's, did hardly any homework for all of his secondary school. I did goto every parents evening, much to his disgust, and talked with the teachers re progress, concerns. When GCSE's kicked in, they start in Year 9 at his school, we focussed on practise papers at home. In Year 11 I discussed with each teacher what he would get at school and which subjects to focus on at home. Was there any point me trying to get him to do study for all the subjects when only 2 needed the extra time.

DS decided very early on he wanted to be an electrician, yes he was capable of getting A's at every subject but he didn't need it. He wasn't going to university (had my own tears at that but got over it) not doing A Levels. He needed 5 GCSE's at grade C including English and Maths and got 14.

My rule for DS was 'as long as school didn't contact me I would leave the decsions to him but if school did contact me he was grounded for that week and I would get involved with his homework plans'. On the quiet I encouraged school to contact whenever there was an issue - eg deadlines not met. I was lucky with his school, it was a definate 'we' that got him through.

Regarding your DD - is she sabotaging her future or is she bright enough to know what she needs to do and is doing it in school. Have her progress levels dropped?

I also agree very much with Chloe74's post further up and also pick your battles. So what if she doesn't tidy her room, so what if she doesn't wear a coat, if she gets wet it will dry. Pick your battles - she is only in Year 9, you have got to get through to the end of Year 11, at this rate you'll be exhausted by Christmas.

The teenage years are awful, heartbreaking, make you question your own sanity but you are not the only one going through this. Start talking to friends with children the same age. It doesn't matter if you are a multi millionare or do not have two pennies teenagers are teenagers and nearly all parents will be expereincing to some degree what you are.

Sorry for the long post but DS has just tunred 17 and even 6 months ago I never thought that for one minute we would be where we are now. It does get better, it may get worse but it does get better, not overnight but eventually the time in between arguements, flare ups does get longer.

Yes but sometimes whatever you do makes it worse.
I had a year from hell with my 13 year old dd.
She ran away twice. She was meeting up with older boys/men that she was "meeting" on Facebook because "all her friends were"

She was slowly destroying her life. I worried constantly she was going to be raped or come home pregnant at 13.

I feel for you because the area of London we live in sounds like what you described earlier. All her friends were running the street at all hours so she used to try and sneak out.

She refused point blank at first to go to any type of family counseling, she insisted that she wanted to go to social services and be put in care. And she meant it as well.

We insisted on family counseling and she also had individual counseling. We also took her out of school and sent to her a school outside of london to see if that had any effect.

For the last couple of months she has got serious about schoolwork, GCSE start this year, a couple of them anyway and she wants to be a lawyer.
We go out together every Wednesday evening, just for coffee or a film or an early dinner, just me and her. It's nice to spend a bit of time together now.

But I can honestly say that nothing we did had any effect other than to make her behavior worse.
The counseling helped. Moving her out of the environment where this behaviour was the norm helped. But she made the decision to stay at home, get her head down and do well.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is there's only so much you can do. It's up to her to change her behaviour. And I also know that saying to you to do nothing is ridiculous. I know it is.

I guess what I mean is, however much you want to, you cannot change her behaviour. But you can change how you react to it. Does that make sense?

I agree on encouraging her to read tripe - dd reads anything, but reads at least two grotty books for every one half-decent one.

The series books are great for pure quantity reading, which has the benefit of speeding up their reading which does help when trying to make notes and study, picking out the important bits. Teenagers can get out of the habit of reading (not to mention the appalling effect of txtspk).

Jude, I'm laughing at you (sorry), having to make your son do guitar. At the moment ds2 is banned from doing more than an hour a day as I can't get him off the fecking thing.

All sympathy to you OP. It is the hardest age in Y9/10.

You sound very worn down by it all. Somehow you need to break the cycle you're stuck in. Do you ever have fun with her? Maybe watch a film together or comedy? It sounds as though you're so frustrated and concerned on her behalf that you are losing any joy in the relationship. Do you or dh have interests of your own, and do you read regularly? Even at that age it is worth modeling behaviour.

She is in the top sets, so she must be doing relatively well, in our school that would mean the teachers are expecting A*s and so on at GCSE. It's good that her attititude at school is good, even if it's not at home. It would be worse the other way round really.

As other have said, pick your battles carefully, non coat wearing is normal for the age as are messy rooms. Only deal with the stuff that really matters.

I also recommend the 'how to talk to teens..' book, sorry crap at links. It's American but I found it interesting. Teen dd also read it, so she knows how ard it is for parents, too

Shagmundfreud - I agree those books are tripe, but you suggest she might read them. It seems to me that if you are faced with her reading nothing you will never get her interested in worthwhile literature. I was trying to think of a compromise you could make to give you a starting point. Reading anything must be better than watching HollyOaks and if she got interested in books then it would be a lot easier to get her moved onto something deeper. Why not give them a try, they can inspire the imagination and spark something greater. Reading can be for fun and not just education.

Y9 (last year) seemed to me to be a bit of a dossy year; my son got set minimal homework.

He is now in y10 and gets about 2 hours per night. I worry about his lack of swottiness; but he rarely gets below an A* in tests, so I am having to accept his laissez faire attitude.

