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Everyone struggles with homework sometimes, but if getting your homework done has become a chronic issue for you, then you may need a little extra help. That’s why we’ve written this article all about how to do homework. Once you’re finished reading it, you’ll know how to do homework (and have tons of new ways to motivate yourself to do homework)!

We’ve broken this article down into a few major sections. You’ll find:

A diagnostic test to help you figure out why you’re struggling with homework
A discussion of the four major homework problems students face, along with expert tips for addressing them
A bonus section with tips for how to do homework fast

By the end of this article, you’ll be prepared to tackle whatever homework assignments your teachers throw at you .

So let’s get started!

How to Do Homework: Figure Out Your Struggles

Sometimes it feels like everything is standing between you and getting your homework done. But the truth is, most people only have one or two major roadblocks that are keeping them from getting their homework done well and on time.

The best way to figure out how to get motivated to do homework starts with pinpointing the issues that are affecting your ability to get your assignments done. That’s why we’ve developed a short quiz to help you identify the areas where you’re struggling.

Take the quiz below and record your answers on your phone or on a scrap piece of paper. Keep in mind there are no wrong answers!

1. You’ve just been assigned an essay in your English class that’s due at the end of the week. What’s the first thing you do?

A. Keep it in mind, even though you won’t start it until the day before it’s due B. Open up your planner. You’ve got to figure out when you’ll write your paper since you have band practice, a speech tournament, and your little sister’s dance recital this week, too. C. Groan out loud. Another essay? You could barely get yourself to write the last one! D. Start thinking about your essay topic, which makes you think about your art project that’s due the same day, which reminds you that your favorite artist might have just posted to Instagram...so you better check your feed right now.

2. Your mom asked you to pick up your room before she gets home from work. You’ve just gotten home from school. You decide you’ll tackle your chores:

A. Five minutes before your mom walks through the front door. As long as it gets done, who cares when you start? B. As soon as you get home from your shift at the local grocery store. C. After you give yourself a 15-minute pep talk about how you need to get to work. D. You won’t get it done. Between texts from your friends, trying to watch your favorite Netflix show, and playing with your dog, you just lost track of time!

3. You’ve signed up to wash dogs at the Humane Society to help earn money for your senior class trip. You:

A. Show up ten minutes late. You put off leaving your house until the last minute, then got stuck in unexpected traffic on the way to the shelter. B. Have to call and cancel at the last minute. You forgot you’d already agreed to babysit your cousin and bake cupcakes for tomorrow’s bake sale. C. Actually arrive fifteen minutes early with extra brushes and bandanas you picked up at the store. You’re passionate about animals, so you’re excited to help out! D. Show up on time, but only get three dogs washed. You couldn’t help it: you just kept getting distracted by how cute they were!

4. You have an hour of downtime, so you decide you’re going to watch an episode of The Great British Baking Show. You:

A. Scroll through your social media feeds for twenty minutes before hitting play, which means you’re not able to finish the whole episode. Ugh! You really wanted to see who was sent home! B. Watch fifteen minutes until you remember you’re supposed to pick up your sister from band practice before heading to your part-time job. No GBBO for you! C. You finish one episode, then decide to watch another even though you’ve got SAT studying to do. It’s just more fun to watch people make scones. D. Start the episode, but only catch bits and pieces of it because you’re reading Twitter, cleaning out your backpack, and eating a snack at the same time.

5. Your teacher asks you to stay after class because you’ve missed turning in two homework assignments in a row. When she asks you what’s wrong, you say:

A. You planned to do your assignments during lunch, but you ran out of time. You decided it would be better to turn in nothing at all than submit unfinished work. B. You really wanted to get the assignments done, but between your extracurriculars, family commitments, and your part-time job, your homework fell through the cracks. C. You have a hard time psyching yourself to tackle the assignments. You just can’t seem to find the motivation to work on them once you get home. D. You tried to do them, but you had a hard time focusing. By the time you realized you hadn’t gotten anything done, it was already time to turn them in.

Like we said earlier, there are no right or wrong answers to this quiz (though your results will be better if you answered as honestly as possible). Here’s how your answers break down:

If your answers were mostly As, then your biggest struggle with doing homework is procrastination.
If your answers were mostly Bs, then your biggest struggle with doing homework is time management.
If your answers were mostly Cs, then your biggest struggle with doing homework is motivation.
If your answers were mostly Ds, then your biggest struggle with doing homework is getting distracted.

