Ds1 (year 6) very reluctant to do homework/guitar practise - Wwyd?

[Badvocatyuletide]

I ask because I flipped at him last night :(
He was being sooo rude and obnoxious to dh who was doing some work with him. I got very shouty.
But I am so tired of having to nag, fight and cajole him to do his work.
He does need some help as he is dyslexic and so we do a spelling and punctuation intervention with him too (apples and pears) but tbh lately it's been such hard work we haven't been doing it.
Likewise his guitar...he begged us for lessons which cost is £40 per month - and yet he refuses to practise.
I have told him that's it, we are cancelling them. But dh thinks we we should give him one more chance....he has had 3 warnings up to now.
I know he is tired, I know it's been hard to move schools - we have a middle school system here - and I know puberty is on the horizon but Aibu to not expect to have to argue every night about homework?
I told him last Night that in the new year if he continues this way dh and I will stop helping him at all.
:(
Any tips/ideas?
Dh has suggested we get him into a routine of doing 30 mins each night after dinner which I think is a good idea.
Help!

We've been through this with our kids. To be honest, I think it would be quite unusual for kids this age to happily skip off saying ' just going to do my music practice, Mum' ( although I guarantee that some MNer will now say their dd/ds does...)
I think it is a parent's responsibility to get them into good habits, remind, cajole, set reasonable goals, and reward effort.
I think 30 mins at this stage might be ambitious - why not start at 10 or 15 mins. It's the getting started that's the problem and we found that if we said he had to do at least 10 mins then he'd often play longer in the end anyway.
I know it sounds a bit silly for an 11 year old, but we found using a bag of reward tokens helped ( an idea I got from MN !) I printed out a sheet of 'tokens' which included things like 15 mins extra time on the Xbox / 10% of a £5 iTunes voucher ( collect 10 to redeem)/ friend over for a sleepover etc. I had about 30 - so about a months worth. Included were a couple of 'big' ones like 'a £20 Amazon voucher'. At the end of each month, if he'd practiced regularly then he would be guaranteed to get the big one, but if not he wouldn't necessarily, and I'd add all the little ones back into the bag for the next month!
I know it sounds mad, but it really worked! More bizarrely, my 13 yr old realised this was effectively a way of augmented his pocket money, so asked to join the scheme
I came to the conclusion that if I was paying £15 week for a lesson, it was worth paying about £4 week to incentivise the practice!

Are you or your DH musical? it's also really important for kids to understand what is called 'purposeful practice' e.g. The difference between

1. today I am going to do music practice, and
2. today I am going to practice the first four bars of that song until I can play it without making any mistakes Then it really helps them have a sense of achievement. So don't just say ' go and practice', say what are you going to achieve in this 15 min practice.

Does he play in any groups at school, or with others e.g. In a band?
Playing instruments like guitar and piano can be a bit lonely sometimes - my DC improved enormously once they were playing in music groups.

Also it's really good to have music goals. Sometimes it's exams e.g. grade 1 next March, but it could also be something as simple as playing a Christmas song to Granny on Christmas Day. My niece plays keyboard, and my SIL and I always arrange for the cousins to do a mini concert to grandparents, which everyone actually loves!

Sorry, a bit of a ramble, but hope it helps.
DS nearly gave up the trumpet a year ago over exactly the same sort of 'if you won't practice' argument. That's when we stated the tokens. He kept going and joined a jazz band in his new senior school. In October he played a solo ina school concert, and afterwards was buzzing, and said, 'Mum, I'm so glad you didn't let me give up trumpet'. It was lovely parenting moment!

good luck!

When they go into Year 7 they suddenly have a massive amount of homework compared to Year 6, so it is good to get them used to doing homework. It might be worth speaking to the school and seeing if they can support you on this, ie if he hasn't handed something in, he has to do it at lunchtime/stay after school.

My daughter likes to show me what she done for her homework, but I'm not allowed to comment or get involved as she goes along. I know you want support him and help him, so perhaps try and give him a choice, you are there to help or he can do it himself (as long as he does it). You obviously want to help with spellings etc, but at the same time the school need to be aware if he can't do some things himself.

You often hear children want to play a musical instrument and then do not practice. You mention he's tired at the moment, so you could say you acknowledge that but during the Christmas holidays you expect him to practice off his own back without being nagged, but that if he doesn't do it, then lessons will be cancelled and won't be reinstated.

I do sympathise....my tired dc are stropping about everything atm.

I don't know if this is usual for your ds, but if it isn't - or if it's just got a lot worse this week - I would have a sensible talk with him about needing to do the work, but him choosing when. And that might mean leaving it till he's had a few days' holiday, at this time of year.

My dd1 is Y5, but she is truly knackered. It's taking her twice the effort to do the same amount of work as two weeks ago.

In the New Year, yes do go with the routine approach - kids respond well to routine, on the whole. And let him know he can negotiate changes in the routine (eg I'll do my half hour before breakfast today because I want to do xzy this evening), but 'negotiate' is the important word.

Sometimes a dollop of understanding about tiredness goes a long way - at least with dd1 it does. It can turn bullish stropping into relief and tears and then, amazingly, the work gets done.

Guitar is another matter - both my dds started piano, and dd1 stopped practising and said she really didn't like it anymore, so we let her stop. dd2 didn't want to stop, but didn't want to practise, so we made a deal.

Thank you x

I'm not going to comment on homework because I don't feel I have any expertise to offer here. But on the music practice, I would definitely say aim for what you can get out of him - if that's five minutes a day, do five minutes a day. It's the regular habit that counts at this stage.
You may also find it helpful to use a guitar stand (I don't know much about guitars but I assume there's a stand for every type of guitar) as even just a simple thing like having to take an instrument out of its case can be quite a disincentive to regular practice. It definitely helped with DS and sax (though admittedly there's a whole putting-together thing with sax). Likewise if you have the space, it can be helpful to have a music stand and leave it up with the relevant music on it. In other words, make it as oven-ready as possible to do the practice.
Sorry if you're already doing all of this!

By the way, WonderWine's thing about setting a specific thing to practise, like the first four bars or an awkward passage that he can't quite do without a hiccup, is also spot-on IMO.

This struck a chord with me. One of my kids refused to practise so we gave him 2 weeks to start to practise and then cancelled his lessons. Actually I wish I had been slightly more patient, he might have come through it, although the signs were not good.

My other kid has done well with guitar, but still has to be prodded.

My tips for what they are worth:

• parents will always suffer more answering back than a music teacher.
• get a stand for the guitar that goes on the wall, its so quick to grab and do 10 minutes worth.
• get him to do a tune in front of the family once a week, if he can do that.
• 10 minutes a day of any practise at all is good.
• get Dad to do it too lol.
• get him to learn tablature if he isn't already, its much easier than notation. (Chord charts of course are even easier.)
• he should learn lots of chords for singing along and having fun, don't get tied down with the classical version of Jingle Bells.
• the music grades are good if you can keep him on a plan and a program, don't rely on the music teacher, its really basic you can help him yourself.
• improving is about simple repetition with more or less correct basic technique, nothing more.
• make sure he has acoustic and electric, it doubles the opportunities to get good.
• if he clearly isn't into it, reluctantly let it go. You can sell the guitar on Ebay for decent money.

Sigh.
I'm just not convinced he is that into it tbh.
He enjoys his lessons (which happen at school) but seems very reluctant to practise at home.
He has only got a cheap acoustic guitar from John Lewis as it's all we could afford :(
Perhaps we should stump up for an electric?
He really wants to continue with the lessons but I it seems just throwing money away if he won't practise.
How long would you give him? I don't like giving ultimatums but see no other option.