Reading is a battle; but I have told him I am not signing his reading record this term unless he reads the required amount. (Minimum of 1 per half term, not exactly hard to manage)

I force him to do 10 whole minutes on guitar every day otherwise he'd do none.

I make a conscious effort to not be negative with him as I can see how easy it is to fall into this at 13/14. I notice how much he laps up compliments and responds to them.

That he's happy and wanting to spend time with us and talk about school life counts for so much. I have had to get over the fact he is never going to be bookish.

It's hard being parent to a teen sometimes but you need to pick your battles before she really resents you. Oh and think 'this too shall pass'.

and a chat about birth control! 13 is not too young to be a mum, and I agree, preventing that would be my highest priority.

Sorry but I have to conclude that it is you who has the problem. You want her to do you credit, and for you to be able to celebrate her achievements with the rest of your family. How many years have ou been comparing her to them? Would you consider family therapy?

Oh dear.

dd does too. I want to sit her down and forcibly insert some sort of implant but apparently that's against the law .

I think prayers and are the only answers.

You are not a failute of a parent.

I have had to sit through family dinners cringing because my niece was supposed to be heading off to do medicine, when my son dropped out of school at 15 and was smoking dope .

BUT - it will be interesting to see in a few years' time what happens. I wouldn't be surprised if my niece drops out of medical school and ds has now found a new interest and gone to college.

We can push as much as we can, but ultimately we can't change them, we can only change how we react to them.

Expecting respect, expecting her to tell you where she is, expecting her to be polite and to keep the communal areas of the house tidy is reasonable.

Backing the school in their enforcement of their academic expectations is reasonable.

Driving yourself bonkers because you can't make her keep her room tidy, do extra study or wear a coat isn't reasonable. You are setting yourself up to fail.

Figure out what you can do and do it; back off a bit where you can.

Pray for her to grow up

I think I would back off completely with schoolwork and work on some ground rules for behaviour.

would she not even read some of those romantic teenage vampire stories?

YABU to set extra work IMO.
School should be setting homework, which maybe more than an hour some nights and less others. My yr 9 does about an hour a night when averaged out.

I would not clean her room, she's old enough.
You wrote you check her homework etc, but then that's all you can do!
I would let her have the computer to do her homework (maybe at the dining table while you are around and can have an eye on her).
She sounds a really strong personality, and that's good for a girl to be confident. But she can't treat you like she does and I wonder where this comes from? From her friends? She would be grounded if she was mine after saying rude things to deliberately hurt me.
Don't let it get at you though. Does she get enough attention from you 1:1? Is the homework issue a way of getting it? Maybe find something you two can do together!

She incredibly like DD1 at the same age - she didn't try because then you can't fail. Not a massive personality flaw rather the fact that she had massively low self esteem. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and we didn't deal with it very well at the time. She's 21 now and perfectly capable of working incredibly hard but in year 9 (and 10,11,12 and 13!) she would do the minimum. No hobbies, no schoolwork and a bad attitude to us and school.

My DS does very little, doesn't even "hang out" with friends. I'm not worried too much because he actually does quite a lot on his computer, admittedly I am nagging him because: he needs to get his work done now he is in sixth form, and he needs to actually admit to his school he does anything.

I have to try very hard to bite my tongue because his sister is the opposite, she belongs to lots of things and is very active. Admittedly she isn't as active as some of her friends who manage: to go to top academic schools and do all home work, and belong to 2+ choirs, and at least one county orchestra, do D of E Gold, be a Brownie leader, and have lessons in 3 instruments (as well as boyfriends and go to concerts and.....).

Don't compare with others, their parents may be either lying or lied to anyhow.

Who gave her the money to buy the makeup you argued about? Stop buying it until she behaves respectfully and fairly.
If she wont bring a bag to school, that?s her problem, let her get detention.
If she wont go to guides, drama, dance e.t.c. why do you allow her to sit and watch TV? Either she finds something she enjoys doing or she can sit bored for 2 hours.
If she wont help around the house they don't wash her clothes or clean her room. If she's into fashion she will be embarrassed to be seen in dirty clothes and start to help out.
If she wont wear a coat then let her go to school wet, she will soon its not pleasant sitting in wet clothes.
Who bought her the phone? Who went to pick her up, let her walk and face the consequences of her actions.

Who gives her credit to use on text messages etc. You can restrict a phone to only being able to phone home in emergencies.
Ask for the schools help in solving the homework diary issue, you talking to her wont solve the issue.
Getting them out of bed is a hard one... I would suggest you enforce an earlier and earlier bedtime until she cooperates on getting up on time. Whether or not she sleeps is up to her but don't let her have TV?s, computers, phone etc. in the bedroom. So she can only stay up later if she proves she can get up on time.
If she isn't coming home without telling you where she is then you need to get on top of that one. Involve the school, and take away ALL her privileges, you might even have to ring the police if she's late home.
If she doesnt like the food you cook then let her go hungry.

All I can say is stop fighting her, as you cant win. be a parent lay down the rules and stick to them.

Right now it sounds like both of you are hurting to also add on an hours study a night and 20 mins reading. It would be nice but maybe a bit much at the moment. I would limit it to getting her homework done, and only give her back her phone/laptop/makeup etc as rewards for being more productive.