Now that you’ve identified why you’re having a hard time getting your homework done, we can help you figure out how to fix it! Scroll down to find your core problem area to learn more about how you can start to address it.

And one more thing: you’re really struggling with homework, it’s a good idea to read through every section below. You may find some additional tips that will help make homework less intimidating.

How to Do Homework When You’re a Procrastinator

Merriam Webster defines “procrastinate” as “to put off intentionally and habitually.” In other words, procrastination is when you choose to do something at the last minute on a regular basis. If you’ve ever found yourself pulling an all-nighter, trying to finish an assignment between periods, or sprinting to turn in a paper minutes before a deadline, you’ve experienced the effects of procrastination.

If you’re a chronic procrastinator, you’re in good company. In fact, one study found that 70% to 95% of undergraduate students procrastinate when it comes to doing their homework. Unfortunately, procrastination can negatively impact your grades. Researchers have found that procrastination can lower your grade on an assignment by as much as five points ...which might not sound serious until you realize that can mean the difference between a B- and a C+.

Procrastination can also negatively affect your health by increasing your stress levels , which can lead to other health conditions like insomnia, a weakened immune system, and even heart conditions. Getting a handle on procrastination can not only improve your grades, it can make you feel better, too!

The big thing to understand about procrastination is that it’s not the result of laziness. Laziness is defined as being “disinclined to activity or exertion.” In other words, being lazy is all about doing nothing. But a s this Psychology Today article explains , procrastinators don’t put things off because they don’t want to work. Instead, procrastinators tend to postpone tasks they don’t want to do in favor of tasks that they perceive as either more important or more fun. Put another way, procrastinators want to do things...as long as it’s not their homework!

3 Tips f or Conquering Procrastination

Because putting off doing homework is a common problem, there are lots of good tactics for addressing procrastination. Keep reading for our three expert tips that will get your homework habits back on track in no time.

#1: Create a Reward System

Like we mentioned earlier, procrastination happens when you prioritize other activities over getting your homework done. Many times, this happens because homework...well, just isn’t enjoyable. But you can add some fun back into the process by rewarding yourself for getting your work done.

Here’s what we mean: let’s say you decide that every time you get your homework done before the day it’s due, you’ll give yourself a point. For every five points you earn, you’ll treat yourself to your favorite dessert: a chocolate cupcake! Now you have an extra (delicious!) incentive to motivate you to leave procrastination in the dust.

If you’re not into cupcakes, don’t worry. Your reward can be anything that motivates you . Maybe it’s hanging out with your best friend or an extra ten minutes of video game time. As long as you’re choosing something that makes homework worth doing, you’ll be successful.

#2: Have a Homework Accountability Partner

If you’re having trouble getting yourself to start your homework ahead of time, it may be a good idea to call in reinforcements . Find a friend or classmate you can trust and explain to them that you’re trying to change your homework habits. Ask them if they’d be willing to text you to make sure you’re doing your homework and check in with you once a week to see if you’re meeting your anti-procrastination goals.

Sharing your goals can make them feel more real, and an accountability partner can help hold you responsible for your decisions. For example, let’s say you’re tempted to put off your science lab write-up until the morning before it’s due. But you know that your accountability partner is going to text you about it tomorrow...and you don’t want to fess up that you haven’t started your assignment. A homework accountability partner can give you the extra support and incentive you need to keep your homework habits on track.

#3: Create Your Own Due Dates

If you’re a life-long procrastinator, you might find that changing the habit is harder than you expected. In that case, you might try using procrastination to your advantage! If you just can’t seem to stop doing your work at the last minute, try setting your own due dates for assignments that range from a day to a week before the assignment is actually due.

Here’s what we mean. Let’s say you have a math worksheet that’s been assigned on Tuesday and is due on Friday. In your planner, you can write down the due date as Thursday instead. You may still put off your homework assignment until the last minute...but in this case, the “last minute” is a day before the assignment’s real due date . This little hack can trick your procrastination-addicted brain into planning ahead!

If you feel like Kevin Hart in this meme, then our tips for doing homework when you're busy are for you.

