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Homework Woes

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Powered by Mom Blog wants to know do you have the Homework Woes?

 

Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Do you have to constantly have to fight with your child to get them to do their homework? Does your child ignore, fight you at every step or does everything possible to not do their homework? I'm curious let's hear what everyone has to say about their trials and tribulations with helping or getting their child to do their homework. Homework is a constant battle in this house but I don't want it to be a battle and certainly I don't want to yell about it etc.. believe me I've tried many, many strategies I'll share what's worked, what hasn't but I think we can all help each other.

So let's not only share the trials and tribulations let's share success stories too. Comment below whether you and your child struggle or you have a success story share them all and we can learn from each other. I will update this post or create an additional one with all of your suggestions and mine so let's share away!

 

By on December 15th, 2012

About Powered by Mom

I’m Michelle aka Powered by Mom. I’m married with one daughter, my hubby was my high school sweetheart, our two dogs Nyx and Cleo and our cat Oliver. As you can see we’re a family of animal lovers. We love to travel when we can, try different food and activities all over the world and enjoy being together. My passions are writing, travelling, creating new recipes, encouraging people to adopt not shop and just to enjoy life while we can.

More posts by this author.

43 thoughts on “Homework Woes”

  1. It is an everyday struggle with my grandson but my granddaughter loves her homework. My son has to get stern with my grandson and he sometimes gets sent to bed and they get up early the next morning to do it. He sometimes gets grounded from his games that he loves to play. I will be watching for more shares

    Reply
  2. I'm going to share MY homework problems. (MANY years ago). I was awful at arithmetic - had to count on my fingers through 6th grade. My dad would sit with me, hour after hour, trying to explain long division. I just couldn't get it. It was like listening to someone speak in a foreign language. My dad got so disgusted with my inability he said. "You know - I think you really DO know how to do this, and are just making believe you don't for attention.". I was shocked! I'd sit there trying to do my math homework, with tears streaming down my face - not only didn't I understand the work, but my dad thought I was trying to fool him. Parents, please take note - this is NOT the approach to take with your kids!!! I'm 59 now, and my dad is gone for 13 years, but I'm still hurt over this! : (

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  3. My son hated homework (he is now homeschooled) so I made him a reward chart and when he got home we would look at the number of questions or problems and divide it in to 5 parts. After each part he would get a sticker on the chart if he did it without fighting and without complaining. Then at the end of the week I would put a dollar in a jar for every day he had earned at least 4 stickers on his chart.

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  4. I usual try to remember how I feel after a day at work. The last thing I want to do is come home and do more work. I need a few minutes of down time. Children need the same thing. Sometimes just a little free time to clear their minds before focusing on their homework.

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  5. My kids are out of school, but how I remember those terrible times. My son was the worst. Plus as he didn't have good penmanship he had that extra homework to practice his writing at home, which just frustrated him all the more. It was hours of homework every night from grade 1 to 6. This was at french school, he didn't have any friends, his grades were struggling and I never got a positive comment about my child. As he was failing that year, I transferred him to an English school. The passing mark there was lower so they moved him ahead anyway. The homework was a lot less heavy so a lot less frustrating for him. Why would schools and teachers give so much homework, give them time to be a child and some play time when they get home.

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  6. I only have one child that is school age and she is 13. She is actually pretty good about coming in and getting it done. It's the projects and presentations that she doesn't want to do.

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  7. With my 7-yr. old, she's always been a self-starter, even in Kinder. My Kinder can't be a self-starter because her homework isn't a packet, it's a calendar of activities(which I actually like better), but my younger daughter is not on as much of a homework schedule yet, as the calendar is flexible. I need to fix this so she can enjoy and get into her homework more.

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  8. Even now that my son is a teenager, it is still a struggle. Thank you for bringing this up. How do you teach your child to take it slow, double check your work, write neat, etc. The only thing that I do is ask him how he feels when he gets that homework back and it has a bad grade on it. Usually he doesn't like it and he will try harder. I just try to make it easy for him and the most important thing, do not get frustrated with him.

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  9. As a homeschool mom, homework has never been a problem, until we got past middle school. Now they don't want to do anything I want them to do, they only want to work on their passion. I guess I can't blame them, I never did do anything in high school either...

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  10. i dont have kids yet, but i read the comments and in 5 years my baby will start kindergarten so i hope he doesn't drive me crazy :_

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  11. My son graduated in 2012. I never really had a problem with him doing homework when he was young, but when he got into High School and had to do the Algebra and Geometry because they offered nothing else, he didn't want to do it because he didn't understand. Thank goodness I went to the school a few times and he had a great friend help him and explain it to him where he could understand, then his started to come up! 🙂

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  12. I was always pretty good about getting my homework done when I was in school. Something in me just loved being organized and having a list to check off. I hope to instill that same sense of satisfaction in a job done well in my children. I don't know that I'd want to resort to punishment if my kids don't do their homework, but what other options do parents have if their child refuses?

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  13. Some of the woes are brought on by schools pressuring teachers into assigning unnecessary homework in the belief that it will make the school look "better" - there is actually not a lot of evidence that homework reinforces concepts or provides much of a benefit, particularly to younger kids.

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  14. I found the best way to get by the task of homework is give a child an hour afte school, snaks, a play or TV what ever they choose then it makes it easier to hurry and get it done to return to that play or game..

