to let DS not do his homework

[recyclingbag]

DS is in Year 5.

He does well in school and working above levels etc. However his homework is causing difficulty.

He refuses to do it until the evening before it is due. Trouble is, that evening is always really busy. I don't really want them doing homework at the weekends so am trying to get it done before the weekend.

He's having none of it. This week he hasn't done it. Last week he had to do it again as it was clear he'd rushed it. He's very stubborn and telling/forcing him to do things is usually counter productive.

Do I just leave him to sort it out for himself? I'm tempted to say no TV/Ipad etc if it's not done but I also rather he just did it himself. Or make a timetable that we have to stick to.

What do you do? Do you 'make' them do it at certain times?

You say you don't agree with how in primary? I assume you are ok with homework in Secondary?

Because in eighteen months he's doing to get a LOT of homework. Getting him t accept it as a necessary chore now and working in his organisational skills is being kind to him. You are the parent, he is part of a family, chores fit in with everyone.

Generally we do homework at the weekend here. An hour or two on Sunday mornings and it’s done leaving the rest of the day to themselves. This has changed a bit since DS1 has started high school as his homework is much more random (e.g. none one week then 3-4 subjects the week after) but seems to work better than doing it after school when the kids are all “schooled out”

DS1 (Yr 7) knows that he may have more homework than DS2 (Yr 4) but he also knows that comes with the territory of being an older brother. As does going to the park on his own, having his own phone, etc. which are things DS2 can only dream of at the moment!

OP, if it’s that much of an issue then find extra homework for your younger son to do when your eldest has to do his. Like someone else said, you could practice spellings, go on Mathletics (if your school has it) practice number bonds, reading - anything!

Strewth!

Thank you for the slap. I feel it was needed. I don't feel like a confident parent and this is becoming more apparent as DS1 gets older. I need to get a grip.

I've worked out a quick timetable of the the 4 hours he has each night between 5pm and lights out at 9.

He has 3 options to choose from (because I'm not going to step up THAT much).

• He moves Cubs to another night (they do 2 groups a week but he will not like this option)
• He gets his homework done on a Saturday morning
• He gets his homework done on a Wednesday night

His choice.

My kids have had a substantial amount of daily homework since age 6 (abroad - half day school, swings and roundabouts but not doing it absolutely not an option).

They go upstairs at a set time (in our case straight after lunch - home, chill out or play outside, lunch, homework) Monday to Thursday and don't come back down til its done. I let them do Friday's homework early on Saturday morning - works for us to have Friday afternoon off, and they usually do homework at 6:30am as they are freakishly early risers (part nature, part very early week day starts reinforcing natural early bird tenancies).

Either way set time to do it (but not immediately after school - some down time or fresh air and running about first) is absolutely the only way to avoid it being a battle (or in the first couple of years to reduce the scale of the battle).

By Year 3 or 4 they automatically follow the routine themselves and I don't have to intervene whatsoever, hardly even have to ask whether they've done their homework though I ask in passing usually, am just asked to test them on stuff if they have a test coming up at school.

Set a time of the day/ week in stone, and make that homework time. Its a good habit to get into for later when there is more homework.

Talk to the school, tell them that the homework is too much and is causing problems. They may say that he does not have to do it.

Secondary is going to be a nasty shock though isn't it? I had two hours homework a night in the equivalent of Yr 5. [Homework is a big thing in Irish schools] Walked to school barefoot through the snow obvs too.

Take the TV remotes to bed with you on a Friday night. They can come and ask for them when the homework is done. DS2 will just have to find something else to do in the meantime. Friday pm homework might be more palatable then if they like to watch a bit of early morning telly on a Saturday...

Or is this when you come back to say that the weekends need to be clear for swimming/football/tennis etc etc?

tread thinking about it like that ds2 does a few spellings each night, reads to me for a few pages, and goes on Mathletics though that isn't learning to him, that is playing so actually I can see how it adds up to 30mins a night.

OP secondary school will come as a shock to him. I don't know any local schools (even the "bad ones") that don't throw the year 7's in the deep end.

Personally I am not sure why he has to do it sat am - in our house fri night sat am and sat are off limits unless they choose to do it then.

No, we don't have that much on at the weekends, although it tends to be a time for family to visit so can be quite disruptive. There's no real reason why they can't do it at weekends.

I think homework is a total dodge for schools and teachers and that it causes unneccesary stress and anxiety at home. Kids should go to school and learn there. 6 hours a day for 12 years is plenty. Time out of school should be for kids to be kids.

When mine is old enough I'll just have to go along with it I suppose but I do resent kids having to do homework.

It's not like the workplace gives you compulsory homework.

We have a screen ban Monday to Friday. It's worked wonders for behaviour and learning in our house.

*sat pm

get up 20 mins early so he can do it in the morning?

ds was a homework nightmare at primary, all the issues you said , plus badly done scrappy homework etc.
The homework battle nearly killed our family, hit its worst in year 5 and in retrospect there were 3 issues:

1. the homework was irrelevant - either stuff he could do easily, or project art stuff he hated etc. he could not see the point of it (and neither could I often)
2. all completed and handed in homework of whatever standard got 10 house points - ds thought that this was hypocritical.
3. there was no school consequence for not doing it

In the end, I stopped. I said it was up to school to put in consequence. I monitored reading, tested times tables and the rest was up to school. At one point I told school I was fine and supportive if they imposed consequence (eg do it at lunchtime) but it was between school and teacher.

It improved in year 6, because the homework was more targeted and the school followed up when it wasn't done. But it was still rubbish.

