How do you get your elementary school kids to do homework?
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Anonymous
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Lately the routine at our house has fallen apart, and our kids are complaining incessantly about their school workload and their musical instrument practices. Homework is not getting finished, it's being done sloppily, and it's such a fight every night to get them to start it. I'm looking for tips on how to jumpstart the homework/instrument practice routine with less complaining. Our kids are in fourth and fifth grade, so sticker charts and bribes don't work.
I'd love your best tips on how to motivate upper elementary kids to do what they need to do. How do you keep the routine working at your house? |
Anonymous
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How much homework do they have? Are they right that it's a ridiculous amount, or do they just feel overwhelmed and lose perspective so that 30-45 minutes of homework plus instrument practice turns into them feeling that it's all they do every evening?
If you have a reliable estimate of how long homework usually takes them, can you show them that on a color-coded daily schedule? That helped us somewhat, when they could see that the time they really needed to spend on homework was usually right around half an hour, shorter than most of their favorite TV shows, and would still leave them room to do other things if they stopped the procrastinating. Can the instrument practice reasonably be moved to morning, or after dinner, or a time separate from whenever your kids do their school homework? That might break the perceived mountain of tasks up a bit and make it seem more manageable. We did homework in 15 minute chunks with a 5 minute snack/walk around the house/listen to music/do a yoga exercise break between each one; this worked until about 7th grade. "We can do anything for 15 minutes". Somehow, that amount of time didn't seem so bad and didn't generate near the fighting and complaining that the general instruction to "do your homework" did. Typically we do homework right after we get home, before anything else or any free time. They get the amount of free time that is left over after their homework is completed to my satisfaction. If it's sloppy I make them redo it, and if I can tell that they're being extra careless out of pure defiance or if they start getting mouthy and disrespectful in their avoidance of the work they get one warning then I might assign an extra chore or a "mom school" assignment of my own that has to be completed. Basically, our philosophy is "Homework is not optional. It will get done, and done in such a way that you can take pride in your work. There's two ways it can get done: the easy way -- where you buckle down, give your good faith effort the first time, and get it out of the way so the rest of the evening is your own, or the hard way -- where you procrastinate and whine and waste your whole evening making a great big noisy fuss over something that would've taken you around XX minutes. It's your choice, but I sure know which one I would pick if I were you." |
Anonymous
| Bribes are illegal so call them incentives. What do your kids want? Mine wants his video games so once he does his homework, he shows it to me. I circle incorrect answers or sloppy work that needs to be redone. Once it is done, he gets to play 20 minutes of Minecraft or whatever game he is into these days. I also don't stay in the kitchen where he does his homework and complaining. If a kid complains about homework and no one is around to hear it ... |
Anonymous
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Days without extra-curriculars: Get home after school. Snack: relaxing but not too much dawdling. Homework (schoolwork, native language, voice or musical instrument, extra math, etc). Free time: directly correlated to speed and accuracy at which homework is done! It should be correct and turned in to Mom, otherwise it's sent back to kid to review until it's correct before free time. Dinner. Bath. Reading and bedtime. Days with extra-curriculars: Get home, abbreviated snack. Homework. Dinner. Bath. Reading and bedtime. Free time can be whatever they want, but it's usually reading, Minecraft or pretend play. |
Anonymous
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PP again. As you can see, they get home a little after 3pm. Given how slow they are and how much homework they have, it would be very difficult to start the whole routine at 6pm. |
Anonymous
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Let me preface this comment by saying I am very involved in DD's school, I communicate regularly with her teacher, and have high expectations for her to work hard at academics.
Having said that, I don't take any extraordinary measures to "get her to do homework." I tell her she needs to do it, and provide time and space for it. I don't correct it. Her teacher needs to know if she is not understanding something. And I do not engage in battles over it. If it doesn't get done, she faces the consequences from her teacher. We used to fight over it, but now that I have removed myself from the equation, she does her homework every night. She is in aftercare or at an extracurricular activity every school night, so often does not start homework until 5:30. But she is in 5th grade, so never has more than an hour of homework. |
Anonymous
are native language and extra math are in addition to homework or in lieu of it when there is nothing assigned? |
Anonymous
We do our best to stagger the work: on days when schoolwork is done, they do their native language and extra math. Music is every day. There are no fights about work in my house, because one of my kids has special needs and has been accustomed to therapy or "work" in some form or another since birth, and the other actually likes doing these things! But it self-regulates anyway sine they don't get playtime until the work is done. |
Anonymous
| Homework is checked and graded at school so my kids do it because it represents a substantial part of their semester grade. It's never a struggle in that sense. (Instrument practice was a struggle so we dropped that. I pick my battles and feel they were exposed to it enough to pick it up again later if they choose. I allow only activities they are intrinsically motivated to practice.) |
Anonymous
| I let them fail. Go ahead - get a shitty grade. You don't want the shitty grade, then do your homework and do it well. |
Anonymous
+1 |
Anonymous
| Or just no free time or electronics until it's done. We rarely fight about homework because they can't have free time until it's done. Sometimes they are slow but it's rare. My 7th grader cares about his grades but my 4th grader doesn't - but he still works hard to get his free time |
Anonymous
This is generally us, too. My 4th grader in HGC sometimes has a ton of HW. Some days he gets almost no free time. Most of that is due to him dawdling and/or procrastinating. He's been learning the hard way that if you dawdle/procrastinate too much, then you end up with almost no free time. I have stopped checking HW for accuracy or even completeness. Generally, he's been doing fine on his own. I look through all the papers he brings home at the end of the week. If I started seeing more bad grades than good grades, then I'd probably start reviewing the HW more and maybe have them do extra work to make sure they understand the material, but thankfully, this hasn't happened..knock on wood. We have always had the "HW first" rule, too. |
Anonymous
OP here. Our philosophy is the same, but lately it seems that our kids choose the latter, and they seem willing to fight and procrastinate and use the afternoon and evening to employ delay tactics rather than tackle what needs to be done. After a couple of hours of this, we find ourselves frustrated and ineffective. I like the idea of frequent breaks and it seems that the theme here is that homework needs to come first. We often let them have a break after school, but perhaps this is misguided. It's harder to leave free time than to work for it. I appreciate all the suggestions and admire all of you well-organized parents! |
Anonymous
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HW comes first.
My 5th grader does not get home till 4:00PM FCPS. He has a snack and blows off steam for thirty minutes. HW comes next. He only has one extra after school activity a week. When I work late his older brother helps him stay on track. |