Is this taking "logical consequences" too far? (long)

[Anonymous]

Background: DS (age 9), greatly resents having to do homework. He also hugely resents our asking/checking whether or not it has been done. Our policy has always been that after a break after school for snack and downtime, he then needs to do homework before other things, and if he refuses, the policy holds indefinitely (i.e. if he doesn't do homework on Monday, then the policy remains in force and he has no fun privileges on Tuesday until it's done, and so on). This has "worked" insofar as the homework gets done, but at the cost of frequent surliness/hostility/argumentativeness on his part, saddling us with the job of monitoring whether homework has been done, and also with the not-infrequent (maybe once a week) loss of privileges that are good for him (such as sports/outside time). With the school year is coming to an end (he is in MCPS), DH and I are taking stock and coming to the conclusion that we don't want another school year like this one regarding homework.

I honestly do believe that if he chooses not to do homework, then fine, that's his decision, and he should just be prepared to then accept responsibility for the consequences--e.g., disappointing his teacher whom he likes, being left out in class when activities depend on having done homework (correcting math homework, for example), and so on. (Consequences won't include lower grades academically since he doesn't need to do homework to earn the highest grades, but there are other consequences like the above--and also, perhaps this upcoming year the work will get harder such that he will need to do homework to earn higher grades, hard to say.)

So I would like to implement a policy of us not monitoring it at all, and "do the crime, do the time" so to speak, but my nagging concern is whether or not it is reasonable/fair to expect a 9-YO to truly grasp that the consequences could include actually changing the course of his future (for example, being placed in a lower math class the following year; harming his chances of applying to middle-school magnet down the line, etc.) DH and I are okay with US living with the consequences (i.e. if his lack of homework-doing prevents him from landing in the highest math group or from getting a good rec for magnet, so be it), but we wonder if essentially, we would be allowing him to "ruin" (I use that term loosely but you know what I mean) his own future without truly being old enough yet to honestly make the decision to take the consequences. (In other words, 9-YOs don't really have the foresight to truly grasp all this even if explained to them). In other words, would we be "allowing" him to make irrevocable poor decisions before he is mature enough to responsibly evaluate the situation.

Any thoughts would be helpful.

[Anonymous]

I wonder if the problem is that the consequences for not doing the homework are not severe enough, if he is willing to endure them once a week or so?
Perhaps if the consequences were more immediate and more severe he would be better incentivized to get the homework done quicker and with less of a fight?

[Anonymous]

There is a book called Blessing of a B Minus. I have not yet read it but I have read the author's previous book, Blessing of a Skinned Knee, and I would recommend it based solely on that.

FWIW, my in-laws always stayed on top of my SIL, never let her 'fail' in any way, and it has completely backfired. She has basically never been employed; she doesn't really have her own work ethic or sense of responsibility. I think that letting her experience the consequences of her own actions (or lack thereof) when it didn't matter so much would have been a far better gift to her than making sure she got into the best programs and colleges.

[Anonymous]

One thing you may want to consider in making your decision is what will happen if he doesn't start to do homework by middle school or high school. There, homework is enough of the grade to actually fail.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is a book called Blessing of a B Minus. I have not yet read it but I have read the author's previous book, Blessing of a Skinned Knee, and I would recommend it based solely on that.

FWIW, my in-laws always stayed on top of my SIL, never let her 'fail' in any way, and it has completely backfired. She has basically never been employed; she doesn't really have her own work ethic or sense of responsibility. I think that letting her experience the consequences of her own actions (or lack thereof) when it didn't matter so much would have been a far better gift to her than making sure she got into the best programs and colleges.

OP here--yes, I agree with this, maybe I wasn't clear enough with my question: I would like to "let him fail" on his own, but I am wondering whether that strategy isn't quite reasonable for a 9-year-old, given that there are real-life consequences that he can't grasp. The issue is the age, not the strategy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One thing you may want to consider in making your decision is what will happen if he doesn't start to do homework by middle school or high school. There, homework is enough of the grade to actually fail.

