To have just told my 12 year old son to rub out his art homework and start again??

[amck5700]

He has just started High School, loves Art and is loving school in general. He had an assignment that he has to draw an object from home each week and spend at least 30 minutes drawing it. This week is the first one and it was a plant or a flower paying particular attention to the petals, stems and/or leaves and to include shading.

He was called down from his computer to do his homework (he is supposed to check and do whatever homework he has before he goes on). He decided that 10 minutes drawing something from his imagination was enough. The picture wasn't actually too bad. However the plants in the pot he had made up didn't look real and therefore in no way had he followed the instructions and had essentially just rushed it to get back on the computer. I told him to rub it out, get a proper flower and draw it again spending 30 minutes.

He is in a grump and part of me thinks I should have let him hand it in and get whatever mark the teacher decided was appropriate.

I think I might implement that policy where possible.

A lot of teachers tell them to all get their diaries out and specifically tell them to write what the homework is and when its due in. Well for the first couple of weeks anyway. After that depends entirely on the teacher

Yabu! Its art, unread its vital to his life let him get away with doing "just enough" and the teacher doesn't know its something he made up.

Art is surely about drawing stuff not in a photographic way.

If he develops a taste for art and wants to do it at gcse it'll take over his life...

Aww ihear and here was me thinking that he was actually doing what I'd said.....

I think what you did is fine. The only difference I would have done is not rub the first one out. If he's been able to compare, he would have seen how that extra effort produced a better result. He sounds as if he is doing well generally.

Theas - he loves art and has been for lessons in the past but it ended up clashing with scout camps so he gave up for a while. His ambition is to be an architect/engineer/IT designer/games master!! He's already asked for a plot of land for his birthday so he can build his and his friends office building on.....they have a company name and a couple of youtube channels too. His office design is quite impressive and has his penthouse flat at the top!! He doesn't lack ambition despite the lazy approach to his homework :)

nfk - he had to do it on the allocated page in the booklet but I agree with what you are saying re showing the difference. I didn't rub it out though, he did.

Yes, sorry. I did realise that.

Theas18 what a really shitty attitude to work.

Sometimes you can do work because there is enjoyment to be had in doing a task and seeing yourself improve as you develop skills.

I can't believe you actually hold that viewpoint that it doesn't matter and advise doing bare minimum.

Yanbu....he's young still. I wish my parents had hassled me more when I was in high school!

Did he really have to rub it out? Couldn't he have started again on another sheet of paper?

How pedantic of you to notice that Aargh but I agree!

YANBU

Hi my child has a timer on the pc so it clicks on at a certain time He should not be on line until homework is done if he dosent do his homeowrk his choice but then no computer

I think you did the right thing but by the end of term he need to face up to things himself

Argh - Not sure really - he has been given a pre printed a5 booklet with the instructions at the front and then specific pages for each task - I guess he could have done it separately and then stapled it in but I think the point is that they do it as instructed on each provided page. - it was only 10 minutes of work he lost I chuck out mountains of pictures each week he was only annoyed as he had to spend time doing it again - I don't think he was upset at the loss of the picture itself.

Fishwife - is that just a timer plug or something that programmes onto the PC?

You are right - It's only week 4 so we'll try to get him into a routine before October week. I don't want him ending up getting stressed about undone homework etc and it spoiling the years of learning ahead. I believe he has the brains for Uni if that is the path that he chooses so he could have many more years of homework /assignments or at work he would need to be able to prioritise himself too (and follow instructions!).