I am holding it just about together but want to scream

[thenewme]

DS1 will not do his homework. He rushes it, his writing is messy, I have made him do it all again as it wasn't good enough, and all he has done is moan his way through doing it, back chat me and mess about. He is only 7, God help me when the nightly homework starts.

Don't stress!!! If it isn't done properly with the writing messy, let him hand it in like that. He'll soon learn what's really expected of him.

Getting in a state won't help either of you. I know from bitter experience on that front!

hes only 7 give him a break.

do it all again?!

poor lad

Ds1 is same age. Since the first few weeks where it completely wound me up, I have a policy of not even checking his homework (other than to sign the book to say I've seen that he has some). If he rushes it, gets it wrong, then he has to sort it with his teacher. Seems to have worked, and the quality of his work has improved massively with no intervention from me and minimal nasty atmosphere in the evening.

Now if I could just bring myself to have the same attitude to music practise for his guitar lesson which he BEGGED me to pay for... .

Well, if he isn't getting in the right frame of mind at 7, then he will struggle in the future.

He is doing it again and it is much better. Shame it has taken 3 attempts.

Tbh so long as he does it i'd not stress over how neat it is. His teacher will soon pull him up if they think it isn't neat enough.

Does he write with a pen or pencil ??

He writes with a pencil.

It is his attitude I have a problem with more than the actual messy writing. He just does not want to do it and when he eventually sits down to it, he rushes to get it done asap so he can get on. I can't get through to him that if he took his time and did it neatly he wouldn't have to do it again taking even more time.

DD is 5 and has beautiful writing.

you said it all thenewme, girls usually love to please ahd boys dont give a f..k. they are great fun though, I have 2 ds,19 and 17and one dd who is 9. [Parents evening at little school was an ordeal and it was only at g.c.s.e stage that the ds's actually started to work. Had a lovely parents evening with dd last week and guess what, unlike all the other crap ones with the lads NOONE was earwigging... bloody typical
relax and enjoy your lad, make him do the homework he has to do and then let him play, dont set him standards he might not be able to reach or he will just give up,
good luck mate

When his dad asked him what a word was, when Dh had left the room, DS said how come I can read and you can't?

He is on his way to bed now. (usual time, not sent)

I am going to try and be better as I am doing it all wrong again. I will stay calm and try and get him to enjoy his work.

Have to go, DS2 is crying.

I asked wether he was using a pen or pencil because in my dc's school they write with a pencil until they write neat enough to gain their pen licence.

Dd2 had quite messy handwriting and actually got her pen licence only to have it taken off her when she went into year 4. She tried really hard after that to make sure her work was neat and then she got it back.

7 is still quite little really to be worrying to much about handwriting. My ds is 6 and his is all over the place but I don't give a monkeys at the moment as it took him ages to learn to write anything at all.

It is hard to stay calm though so don't feel bad about that. I sometimes lose my rag with ds when doing his reading, as there is only so many ties I can stand to hear him sound a word out and then pronounce it backwards.

When he refuses or fusses with homework have you tried saying,'Well don't do it then but you can tell Mrs X that you didn't want to. I'm sure she won't mind' My DSs after a few moments thought usually pick the pen and od a good job at whatever the homework is.

I will try that, grumpalina. I have been telling him he can tell his teacher he doesn't want to do it, but your way sounds better.

I have had a look and his 3rd attempt is much much better, so he can do it when he wants too.

I always used grumpalina's method at that age-worked every time and saved a lot of aggro!