How to Get Your Kids to Do Their Homework
I. Understand the benefits of homework. If you're not convinced that homework matters, it will be even harder to convince your kids. There are some good reasons behind a moderate amount of homework:
Homework reinforces learning taught during the day. Some learning won't stick as well unless kids give it more practice and the classroom environment isn't necessarily going to provide adequate time for more practice. This is of special importance for math and critical thinking skills.
Sometimes homework teaches additional skills not taught at school due to lack of time or resources. This is a "broadening" learning effect of homework.
Homework instills self-discipline, teaching time management, organizational skills, concentration skills, and self-responsibility. Self-discipline is a key life skill that can only be learned in the doing.
II. Make peace with the reality that most kids don't like doing homework. When there are many other infinitely more interesting things happening, especially in our electronic gadget age, it's hard to make homework appealing, so stop trying. As a parent, guardian, or other person responsible for getting kids to do homework, acceptance isn't about agreement with them. It's about understanding and infusing the rest of your approach with that understanding, while remaining prepared to set the boundaries and stand by your expectations that they will do it.
III. Be a facilitator rather than a force to be reckoned with. You can cajole, plead, yell, threaten, bribe, and jump up and down with your face turning blue but none of this negative and mutually exhausting behaviour will make your kids do anything. Sure, they'll respond to immediate threats of withdrawing privileges and you standing over them until it's done, but this will not turn into reformed homework behaviour, and who has time to stand over them instead of getting other tasks done? Instead, aim to facilitate the homework process as much as possible:
Provide a distinct, comfortable, well-lit, quiet, and non-distracting place for the homework to be completed. Somewhere away from electronic items, pedestrian traffic, and other kids playing is ideal.
IV. Discuss homework with your kids in a direct and enabling manner. At the beginning of each term or semester, sit down and talk about how your kid intends to handle homework in the coming months. In this way, you set mutually shared ground rules for getting homework done, ground rules that you can call on to remind them when they're slipping, or to praise them for when they're meeting them.
Empower your kids. Rather than setting the time for homework, have a family meeting to discuss possible times. Let the kids feel they’re somewhat in charge by giving them the choice of when to do their homework—before dinner, after dinner, or half before and half after. The only rider on this is to refuse to allow homework to be left until just before bedtime – set an agreed cut-off point by which time homework must be completed; this can be sweetened by making allowance for fun reading time, or other enjoyable wind-down activity prior to bedtime. And you can help by keeping the evening mealtime as regular as possible.
V. Use praise to achieve intrinsic motivation. Praising work done well and ignoring or downplaying poor performance is an approach that will enthuse your kid a lot more than focusing on the negatives, and it helps to remove the tension for you, along with any inclination to tear your hair out.
Be careful when using rewards to spur homework completion. The aim is to rely principally on intrinsic motivators (fostering satisfaction at a job completed) rather than material rewards. Bribing is the ultimate demotivating strategy because any kid who associates completing homework with a new DS game or an allowance increase learns to do the activity for material gain rather than internal gratification, or for greater understanding. Occasional rewards for a special project done really well can be a great boost but regular material rewards are best avoided.
VI. Shift the responsibility from you to your child. This may feel really hard for you, especially in a time when parents feel a sense of self-responsibility about homework, but it's absolutely vital that your child learns as early as possible that the consequences for not completing homework rest on them, not on you. Don't carry the weight of your child's unwillingness to complete homework on your shoulders; provided you are giving them a supportive and caring structured environment, and you've defined daily homework times, homework not completed is your child's lesson in learning about self-responsibility. After a few times of learning first hand the consequences of not completing homework, your child will soon start to see that he or she has responsibility in this matter. This is not the same as not caring at all. It is about taking a conscious approach to letting your kids learn to be responsible.
VII. Let the kids deal with the consequences of not doing their homework. Teachers are usually not very happy with students if they don't do homework. If your child flat-out refuses to do their work, then let them see what their teacher does the next day. They probably will do their homework after that!
Naturally, if you have a child with learning or other disabilities, you may need to vary this more hands-off approach. However, don't be afraid to seek support from professional people skilled in your child's particular disability; getting help is important when you don't know what else to do.
VIII. Remove your knee-jerk reaction of needing to do your kid's homework. If homework is meant to be done by your child alone, stay away. Too much parent involvement can prevent homework from having some positive effects. Homework is a great way for kids to develop independent, lifelong learning skills.
IX. Be engaged, not nosy. Nobody appreciates the nosy, stand-over person, and kids are no different. Try to make your approach to their homework one of engaged curiosity, not of nosiness or trying to cross off every discrete task as it's done.
Avoid asking your kid for precise details of homework the moment he or she walks through the door. Allow for chill time first.
X. Consider doing your homework at the same time as your younger kid. When you are inspiring younger kids to get involved in homework, one neat trick is to do some homework of your own, to show your child that you're being responsible and completing essential chores too. Show your child that the skills they are learning are related to things you do as an adult. If your child is reading, you read too. If your child is doing math, balance your checkbook.
XI. Find out what motivates your kid. A recent study has shown that middle school aged kids who have an ambition that requires education before a career are more likely to knuckle down and do their homework than kids who lack ambition or who seek to work in an area that doesn't require a university education.
If your child is motivated to enter a career requiring college education, you can use this knowledge to encourage your child to view homework as an investment.
Even where this is not apparent, it doesn't hurt to talk to your children about the importance of ensuring that all opportunities are left open and that homework enables this. Of course, this type of reasoning is best reserved for middle school and up.
XII. Find a new name for homework. Every kid's ears prick up at the mention of "work". It's bad enough asking them to clean their room or to clear the latest art and craft disaster off the floor without having to insist also that they do homework. A little trick is to sidestep this in your household, and no matter what school is referring to it as, calling it something like "home learning", "brain boosting", or even just plain old "study". Always talk about it in terms that suggest it's about learning and growing, not about work.
Be positive about homework. Use positive language for it and subtly talk about how learning will help your child in the future. For example, tell your would-be actress daughter that she won’t be able to memorize her lines if she’s not a stellar reader. The attitude you express about homework will be the attitude your child acquires.
XIII. Turn the homework into a game. Usually kids don't do homework because it's boring. Why not turn it into fun?
Put math problems in terms of sweets, or money. When it's about sweets, tell them they will win the answer's number of sweets and that he can eat a part of them when the next correct problem set is done correctly. Or play for pennies, monopoly money (you can make your own with blank index cards), or points that can be redeemed for treats, such as a visit to the pool or park.
You can also turn difficult words into weird funny ones. Or, make collectible cards, like baseball cards, only for vocabulary or spelling words.
