Who will come and sympathise with me on the subject of bright boys who can't be bothered to make an effort with schoolwork?

[frogs]

Argh. Ds on inset day, I'm trying to make him finish his holiday homework, which is a thoughtful, well-structured and (you'd think) boy-friendly and interesting task involving a piece of extended writing about an adventure in Antarctica. Based on the previous half-term's geography work, so by no means the usual 'get your parents to research it on google and tell you what to write' routine.

Boy is bright. Boy is in Y4, and reads extremely well and very widely. Boy is nonetheless reluctant to produce anything other than the shortest, scruffiest, most ill-spelled piece of unimaginative scrawl, and alternates between grumps and tears when encouraged to crank it up a notch. And he can write beautifully when he wants to, I've seen the evidence. But mostly he just doesn't want to, would rather be lounging round the place, kicking a ball or playing SuperMario. Which he has spent most of half term doing, before you all criticise me for being a demon pushy mother from hell.

Argh. Will it get better? Please tell me he won't be like this when he's 15, and I won't have to worry about him spending the rest of his life working in McD's? Please tell me something that will stop me wanting to lie on the floor biting mouthfuls out of the carpet?

No advice I'm afraid. Mine is the same (Yr 3).

What gets me is that he could have finished the work in the same time as it takes to have a moan about it and not do anything. But there is no reasoning with them, is there.

I await with baited breath, the answer to our problems.

Come on mums of boys, I know you're out there...

I sympathise but have no advice. Would it help if I made sympathetic tut-tutting noise and shook my head for you?

The only thing that is giving me any hope is that my DB was like this at DS#s age (11) but when he reached senior school he met an inspirational teacher on his wave length and found a subject he loved. Never looked back. Keeping fingers crossed for DS - if the next few years are anything like that last DH and I will be dead with stress

again no miracle cure- just sympathies i have the same with my ds! he's also in year 4

No experience at the moment but I can see DS2 being like this, in spades, very shortly, as he spends all his time whining commenting on how boring his teachers are, how boring school is, etc etc etc.

Bugger. Ds in year 2, and it all sounds too familiar. Guess we're in it for the long haul...

er, same problem here m'dear. Mine is in yr 5....
Do tell if you find the miracle solution.

Oh no. Ds loves school. Really loves it. But homework. Blimey.

My DS1 (now 13) has never been a problem when it comes to homework etc but DS2 is so different. Both are incredibly bright and DS1 seems to get pleasure from producing an excellent piece of writing, but hates the praise he receives from the teacher!
DS2 would rather be outside than anywhere else, but he is not allowed until his homework is done to a satisfactory standard. I have stopped him going to his athletic and football clubs before now, as it is a simple fact of life that he is more likely to need good GCSE grades to get a good job rather than being able to run faster than his mates!
You do have (and probably know) the answer - don't let him outside or on Super Mario until it is done - he might moan a bit but stand firm and he will soon learn. I have to say it would have been better to have had him do it last Monday rather than today as by allowing it to have been left has put more pressure and stress on both of you.

Mine's the same. Very, very bright but can't really be bothered unless it's something that sparks his interest. He also finds school boring, despite skipping a year and being a year ahead of this. I have tried bribery, this helps a bit. They need to know that they have to do the boring stuff though or else they will never manage in the real world.

One of the secrets of getting bright children to produce longer pieces of writing is to get them to learn to touch type. Often they think so quickly they get extremely frustrated with not being able to get it down and so truncate their ideas, or finish the story/piece of work abruptly. Touch typing would also be invaluable in secondary education and, if it still exists in future years, for coursework for GCSE or equivalent. My DD and DS have touch typed since they were 8 and 6 respectively and it did encourage them both to get more on paper - in my DD's case it was virtually the only way to get anything on paper! The carrot to dangle when encouraging learning to type is that homework is much, much quicker when you can (assuming it is not stipulated that it has to be handwritten, but even then having a first draft quickly typed to be copied out usually produces a better piece of work in my experience).

