Would you/ do you bribe your 5 year old to do 'homework'?

[eastwest]

Put homework in quote marks because it's not necessarily set by the school. Just wondering what everyone's expectations are of their children at this age, and to what extent you feel it is appropriate/ a good idea to bribe them to do homework. I have a 5 year old boy, one of the youngest in his year group. He is very active and hates sitting down to do anything like reading, writing, crafting (though he likes to look at picture books and to be read to). However, his grandmother frequently bribes him to write or read, with a small toy as reward. Will write sentences for matchbox cars, basically. He is on track in terms of what the reception teachers expect from him, and has no special needs. He just doesn't want to write or read. But will do it, if promised a small toy. Stickers are not persuasive.
I'm just wondering if I should be doing what his gran is doing. Do other children just love writing (eg birthday cards, thank-you letters) and do it happily, or do they also have to be bribed in some way to do it, and if so do you think this is normal/okay/ or immoral/ counterproductive...? I don't really have a strong opinion so just interested ot know what others think.

Quite frankly I do find it immoral and counterproductive ;)
I think I would give gran a cinema ticket, as a small prize for keeping quiet (and getting out of the house ;) )
Look up Alfie John's works.

Alfie Kohn ;)

Hmmm, don't think I agree with gran's approach. He's very young, I'd let him play if I were you. Being able to 'earn' something by e.g. writing makes the writing itself seem even less fun / more of a chore and might put him off more.

DD is a bit wild and energetic but also very motivated and competitive. I've told her that if we want to be good at something we have to practise lots, so that keeps her quite focused on the (small amounts of) writing/reading etc she does.

I have 2 x 5 yr old boys. One will do stuff, the other is quite frankly uninterested. I get him to do the tiny amount required by school but otherwise leave him alone. There are years ahead when it's not optional.

This is tough. DD is a bit younger but I have always rewarded her with pocket money for doing her reading. That's not to say that she needs the bribe, but my approach is that adults get paid for the work they do, so why shouldn't kids? Once she's at school, this will move to a cash reward for homework each evening. She won't receive other pocket money.

And that's something I've had in place for quite a while, but it persists beyond what I do. She's started doing a variety of workbooks now. Again, she loves doing them, but there is literally a reward sticker per page, and pages mainly take no more than 1 minute to complete, so it's just reward after reward. It seems excessive - we spend more time finding the reward sticker pages than doing the actual work.

I do think there's a fine line between "Isn't this a fun activity? Here's your reward." and "I know this is boring, so here's a reward for doing the boring bit." I don't want to make learning boring for DD, and I worry that if I'm constantly rewarding them I'm giving her the idea that reading is so boring that you have to be rewarded for forcing yourself to do it. So I'm always watching her responses and how frequently she asks to do these activities, and I'd definitely rethink if I thought she was losing interest. I want her to learn for fun, not feel forced to learn.

I don't think bribery should be used either. Once he's a bit older he'll (hopefully) understand the intrinsic rewards in working hard in school. 'Gold stars' do not work long term in encouraging effort.
I don't even think children of that age should be doing homework if they don't want to, especially if he's interested in books anyway. Schools should be encouraging a love of learning, not bribing or forcing kids to learn.

Sometimes I tell DS that he needs to practise to learn how to read etc. At other times, when he's being more difficult, I use the teacher as a scapegoat and say, "Mrs. X says that you nerd to practise this for 10 minutes today". It works! Although who knows how much longer that trick will last..
Thinking about it, it's probably not that bad of an idea to reward a child for doing work. Maybe it creates a positive association for hard work, and also is building the ability to delay gratification a little bit. Maybe? I suppose the flip side would be if he was ONLY willing to do anything if promised a matchbox car..

Not a chance, and I'd sit on grandma if she tried it.

I've tried to create a 'that's just what you do on Saturday morning before swimming lessons' habit. My ds didn't fancy doing it a couple of times so then ended up having to do it Sunday evening instead of his usual 10 min tv slot. Not as a punishment, just as a 'it's got to be done and you chose to leave it till now'. Mostly he just does it without fuss now - hope that lasts into year 1!

Nope. We didn't do homework for kinder, and grade 1 we chose to only do the nightly reading.

Grade2 we will ramp it up. I tell her it's an expectation and use like the PP, the statement, to be good at something you need to practice it and that is what homework is for

Two suggestions from me,

Firstly can you find a way of making things more into a game? My DS loves a challenge, it doesn't have to be in conventional form. There are loads of reading / writing tablet apps e.g. Leapfrog as well as different kinds of board games you can get to encourage interest (orchard toys). Have a look online for things like free puzzles, word searches, mazes etc. It may even be that starting with more colouring (print out a character he's interested in) is a better way to build up confidence with pen grip etc. Start reading more things when you're out, kids menus etc are usually pretty easy, bring it more into everyday life and make it interesting and relevant.

Secondly, try a totally different track to teach him how much harder it is to fall behind and have do extra work to catch up (and how easily this can happen) than it is to keep up. My DS walks to school and we have a few hills en route, he has finally learned that it's much nicer for him to make a bit more of an effort to run ahead then wait for me to catch up whilst he enjoys a breather or is proud of himself, than for him to go slow and then for me to have to keep nagging him and making him run to keep up with me (which he doesn't like) . He's finally applying the same principle to school!!

Not really but...
Most of our homework is talking - so no bribery necessary, we just do it as we go along/summarise conversations we've already had. E.g. this week they asked us to talk about what he was looking forward to in Y1 as they've had some visits up to their new room. Apparently the most exciting thing was "a real toaster".

