How to avoid conflict over homework

[hydroxyapatite]

DS has started secondary. He's in Y7. He is a great student in class, by all accounts, but hates homework and revision. He literally slaps it out or does the bare minimum. He's smart, so it's frustrating.

I have a very strong work ethic, always worked at school, and it does my head in. I want him to do well, to have choices.

We have had several rows about it. He gets upset and moody, DH and I get upset.

Suggestions?

Have you asked him why he hates doing his homework? Is it not challenging enough? Does he not understand the tasks fully? Is he overwhelmed with the amount he has to do?

Depending on his reasonings, perhaps a chat with the school to support you and him completing his homework and to an acceptable standard may be a good idea.

We had a set homework time slot and no tech until that time slot ended. If you had no homework or finished early then you could read around the topic or any other educational topic. Such as if they were studying the Grand Canyon they could read up or watch YouTube videos on US National Parks to broaden their understanding of it.

Only after the homework time slot could they then do what they liked. Homework had to be done to a good standard otherwise they would not be allowed on tech. However, I was always here to monitor that sort of thing but working from home may also facilitate monitoring.

In this house we never asked did you have a good day but instead both children went through their time table and told you what they covered in each lesson. Just a brief we covered algebra in maths, learned about this style of art, played basket ball in PE. This meant that topics for broadening the learning was easy to help with if they needed suggestions. We are now finished with secondary and both my children did extremely well. I would also ask your son how he proposes to pay for gaming consoles, mobile phones, headphones etc if he has a poorly paid job in the future. They need to learn the value of education and the doors it opens later on as early as possible.

My year 3 is a bit like this.

I remind her what's needed, once, and tell her it's up to her.

Let the teachers feed back on how he's doing and go from there

Does school offer a homework club where he can do it before coming home?

otherwise I would make sure he has space and time to do it, encourage him to get into a routine with it but otherwise let him face the consequences of not doing it.

I have this with my son in Y7 - he leaves it til the last minute then gets super stroppy over it. It's so annoying as he is really bright and got 100% in his SATS, but is just so negative about HW.

But he LOVES gaming, so if he wants time on his tablet, he has to earn it, and cannot even use his earned screen time until homework is done to a satisfactory standard. A positive attitude towards homework and completing it properly gets him more screen time.

I'm trying to get him into the habit of doing it as soon as he gets home from school so it is out the way.

My child does what the school gives out, we do not expect more than this as in set extra work

Regardless i don't see how fights about it will make them learn and I don't think the school would think fights over it is worth it

If my child chooses not to do something I tell then they have to explain it to the teacher the next day, that soon fixes it, so far

This is us. I hate the 'heat' around it.

”In this house we never asked did you have a good day” 😭 wow I hope the exam results were worth the lack of role modelling manners and social skills.

Anyway OP we have similar battles. My feeling is:

1. Children are underexercised, under socialised and overworked in academic subjects, and mostly taught subjects of no practical value to their daily lives. So when arguing with your child, do recognise and acknowledge to him that the demands on him to eg analyse French romantic poetry are silly and unreasonable. Try to make it “You and him trying to navigate a silly system together” instead of “Him versus all mad adults”
2. Nonetheless, obviously they need good grades. So try a rewards based system where homework done properly => time on tech or whatever he cares about.

Do you really not ask your child if they've had a good day?🙄

Have you asked him why he hates doing his homework?

If someone asked me why I hate certain things I have to do then they would probably get a rather sarcastic answer along the lines that if they can't work it out for themselves then they can do it for me.
The most likely answer is that he finds it boring and has things he'd rather do. Much like I feel over the washing up or similar.

OP, one of mine worked non-stop on homework, the other two did bare minimum. It's part of who they are.
I found rewards much better than anything else for encouraging homework, because if he doesn't want to do it, then you're not going to make him feel any more positive about doing it by going on about it.

@hydroxyapatite that is what you took from that? I am more interested in all of the day, broken down. Some bits will have been "good" especially for subjects they find interesting, the conversations they had with friends or teachers, some bits will have been "bad" like low level disruption that led to X child being removed and then more homework as they didn't cover enough in class so overall what? Good? Is it a percentage? Part of a lesson can be good and then bad. A good day is hard to quantify overall and so we focus on the ups and downs of a school day instead of setting the expectation that every day at school should be good because what if it isn't? Are they then failing at it?

My children are very happy with this system, willing to talk to us, have discussions. Yes even as teens, no grunting or one syllable words because we talk to them about the things they are learning and it leads to conversations around the dinner table. My youngest is year 12 and both my children did incredibly well academically. I was just trying to be helpful in suggesting setting a homework slot at home just like lots of schools offer a homework club after school to help students do well with their homework.