Ooohh, back in the knife drawer, mumoftwo37!

He did his maths homework last week, and did the draft of his project. We're theoretically at the final stages now, and it's not due in till Friday, so hardly the last minute. And of course I know in principle how to make a child do homework, it's just that they all react so differently, and it's hard to know where the balance is between making him feel inadequate by pressuring him to perform like his high-achieving big sister, and letting him down by not pushing enough.

This does sound like a common enough boy problem though, sadly.

Ohhh. My ds loves using my laptop to do his homework. That's a brilliant idea flamingtoaster !!!!

DS is 16 and very bright. Couldn't be arsed to do the coursework for GCSEs last summer. Got 100% in exams and scraped through though. He thinks it is wonderfully funny and amusing that he can do no coursework and still pass.

Coursework is 'boring, boring, boring'.

Had meetings with heads of year, subject tutors etc. All to no avail really. Had long thread on MN (teenagers) last summer and got a lot of help there that kept me sane.

Things have improved a lot since he got himself a very clever, ambitious, hard-working, oxbridge aspiring girlfriend though

hmm flaming toaster that may work, ds likes using the pc. he does have to hand write it tho so would need to write it after, but got to be worth a try

I have this issue too homework is always left to last minute yet DS is always pleased when he gets homework and disappointed when he doesnt.

Mind you I am struggling to get him out for some fresh air. I took them to the park yesterday and DS wanted to come home to finish a tricky sudoku!

Ah, that sounds promising, themoon. Not sure ds is quite in that league of ability. So hard to know, though -- I don't want to push him beyond his ability, but really he is an idle little sod. And he gets so upset when he can't immediately do it that I end up feeling like an evil cow mother.

I think homework for under 11s should be banned. They learn much more from playing and idling about. My sons now 16 and 12 were disorganised and lazy all the way through primary school. They thought primary school existed for boys to learn and perfect the game of football. They are now very engaged at their high school and DS1 is expected to do very well in his GCSEs.

Have to say that DS normally does OK even well in tests and his report and parents evenings are always good enough. They always include the phrase 'could do better' though

frogs - "he gets so upset when he can't immediately do it " That is my DS to a tee! He wants to score a hat trick as soon as he steps on a football pitch, or a century as soon as he picks up a cricket bat. He wants to be naturally gifted and not have to work at anything. He does get upset when he gets bad marks but not enough to do something about it.

There are parents at my ds's school that requested homework for their child to do over half term . I don't know what has happened to fun! They only get 1 week off, I think it's really mean to make them do homework all week.

I only have dd's (much younger) but the behaviour sounds exactly like all the boys in my family. I was going to suggest using a computer (but someone has beaten me to it).

DD1 and her cousin(girl) love writing and drawing. The two older cousins, both boys hate it. (they even refuse to do it at school and have been known to throw their work across the room rather than write anything).

The really annoying thing is he'll put in the hours with cricket and athletics, and knows you just have to keep plugging away at it. Doesn't seem to have extrapolated that to schoolwork though.

Not speaking from experience here really but IME males are very good at seeing life as a game. It's what makes men very successful in later life: they find out the rules of the game and then they play it. They take more risks and get less hung up on things that don't matter.

At the moment, the game is do the least amount of work possible and wind up mother into the bargain. As he gets older, it is far more likely to be beat best friend at something they both decide is important. (Could be playing guitar chords, coming top in maths whatever). Eventually it will be get into chosen university course/career and compete. I honestly don't think you need to worry toooo much about a boy who reads widely and well. Hard to do though.

Let him do it on the computer and bribe him. Job done.

(well it works for mine)

Frogs if you have all the answers why did you ask for advice? Let him believe he can get away with little effort and send his project into school as it is now - he will soon learn.
It is not a common boy problem IMO it is a common problem of parents not wanting to say no to their kids. If you gave him instructions instead of choices he would soon learn. Or do you want him to learn about the consequences of little effort when he doesn't do as well as he should in his GCSE's?