OP here too --again, I agree, but this comment isn't actually helpful. I have certainly considered that--my request was for thoughts about dealing with this now.

[Anonymous]

Sorry it wasn't helpful, but I figured you were looking at things from a long term viewpoint, not just 3rd grade. Honestly, having had three kids already passed this point in MCPS, I can't see that in reality there really are any consequences of not doing homework in ES, except disappointing the teacher. So, you could be setting up a path where the first consequence is a failing grade in a subject years later.

[Anonymous]

The people I know who were the most competitive and responsible were the ones whose parents were very hands-off, maybe too much? Or very poor and took advantage of any opportunities--usually school related--and were determined to make something out of their lives. But the ones with helicopter type parents were the ones who usually needed some kind of reward to do anything beyond personal satisfaction or motivation, and they often rebelled in later years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sorry it wasn't helpful, but I figured you were looking at things from a long term viewpoint, not just 3rd grade. Honestly, having had three kids already passed this point in MCPS, I can't see that in reality there really are any consequences of not doing homework in ES, except disappointing the teacher. So, you could be setting up a path where the first consequence is a failing grade in a subject years later.

OP again--yes, that is exactly what I was asking--given that the logical consequences aren't something immediate/relevant to him now, is it a reasonable strategy for NOW? So o be sure i am understanding, you are saying in your opinion, no, it isn't a good strategy, and we should keep insisting on homework completion? I'm trying to gather thoughts, so please let me know if I misunderstood you.

[Anonymous]

Why does he think he can pull that kind of negative attitude when it is his responsibility to go to school, do his homework and try his best? You need to make him realize that this is not an option; it is expected and nothing less will be acceptable. Think about those spouse swap shows where the country kids help out with a lot of chores without any sass back and are very respectful vs the spoiled and lazy suburban kids whose parents are more concerned about being their "friend" rather than their parent.

[Anonymous]

We have similar issues with our rising 4th grader at times. Attitude problems result in a loss of all screen time for a week. It's painful for both him and for us, but it works.

[Anonymous]

I had lots of trouble in school starting in elementary school. I had a very hard time staying focused and had many battles with my parents regarding homework. They decided to go the route you are suggesting and not force me to do homework. As an adult looking back, I appreciate the way my parents raised me, and honestly see little faults. However, this approach was one that I do not appreciate. Not being taught the importance of homework by my parents when I was too young to understand it left me with poor study habits that followed me through college. Your child is too young to grasp the logical consequences of not doing homework now. In fact, most of them won't become evident until a later age. But there are consequences. Not establishing good study habits for your child at an early age will impact him throughout his school years and perhaps beyond (to this day I am bad at deadlines and sometimes struggle to get things done at the last minute, resulting in work that is far from the best I am capable of). I realize this is a hard battle and not fun for either of you, but in my opinion it is one of the really important ones.

[Anonymous]

"OP again--yes, that is exactly what I was asking--given that the logical consequences aren't something immediate/relevant to him now, is it a reasonable strategy for NOW? So o be sure i am understanding, you are saying in your opinion, no, it isn't a good strategy, and we should keep insisting on homework completion? I'm trying to gather thoughts, so please let me know if I misunderstood you. "

I am saying that I don't see any logical consequences at his age. But, I do see harm from letting him develop a habit of not doing homework for a bunch of years until there is actually a logical consequence because the logical consequence can be pretty severe. For example, if you let your child not do homework and face the logical consequences, and he takes a foreign language in 6th grade, the language grade goes on his final high school transcript. So, if he's not doing homework and homework is enough of his grade in the foreign language that he gets a D or F, that is a problem for getting into college. This is why I threw out the MS issue out there. In some circumstances, ie foreign language classes, the grades follow you through your entire educational career.