How to Do Homework When You’re too Busy

If you’re aiming to go to a top-tier college , you’re going to have a full plate. Because college admissions is getting more competitive, it’s important that you’re maintaining your grades , studying hard for your standardized tests , and participating in extracurriculars so your application stands out. A packed schedule can get even more hectic once you add family obligations or a part-time job to the mix.

If you feel like you’re being pulled in a million directions at once, you’re not alone. Recent research has found that stress—and more severe stress-related conditions like anxiety and depression— are a major problem for high school students . In fact, one study from the American Psychological Association found that during the school year, students’ stress levels are higher than those of the adults around them.

For students, homework is a major contributor to their overall stress levels . Many high schoolers have multiple hours of homework every night , and figuring out how to fit it into an already-packed schedule can seem impossible.

3 Tips for Fitting Homework Into Your Busy Schedule

While it might feel like you have literally no time left in your schedule, there are still ways to make sure you’re able to get your homework done and meet your other commitments. Here are our expert homework tips for even the busiest of students.

#1: Make a Prioritized To-Do List

You probably already have a to-do list to keep yourself on track. The next step is to prioritize the items on your to-do list so you can see what items need your attention right away.

Here’s how it works: at the beginning of each day, sit down and make a list of all the items you need to get done before you go to bed. This includes your homework, but it should also take into account any practices, chores, events, or job shifts you may have. Once you get everything listed out, it’s time to prioritize them using the labels A, B, and C. Here’s what those labels mean:

A Tasks : tasks that have to get done—like showing up at work or turning in an assignment—get an A.
B Tasks : these are tasks that you would like to get done by the end of the day but aren’t as time sensitive. For example, studying for a test you have next week could be a B-level task. It’s still important, but it doesn’t have to be done right away.
C Tasks: these are tasks that aren’t very important and/or have no real consequences if you don’t get them done immediately. For instance, if you’re hoping to clean out your closet but it’s not an assigned chore from your parents, you could label that to-do item with a C.

Prioritizing your to-do list helps you visualize which items need your immediate attention, and which items you can leave for later. A prioritized to-do list ensures that you’re spending your time efficiently and effectively, which helps you make room in your schedule for homework. So even though you might really want to start making decorations for Homecoming (a B task), you’ll know that finishing your reading log (an A task) is more important.

#2: Use a Planner With Time Labels

Your planner is probably packed with notes, events, and assignments already. (And if you’re not using a planner, it’s time to start!) But planners can do more for you than just remind you when an assignment is due. If you’re using a planner with time labels, it can help you visualize how you need to spend your day.

A planner with time labels breaks your day down into chunks, and you assign tasks to each chunk of time. For example, you can make a note of your class schedule with assignments, block out time to study, and make sure you know when you need to be at practice. Once you know which tasks take priority, you can add them to any empty spaces in your day.

Planning out how you spend your time not only helps you use it wisely, it can help you feel less overwhelmed, too . We’re big fans of planners that include a task list ( like this one ) or have room for notes ( like this one ).

#3: Set Reminders on Your Phone

If you need a little extra nudge to make sure you’re getting your homework done on time, it’s a good idea to set some reminders on your phone. You don’t need a fancy app, either. You can use your alarm app to have it go off at specific times throughout the day to remind you to do your homework. This works especially well if you have a set homework time scheduled. So if you’ve decided you’re doing homework at 6:00 pm, you can set an alarm to remind you to bust out your books and get to work.

If you use your phone as your planner, you may have the option to add alerts, emails, or notifications to scheduled events . Many calendar apps, including the one that comes with your phone, have built-in reminders that you can customize to meet your needs. So if you block off time to do your homework from 4:30 to 6:00 pm, you can set a reminder that will pop up on your phone when it’s time to get started.

This dog isn't judging your lack of motivation...but your teacher might. Keep reading for tips to help you motivate yourself to do your homework.

How to Do Homework When You’re Unmotivated

At first glance, it may seem like procrastination and being unmotivated are the same thing. After all, both of these issues usually result in you putting off your homework until the very last minute.

But there’s one key difference: many procrastinators are working, they’re just prioritizing work differently. They know they’re going to start their homework...they’re just going to do it later.

