Year 3 homework is ruining our weekends

[TheHouseofMirth]

7 yo DS is strugglingly academically but has made huge leaps in progress this year at school and we are all really pleased with and proud of him. However, every weekend is totally ruined by trying to coax DS to do his Brain Builders homework. He procrastinates, he wanders off, he gets distracted, he fiddles, he sighs, he cries. It's awful. H's supposed to spend 30 minuteseach on Maths and Emglish but if we stuck to that he woudl achieve nothing. I've tried leaving him alone to do it, sitting wth him, giving him lots of time to do it, giving him a short time to do it, encouraging him, being tough with him. Nothing works.

He has been asking for an MP3 player so last week as a last resort I introduced a reward chart and told him that the more effort and enthusiasm he put into his homework (I wanted to reward effort not result) the better the MP3 player would be. This has made absolutely no difference to his attitude.

Whilst I am the world's biggest goody-two shoes I am at the stage where I am tempted to tell his teacher that we are no longer willing to support him in this homework. I just can't see what possible benefit there is to him in doing this homework when it takes an entire day and generates such bad feelng. DH says the whole point of him doing homework is for him to learn self-discipline and that we are doing something wrong but I don't see what else we can do, and how do you teach self-discipline to someone anyway?

As teacherwith2kids says there really is a jump in maturity that happens with going to secondary.

Definitely something about, separate subjects and different teachers that breaks the nervous I have to do it just the way we do in class, how do I start without sitting on the carpet and being show altitude that makes primary HW so stressful.

Also most senior schools set written subjects from very early on removing the huge disparity in time HW takes different DCs.

In theory primaries differentiate work, but in practise this doesn't work for HW. The teacher couldn't say DD1 write two sentences, DD2 write 10 even though DD2 would still have finished first. It's what happens in lessons, but if the DCs spot it for HW they'll find it very unfair.

(DD1 is dyslexic, she learnt to read in Y6 and her written work is still improving in Y10, DD2 was top in literacy from Y1. made. It made primary school 'interesting')

teacher - why does it have to be a years long battle?

With DS I nipped the problem in the bud. I sat him down with hisjust in homework after he came back from school. If he wants to sit there for an hour doodling then that was up to him. No shou, no pressure. DD did hers and got control of the TV remote :) After a week DS realize that sitting there while his sister was watching tv was kind of stupid. After that the occasional "do I have to?" whinge was as bad as it got.

I accept that some kids have deeper issues so such an approach is clearly too simplistic for but IMO with most DCs they.just need a routine

Oops at all the typos. Need ... Sleep....

We have homework every night in year 3. DD does it after shower and before a bit of bedtime TV - sometimes it's 15 minutes, sometimes it's 30 minutes.

She had homework in year 1 and year 2 too but not every night. I used to helicopter over her and literally talk her through it but we agreed that year 3 I wouldn't. It's between her and her teacher and I am always available and happy to look over her work or help her if she wants me to. She has a desk in her room and just sits there and gets it done. I think the regularity helps. We also used to set a timer so that she knew she had to work (rather than wandering round her room) for a short period, then the rest of the time is hers.

Startsil, we differentiate our homework in year 3. There will usually be four different literacy homeworks and at least two, often three maths.

I think the other problem many primary parents have is that routines are great until they get messed about with, which they inevitably do. Holidays, illness, parties, visitors, playdates, music practice, simply playing, and making the most of a sunny day and being a child.

It's amazing now easily HW time vapourises from the gaps between fixed extra curricular stuff. Especially as HW time often requires an adult to be available to help and siblings not to be 'helping'

My senior school DDs cheat. They may have more HW, but they invent time younger DCs don't have. First they go to bed later, which helps a lot, but also Scouts youth group, Dancing etc. are late. A lot of HW gets done first. Way better than after tired littlies after swimming.

They do HW on the bus, in break, in lunch, they can stay home on their own when siblings are being taxied about. Most of all, DD1(15) doesn't need to be reminded to do things and DD2(12) is getting better. Mum is always going to rember you French at just the wrong moment.

Thebuskersdog that's great, but many primaries HW is very, casual.

We tended to get the usual reading and spellings, plus write a sentence for your spelling words or write a paragraph about the river Amazon or what you did at Easter. Then longer projects in Y5-Y6. Very random and patchy and almost never maths. Maths was great it was the one time DD1 and I did not get stressed.

Yes the dreaded spellings were easier for DD1, but there were still 16 of them and she still never got 100% even if she did them every night. DD2 got 16/16 looking at her harder ones on the morning of the test.