”In this house we never asked did you have a good day” 😭 wow I hope the exam results were worth the lack of role modelling manners and social skills

@Thesonglastslonger actually I did teach them manners and social skills and I hope I have explained a bit better above about the good day specifics. My children have been praised by teachers for their manners and conversations they had with them. In the morning my Mum died and later that day we took the children to the park and my son finally mastered riding a bike. So yes a truly horrific, unimaginable pain day but also my son learned to ride a bike.

I totally agree with your points, as Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicists says

"The act of learning how to do the math establishes a new kind of brain wiring in your mind, a kind of problem solving brain wiring. So it's not about what you learn, it's about what methods, tools, and tactics you have to develop in order to solve the problem that you may never see again for the rest of your life"

A lot of what they learn isn't useful later in life and the sooner they understand that the better.

We have similar issues (except he's not great at school either). We are (slowly) making progress. We tried insisting and bribing him to attend homework club but while that worked, he was MISERABLE.

So now we have an agreement - he has to do homework club at home - 2 days during the week and one weekend. He has to do it independently and he has to do it in late afternoon.

What's also helped is he loves sport and at school, they're starting to do matches etc so he's starting to realise that if he doesn't do homework, no sport and no matches because he is in detention. This is helping. But this was heavily supported by school with a very useful chat to him by their pastoral lead who seems to "get him".

Oh, and weirdly, we just bought really lovely new pens which he LOVES. So I think he is quite enjoying using them!

I remind her what's needed, once, and tell her it's up to her.

This. I've reminded my DC, it's not my life, it's theirs. It's completely up to them what happens.

Similar here OP, in particular the different attitudes.
I worked super hard at school (not particularly pushed by my parents), was upset if I didn't get top marks, got good exam results. DH was very last minute, didn't bother, failed or got bad marks and now earns about three times as much as me so the notion that hard work is important to afford things is difficult!
DS also new year 7 is much more like DH and I find it so stressful. Also navigating other activities after school. He has a break after school and tends to do homework after tea as I think he does need a break.
I did have success at the weekend when I said I would buy Oreos if he got 100% on something but otherwise he tends to guess if he doesn't know, rather than looking it up, because he says it doesn't really matter if it's wrong.
I'm trying to link it up with the area he wants to work in - to explain he will need certain minimum grades to do that work and the better grades are there more job opportunities there will be. But I don't think that seems real to him yet.
So sorry I'm no help, but I feel your pain!

I used to chat to my children once after school about homework and then left it entirely up to them . Their schools were state grammar and they were worked hard during the day so am sure this reflected on the relatively low amount of homework.

With homework it's best to work smart, not hard. Do the bare minimum and start giving a shit when it comes to exam revision. If he's good in the class itself the teacher will know.

Honestly, maybe it was the way you originally wrote it but yes, I was pretty blindsided by the comment.

Anyway, onwards.

I can see that a homework slot would be helpful and mixing it up with some of the other ideas here, I think it's something we'll do.

I can see that you ran a very tight, stimulating ship for your kids. But I suspect we have different types of kids and households.

I think reward, tying it to tech, trying to improve his whole attitude to homework will be key.

I don't want to keep fighting over it. He's wilful, it's hard.

ds has adhd and hates homework. His tablet has worn off by the time he gets home so struggles to concentrate on it. I do not push or force him to do it and simply leave it to him, saying that he's the one who has to go to detention meaning it will take him out of the after school minecraft club.

Mine are adults now but homework was their responsibility and if they didn't do it then they got detention.
It soon focused them

Id be firm about homework = earning screen time.

Having a phone/Xbox etc is a privilege not a requirement. The requirement by law is safe housing, food, access to education etc. Nowhere in the UN convention of rights does it mention game machines or iPhones so they are a privilege earned by following rules and homework falls under rules.

@hydroxyapatite I can see that you ran a very tight, stimulating ship for your kids. But I suspect we have different types of kids and households.

I love it when a small snapshot of what I posted gets interpreted that way. Ds2 fought me all the way on homework in primary but we set expectations for secondary because it is more important. Plus in primary he was in the top few children so homework felt like a waste of his time and the teachers agreed but you can't not set it for a handful of students.

In secondary they had a homework slot but tech? Be on it until your eyes bleed. You have earned it. No 1 hour on weekdays, literally be on tech until dinner but you have to be off at X time to set the table, help with dinner prep, dance and sing in the kitchen. Then you can go back on it or choose to watch some TV shows/films with us etc which would qualify as screen time. I think gaming teaches valuable lessons to children with strategy, forward planning, resilience, learning to win and lose and learning to play with your mates. They did do sports and had other things in their lives like board games, chess, cards but gaming was what they wanted and if they apply themselves in school and for homework they can game.

I think this reinforces that doing homework is a chore.

If you're trying to encourage a good work ethic, then someone doing something to get a reward is not the way to go about it.

my suggestion to avoid conflict is to not get involved. Tell him you expect homework to be done to a good standard and back off. Let school deal with it if you aren't. You can't force someone to work if they don't want to.

If your child is a "great student" in Year 7, then he may not need to do much in the way of homework in any case.