homework angst

[Lonecatwithkitten]

DD year 7 and her homework. She doesn't want help from me in organising her self, she is full of reasons why she can't do it at X, Y and Z. I am all out of carrot ways of getting her to do it, I have exhausted pocket money, phones etc as punishments - she just doesn't care. I won't restrict her after school clubs as they have been responsible for a massive increase in her self esteem.
She does care what her teachers and friends think, currently teachers seem to let her get away with it, but would I be unreasonable to ask them to get tough?
I get very frustrated with it for several reasons firstly I am doing a post graduate certificate so I have my own homework to complete each week and secondly I was at boarding school at her age and you just cracked on with the homework as whinging and whining never got you any where.
When she does crack on with it she does a good job, just she whinges and whines for about 40 mins and then takes 20mins to do the actual homework,

What about project things, like having to make a poster about healthy eating by printing stuff out & pasting onto a sheet of paper. Is that also 40 minutes of whinging & 20 minutes of work, or is it more like 3-4 days of whinging & 80 minutes of work. I have the last, so your deal looks pretty good to me.

Ah I have failed to mention the project so far we have had 5 weeks of whinging and whining and there are 3 sentences on a piece of paper.
They seem to be very lenient of year 7s personally I feel with my DD the first detention for late/incompletely homework would have focused her mind and the whinging would have stopped.

Personally, I think it is up to the teachers to enforce consequences if their homework isn't completed. Once you have provided the space, materials and some encouragement then you have done your part.

I feel your pain. My son was a master whinger and could easily spend a full day at the weekend groaning and whining about a project, getting absolutely nowhere and making no progress at all - as each hour passed, he got more stressed and annoyed! We worked out that it was because he wanted to do a masterpiece rather than an adequate piece of work as he had self-imposed high expectations, so couldn't get off the starting block as he could never find that "perfect start" he was craving.

We just kept pointing out to him that the "day" he thought he wasted was actually mostly his own fault and that actually doing the work was just an hour or two, and that "good enough" was fine, especially for subjects that he knew he wouldn't be taking to higher levels. After telling him many, many times, he finally got the message and now just "does it" and is now in the habit of doing what he can in the time frame allowed.

You have to keep on at them, not just in a complaining way, but pointing out the time they are unnecessarily wasting time that could be better spent on more enjoyable things if they'd just get a boot up the bum and "just do it" and get it over with!

ds has been like this. It;s getting much, much better through three things:

• I sat down with him & made him come up with a plan of when he would do his homework. HE drove it, not me. SO HE decided he would have a break of x minutes when he came home, then work until supper time. He works in his room, and can have music/whatever he wants. I just have to remind him of HIS rules, and getting into that consistent pattern has helped. We also agreed that if he didn't keep to HIS rules, he would have to go to homework club, as the impact on the whole family of having to negotiate every homework was getting to all of us!

• At weekends, I tell him what we are doing as a family, and then he works out what homework he is going to fit in when. If all homework is completed by 4pm on Sunday, we have family hot choc at local cafe. If it's completed by 6pm, we have family Sunday film time. So it's in his interests to be done by then!

• I also backed off - if he spends 2 hours in his room and gets 3 sentences written, that's his problem not mine. If he decides he'll leave all the homework to Sunday am and have Sat off, his problem.

I think the whinging is a way to make homework planning our problem, not theirs. Once ds was making his own decisions, he could only legitimately whinge to himself. Which he still does, sometimes!

Have you got parents' evening coming up soon? I don't think it would be unreasonable to mention your concerns to your dd's teachers

Tbh, the actual content of homework in Y7 is pretty unimportant, however what is important is engendering good study habits, your dd understanding the school's expectations and for parents to start to step back

There's no point in engaging with discussion with your dd, especially if she's not having any consequences from school

I agree with pp that you should help her to draw up a homework timetable, with sensible breaks and rewards built in ... And then leave her to it

Thank you very much for all your suggestions. Any offer of help with homework plan is not met well and she did make her own plan, that lasted less than 7 days.
I agree that developing good independent studying is the aim.

I will bring it up at parents evening.

the only way i can get DD2 to get on with her homework is to go through her week and say, so saturday pm you have rehearsals. you can't go unless you have done x and y. (and stick to it). That just leaves z to be done on sunday.

it doesn't sound like the homework is too onerous or the school is too bothered? sometimes i think it's easier if they have lots to do and not too much time to do it. i'm sure your dd is not the only one. i would email her form teacher and explain your concern and ask her to find out how your dd is getting on / if there is an issue. Maybe there isn't. Maybe they're just letting them settle in, find their feet, do lots of extra curriculars etc.. in yr7.

typically in England homework counts for zero part of final grade, MadamD. This is why DS is predicted Bs & As in final exams (only permanent part of his record) even though he does zero homework. I find it shocking, too. DS would have been held back 2 yrs in USA system....well, he'd probably just have dropped out. So maybe UK system is better, after all.

They are moving to an even more final exam based system here. So homework will count for even less.

At university homework does count for a lot.