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  15. Although my kids are grown now, I found this post on homework to be interestring, and I will referr my friends to your blog. Thanks.

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  16. As a mom of 4 kids, who are in college, or have graduated - as soon as possible, get out of the loop. Homework is your child's job, and the sooner he.she takes responsibility for it, the better off you all are. I mean by 4th or 5th grade, you shouldn't be doing more than helping if asked, and querying if it was done. Have consequences for undone h.w (no tv until it is finished, or what ever works in your house) but you shouldn't be the nag either. Remember, you aren't going to college with them!

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  17. My youngest child is really good in school so I never have any struggles with him. My oldest child on the other hand has Asperger's and struggles immensely with Math. It's a real battle every night to get homework done. He gets so frustrated 🙁

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  18. My son drove me nuts in high school. After we did everything to get him to do his homework ... he would not turn it in at school. Left it in his car. He said he didn't need it to graduate. The grade book in English was either an A or 0.

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  19. My son starting bringing 'home reading' home in grade 1. That's when the homework problems began. After that it just got worse because he would forget things at school that he needed to complete his homework. It's always been a struggle.

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  20. Homework has been a struggle with my 10 and 12 year old sons. I have always felt kind of bad for them, spending all that time at school and then having to come home and do more school stuff. kids don't get to enjoy life anymore! but this school year it seems the kids are getting more time to get most everything done at school. my 5th grader rarely comes home with homework unless its a project. in the middle school, they have added a new class at the end of the day, its called seminar, there they have time to work on homework and also to go and seek teachers in classes they are having a struggle in or have questions for. it has been great having seminar!! both kids are expected to read a certain number of minutes a week or day. my 5th grader has to read 120 minutes a week, my 7th grader has to read at least 15 minutes a night. the routine is they come home and do chores then homework. and about 30 minutes before bedtime, they have to turn off all electronics and spend some time reading. this routine has been working pretty well most of the time. 🙂

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  21. My children are all grown now but they too hated homework It was a constant battle even after the school took off points from grades for incomplete homework I wish I had tried some of these tips at the time. Good luck to all parents of children goiing through the homework woes !!

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  22. I hated homework as a kid and dread homework when my daughter starts school in 2013. My parents never pushed me to do it and believed in natural consequences. Don't do it-suffer bad grades- don't get into good college-

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  23. My oldest son is my struggle child when it comes to homework. What my fiance and I did in order to get him motivated to get his homework done quicker and correct was reward him. If he gets his home work done by a certain time he gets 1 hour of TV/Video games 2 times a week and board games 3 times a week his choice. He loved the incentive and it has worked perfectly with him. His grades have gone from D's & F's to A's and B's and he gets all of his homework done within an hour - hour and a half everyday with minimal struggles. We go over his work with him and he fixes his mistakes. We go over how he figures everything out and his teachers have noticed his self esteem sky rocket also since we started doing this.

    Now, if he fights us, he loses that hour of incentive. We laid out the expectations so there is no surprises.

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  24. I always thought that I would have done my homework more if I understood the concepts better. I always felt stupid so it didn't feel worth it to do the homework. Maybe try report card incentives (dollar amounts for certain grades)? It worked well for a lot of my friends.

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  25. I have the homework woes with my 8 yr old. she is having a very hard time in 3rd grade. Lately it's long division. Trying to get her ti grasp that she must know her multiplication good in order to do long division. Ey yi yi!

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  26. It's currently a work in progress! My daughter is only in the first grade, so she doesn't get too much homework. But when she does have homework, if one thing doesnt make sense, she gets upset and starts crying... and gives up. We've been working on her self confidence which has really helped! The more comfortable she is with the material and the more confident she is in her abilities, the easier it is to get the work done 🙂

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  27. I explain to my kids that homework is part of their "job". In order to get a "paycheck" the work needs to be done. Just like a grown up, if we don't do our work we don't get paid.

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  28. I reward my son as he does his homework. He is deaf, and has a cochlear implant and has some delays,so homework can be very fustrating for him. Rewding him with peices of candy or cookies help to go smoothly!

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  29. Well, actual homework isn't an issue yet but I have thought about it: I remember the battles of my childhood and the endless procrastination! So I'm trying to create a habit of sitting down at the table post preschool via a snack and chat about the day time. While I know parenting ideas never work exactly as planned :), I'm hoping to establish from the beginning that we sit down after 'school' and do whatever we need to do.

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  30. My 7th grade son is starting to have some trouble with school, particularly math. I'm considering enrolling him in Kumon math tutoring. His main issue, aside from math, is that he tends to procrastinate on telling me about assignment (especially those that involve writing because he hates to write). Then, he'll show them to me the night before they're due and expect me to help him ... after we've done his regular homework ... usually around 8pm or later. So aggravating!!!! :0)

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  31. I have the Homework Woes with my 8th grader right now. I just don't know how to get her to do her homework timely, and not always wait to do huge projects on the last night!?!?

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  32. I had the homework woes growing up, I hated homework and mom & dad would have to threaten me or punish me to do it. And heaven forbid I'd have some on the weekend because I'd wait until sunday night before I would do it instead of getting it done when I got home. So I guess my parents had the woes and I had the blues! lol

    Reply

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