FWIW, we struggled greatly with one of our kids with homework and it drove me up a tree. Fortunately, my other two are a breeze in this area. What I did was to put him at the kitchen counter after dinner with nothing in his reach but the exact supplies he needs to complete his assignments and then make everyone leave the room. He could not move from his spot until he was done. If it wasn't done by bedtime, there was no snack, no family book time, etc. If it went on for more than a night or two, I planned a family movie night or some activity, like going to Baskin Robbins, that he would miss of the work wasn't done. Many a Thursday nights I sat up later than I would have liked to get it done. As the year went on, he did get better and during the last few weeks, he actually got his homework completely finished in aftercare. For the past week, I think the pool was the driving factor - he knew without a doubt that the rest of us would go and leave him at home if it wasn't done.

A couple of times early this year, my oldest had a homework problem, but for him, I got him up at an obnoxious hour in the morning to get it done. That cured him. Also, with older kids, electronics give you a lot of power that you don't have with younger kids. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Hi OP,

I have a second grader and was wondering myself about how much to be involved, as it was becoming a battle zone, and so I asked the teacher (DCPS).

She said:
--Her preference was that the parents allow the children to take complete responsibility for their homework, meaning they shouldn't "grade" it, or help. She said that kids need to self-check so they learn how to do this on tests too.

--I should tell my kid that if he needs help with a specific question or component, that I should make myself available.

--She returns some, but not all, of the homework with grades, so the child can learn from his/her mistakes and have comments from her like "great sentence" etc.

--Finally, she said that I need to make time for my son to do homework, so you can't have too busy of a schedule where they can't get it done or it's only done in a single day (for a week's homework packet).

Also, I Googled this topic too, and found some other helpful advice, that has seemed to work with us.

--Have your kid be involved in the organizational process. Have them pick out the pencil caddy, pens, rulers, etc. that they want to use. I took my kids to Container Store and I had them be involved in organizing their space. They were very serious about measuring the magazine files to see how many would fit on our bookshelf, and calculating how much everything cost. DH and I took pains to organize our house so there was a place for their bag, their stuff, and they could find the tape.

--Let them help you design their weekly schedule. And, give them flexibility. I was forcing my son to do homework right after school. Finally I said "when do you want to do homework?" and we decided together that he would play for 15-20 minutes first. At first, I would call him in from outside, but now he will come in after awhile.

--Be there, but don't be involved. I try to hang around while my son does homework, so if he need to he can call me, but I won't hover. Sometimes, he'll mention what he's doing. We're trying to set the expectation that school is important to us and that the kids need to try their best, and take it seriously.

I am trying to suffer the consequences. When he didn't put his library book in his bag, we said that he would be responsible for the $1 fine. He then got upset and said he didn't know when he could go to the library. So, it actually started a conversation. I wasn't thinking he was a lazy kid any more, and we brainstormed what he could do...have me take him 5 minutes early, go during recess, ask the teacher when he'd have time to go. Lo and behold the next day he got it in.

I know I've rambled a bit, but I feel for you. These strategies have changed the air in our house. Though I'm so excited that summer is here and...no homework!

[Anonymous]

I think it's the implementation, OP.

If you continue to nag him and follow up with him, and to respond to his sullen/surly behavior, then THAT is the consequence.

Instead, I would restate the rule: Our definition of completed homework is that you complete each assignment in your agenda, check it off, and show us. When you have finished your homework, then you will be able to (watch tv, go to sports practice, etc.). Sit down, have a meeting, and clarify the rule so there's no doubt as to what the parameters are. Give him the opportunity to talk, make suggestions, ask questions, etc.

Then you don't say another word about it -- no nagging, no following up, nothing. If he asks to watch tv, say without any emotion, "when you've finished your homework, then you may ...." (i.e. a when/then statement -- no "I" or "you must" etc.). Don't get upset or sound mad.

If there's a sports practice, do one reminder, but not a nag, something like: "Josh, we need to leave for practice in two hours. Please remember the rule about practice." Then don't say another word -- if he doesn't do it, just don't go. If he tries to draw you into an emotional exchange about it, don't bite, just repeat the rule in when/then form.

I think the idea is to take the power struggle out of it and let the consequence be the consequence.