Then he went to secondary. Unrecognizable child. Homework connects to classwork, consequences for not doing it, school sees it as child's responsibility, school expects certain standard, which he produces.
He sits down and does it, he always has it done in time, once when I had removed his phone, he set his alarm and got up at 6 am to do what had to be done before school. Totally different.

The whole thing completely reinforces my belief that primary school homework is (mostly) a waste of time.

I wished I had backed off sooner.

Hardcore!

For the last week they've had no iPad or computer time, just because it was becoming a bit of an entitlement. They've still been allowed TV, although it does go off at 7.

Cloughed that would work for dd but would have been unfair for ds1 who was ahead in his year from the off. Different children need different handling.

Steppemum, the maths homework is just a sheet photocopied out of a book and bears no relation to what they've done in class.

It just needs to be done.

With dd1 I felt that homework shouldn't be given until junior school age at least 7. What happened was I gave my dd the wrong 'work ethic' and consequently she didn't bother with homework from year 3 because I didn't start her on the right track! By year 4 she hated school, was very behind in maths for her year group and homework rushed and messy. Lesson learnt! It doesn't matter what you think of homework in primary-if you're sending him there he needs to get on with it!

Toughen up. Self control takes years, it's up to you to make sure he does it. Check his homework diary every night and do homework as soon as it's set.

steppemum gosh reading your post that is exactly the same with ds1. Primary school he wasn't fussed. But as he always got it done, albeit at the last minute, and got good marks I didn't intervene too much.Secondary school has connected much more with him. He just got his first reference from a teacher for application to his school 6th form and it says "committed to success, ideal candidate" hmm maybe I need to back off dd little so she can find her own waay.

I don't like homework in primary, other than learning tables and spellings.

However, my insistence that dd did her homework as soon as she got it, with lots of talk about the benefits of being able to forget about it then and not have the overlying slight stress of having it hang over you has stood her in good stead for secondary.

She's in Year 11 now and never lets it build up, including coursework and so when friends are starting to have melt downs about it all accumulating and being too much, life is a lot less stressful in our house I think. Procrastinating is way more hassle that it is worth.

I never had a prob trying to discipline DCs as I just felt it was in their interest.

So they don't like homework.... but I know they will have tons in the future, they will have tons more at uni (should they go there) which they will have to motivate themselves to do, they will need to work in their job when adult and very likely have to do stuff they don't like.

I am the adult, I know this, I make the best decisions for them, for their future.

Get it done!

Still think you should back off and leave him to it. You can suggest all you want but ultimately it is down to him really.

I don't think my two are particularly self motivated, but they complete all set homework and are doing very well in school and in general give us no issues at all. Bedrooms are a bit messy but otherwise no problems We don't have fights and arguments about homework, they have learned that they need to do it or they get in trouble at school which they are far more concerned about than getting a bollocking from me or DH tbh.

Completely new angle here for you to think about ... Could he have a 'hidden' problem

My dd1's problems with homework started in year 5. She too achieved good /high grades in school. Doing homework however was awful, very stressful. I battled, bribed, ignored ... tried the lot. She would eventually do her homework, but to literally the bare minimum expected. Or she sometimes didn't do it and I left her to suffer whatever consequences the school gave her. Roll on 4 years later and we discovered she suffers from visual stress - so when she looked at a page, all words and numbers moved around! She thought this was normal as it's how she's always seen things! Homework was so difficult because she couldn't read it properly, couldn't get the words to stay still, and she got frustrated very quickly at the sheer effort it would take to try and stabilise the page. At school she relied heavily on listening as her way of learning, she'd ask her friends about stuff and work it out that way, hence why it went undetected for so long.

Dd is the same school year as your ds. She gets homework every Monday. Several sheets that need to be handed in by Thursday.
She has film club straight from school on a Monday. Getting home around 6pm. So she will do one sheet while waiting for dinner.

The next evening straight from school with juice/milk and a biscuit, she will complete the three other sheets. Then after bath/shower it's reading.

We practice time tables ands prolongs in the way to and from school/clubs. She has several activities and hockey on asi day so knows homework gets done or No clubs. And definitely no iPad or to until it's done. Except for the maths homework that often needs to be done online.

can I just say that one school does not exist only as a prep for the next.

Primary has its own ethos culture and way of doing things. It is the right type of school for children of that age.

Secondary school is different because the children are older, and the whole school set up is different.

Primary school does not exist only as a prep for secondary.
It is amazing to watch the year 6 children each year at our school as they grow up and out grow their primary school, they are ready for secondary, and by the time they begin in sept year 7, they are (mostly) ready for the new type of school and all that entails, including the new expectation for homework.
It is misleading to say that if a 9 year old is not good at doing homework he is going to struggle at secondary. There is 2 years before he goes. He is not in year 7 now, he is in year 5.

Every study ever done has shown that apart from reading and times tables, primary homework has no effect on outcomes.

It's not like the workplace gives you compulsory homework.

Because you don't go to work to learn. You are not (usually) working while your brain is developing. By the time you enter the workplace full time, most of your learning / developing mentally has already taken place. You go to work to earn a living. You go to school to prepare you for working / adult life and to learn things. Part of that is learning to work / research / compile ideas / solve problems independently, not just when you have an authority figure hovering over you. If you can only do your job when your boss is standing over you at work, you won't last long.

I don't at all agree with this idea that kids are delicate snowflakes that just EXHAUST themselves being at school learning all day, so they need downtime in the evenings / weekends (although I appreciate some kids do struggle with focusing that much, but not all). Kids are way more resilient than people think.

My parents never ever took the line that homework was "rubbish" and unnecessary. As a result, I never did either. I wonder (genuinely) how much these "homework refusers" are picking up on their parents' dismissal of the importance of homework. If their parents think it's unimportant, it's hardly going to motivate the kids, is it?