Writing homework however we have a "list of things that need doing" and after that he can do what he wants - so yes you can go on the Ipad but first you need to brush your teeth, get dressed and do your writing.

Loads of praise for concentrating hard and sticking to it and noticing when he's flagging and about to give up (got that a bit wrong with this morning's reading) and leaving it for the next day.

I have also told dd that I will be 100% truthful in her reading diary so her teacher will know that she's been mucking about. We also do reading at bedtime and she'll do anything to stay up a bit later so is happy to read loads.

With writing I would just do it through play - e.g. Play restaurant by writing menus, writing signs (my room - keep out etc), Christmas and birthday wish lists.

Ive never expected my children to do homework. When learning becomes a chore it stops becoming inspirational

Whilst nothing like as extreme as Alfie Kohn appears to be (I've not got enough knowledge to say, but accounts seem extreme) I do believe that the thing you need to build is an intrinsic to desire to do the right thing, rather than any sort of extrinsic desire.

So the aim is for an individual to recognise when they need to do more practice, and initiate that practice. Home work is just another sort of practice. For that reason I would massively avoid anything that interferes with learning that, even if it's a lot to imagine that a five year old can recognise what they need to practice and appropriately prioritise.

She was totally mortified when I wrote truthfully in her reading diary!

Why would ever write anything but truthfully? Maybe I just don't understand the point of these things.

I can imagine a teenager demanding £100 to do his/her homework in the future.

I think if you want a 'love of learning' to make your DC choose to do homework, you could be waiting for a long time - as very often the homework set is itself not conducive to 'love of learning'. E.g. a boring book, a book that is non-decodable, sums that are too hard or too easy. Very often other activities e.g. playing a board game/baking together/reading a book to them etc will support their love of learning much better; why would they choose to do homework instead?

School set homework in our house needs to be done because it is part of the agreement you enter when you go to school. It may at times be a chore or boring or a waste of time, but you still need to do it. It's part and parcel of school, and the reward you get is not 'learning something new' (as all too often that doesn't happen) but the positive aspects of school. You can't get the good without the bad, you get to see your friends at school and have fun, homework is the price you pay for that.

For extra activities that I would like my children to do, whenever possible I try to make it 'fun' so that no bribing/coercion is needed - so that it doesn't feel like 'work' at all. And if that doesn't work, then the 'bribe' is something they like to do that is restricted, e.g. watch something on TV.

Thansk for your replies, it's interesting to read people's different responses.
"Start reading more things when you're out, kids menus etc are usually pretty easy, bring it more into everyday life and make it interesting and relevant." - we tried this, it doesn't work. He won't even read a birthday card addressed to him; we just tried. If encouraged to, he wails 'I don't waaant tooo' and does it in a sneering, bad-tempered voice that makes him sound like Kevin the Teenager. He really doesn't want to. He loves books and wants to stay up late with a torch and 'read'/look at the pictures in books. (mostly non-fiction). He has just had a birthday and getting him to write thank-you letters is like blood from a stone.

"I can imagine a teenager demanding £100 to do his/her homework in the future.grin" = exactly!! It's expensive!

The trouble is, he has no intrinsic desire to read or write because he doesn't see the value of it, fairly unsurprisingly because he is five.

Thansk for your replies, it's interesting to read people's different responses.
"Start reading more things when you're out, kids menus etc are usually pretty easy, bring it more into everyday life and make it interesting and relevant." - we tried this, it doesn't work. He won't even read a birthday card addressed to him; we just tried. If encouraged to, he wails 'I don't waaant tooo' and does it in a sneering, bad-tempered voice that makes him sound like Kevin the Teenager. He really doesn't want to. He loves books and wants to stay up late with a torch and 'read'/look at the pictures in books. (mostly non-fiction). He has just had a birthday and getting him to write thank-you letters is like blood from a stone.

"I can imagine a teenager demanding £100 to do his/her homework in the future.grin" = exactly!! It's expensive!

The trouble is, he has no intrinsic desire to read or write because he doesn't see the value of it, fairly unsurprisingly because he is five.

Thansk for your replies, it's interesting to read people's different responses.
"Start reading more things when you're out, kids menus etc are usually pretty easy, bring it more into everyday life and make it interesting and relevant." - we tried this, it doesn't work. He won't even read a birthday card addressed to him; we just tried. If encouraged to, he wails 'I don't waaant tooo' and does it in a sneering, bad-tempered voice that makes him sound like Kevin the Teenager. He really doesn't want to. He loves books and wants to stay up late with a torch and 'read'/look at the pictures in books. (mostly non-fiction). He has just had a birthday and getting him to write thank-you letters is like blood from a stone.

"I can imagine a teenager demanding £100 to do his/her homework in the future.grin" = exactly!! It's expensive!

The trouble is, he has no intrinsic desire to read or write because he doesn't see the value of it, fairly unsurprisingly because he is five.

When I say ' thank you letters' I mean literally the word thank-you on a piece of paper.
also sorry for the double post!

I honestly don't know what to think... He hates going to school. Specifically complains about writing, has terrible attitude problem to it that seems more like a sulky teenager than a 5 year old. I wonder if it is something about the way they are approaching it there, but I have asked and they don't seem to think there is a problem. Main teacher (there is a 50/50 job share and a TA, so 3 people) is very nice and not at all pushy and he likes her..

I've got a five year old and I bet they have no idea because he's probably a delight at school!
It sounds like he might be partly refusing because he's figured out it annoys you. Id back right off for a bit. Hes doing well at school and happy to read his picture books then