Conversely, people who are unmotivated to do homework just can’t find the willpower to tackle their assignments. Procrastinators know they’ll at least attempt the homework at the last minute, whereas people who are unmotivated struggle with convincing themselves to do it at a ll. For procrastinators, the stress comes from the inevitable time crunch. For unmotivated people, the stress comes from trying to convince themselves to do something they don’t want to do in the first place.

Here are some common reasons students are unmotivated in doing homework :

Assignments are too easy, too hard, or seemingly pointless
Students aren’t interested in (or passionate about) the subject matter
Students are intimidated by the work and/or feels like they don’t understand the assignment
Homework isn’t fun, and students would rather spend their time on things that they enjoy

To sum it up: people who lack motivation to do their homework are more likely to not do it at all, or to spend more time worrying about doing their homework than...well, actually doing it.

3 Tips for How to Get Motivated to Do Homework

The key to getting homework done when you’re unmotivated is to figure out what does motivate you, then apply those things to homework. It sounds tricky...but it’s pretty simple once you get the hang of it! Here are our three expert tips for motivating yourself to do your homework.

#1: Use Incremental Incentives

When you’re not motivated, it’s important to give yourself small rewards to stay focused on finishing the task at hand. The trick is to keep the incentives small and to reward yourself often. For example, maybe you’re reading a good book in your free time. For every ten minutes you spend on your homework, you get to read five pages of your book. Like we mentioned earlier, make sure you’re choosing a reward that works for you!

So why does this technique work? Using small rewards more often allows you to experience small wins for getting your work done. Every time you make it to one of your tiny reward points, you get to celebrate your success, which gives your brain a boost of dopamine . Dopamine helps you stay motivated and also creates a feeling of satisfaction when you complete your homework !

#2: Form a Homework Group

If you’re having trouble motivating yourself, it’s okay to turn to others for support. Creating a homework group can help with this. Bring together a group of your friends or classmates, and pick one time a week where you meet and work on homework together. You don’t have to be in the same class, or even taking the same subjects— the goal is to encourage one another to start (and finish!) your assignments.

Another added benefit of a homework group is that you can help one another if you’re struggling to understand the material covered in your classes. This is especially helpful if your lack of motivation comes from being intimidated by your assignments. Asking your friends for help may feel less scary than talking to your teacher...and once you get a handle on the material, your homework may become less frightening, too.

#3: Change Up Your Environment

If you find that you’re totally unmotivated, it may help if you find a new place to do your homework. For example, if you’ve been struggling to get your homework done at home, try spending an extra hour in the library after school instead. The change of scenery can limit your distractions and give you the energy you need to get your work done.

If you’re stuck doing homework at home, you can still use this tip. For instance, maybe you’ve always done your homework sitting on your bed. Try relocating somewhere else, like your kitchen table, for a few weeks. You may find that setting up a new “homework spot” in your house gives you a motivational lift and helps you get your work done.

Social media can be a huge problem when it comes to doing homework. We have advice for helping you unplug and regain focus.

How to Do Homework When You’re Easily Distracted

We live in an always-on world, and there are tons of things clamoring for our attention. From friends and family to pop culture and social media, it seems like there’s always something (or someone!) distracting us from the things we need to do.

The 24/7 world we live in has affected our ability to focus on tasks for prolonged periods of time. Research has shown that over the past decade, an average person’s attention span has gone from 12 seconds to eight seconds . And when we do lose focus, i t takes people a long time to get back on task . One study found that it can take as long as 23 minutes to get back to work once we’ve been distracte d. No wonder it can take hours to get your homework done!

3 Tips to Improve Your Focus

If you have a hard time focusing when you’re doing your homework, it’s a good idea to try and eliminate as many distractions as possible. Here are three expert tips for blocking out the noise so you can focus on getting your homework done.

#1: Create a Distraction-Free Environment

Pick a place where you’ll do your homework every day, and make it as distraction-free as possible. Try to find a location where there won’t be tons of noise, and limit your access to screens while you’re doing your homework. Put together a focus-oriented playlist (or choose one on your favorite streaming service), and put your headphones on while you work.

You may find that other people, like your friends and family, are your biggest distraction. If that’s the case, try setting up some homework boundaries. Let them know when you’ll be working on homework every day, and ask them if they’ll help you keep a quiet environment. They’ll be happy to lend a hand!

#2: Limit Your Access to Technology

We know, we know...this tip isn’t fun, but it does work. For homework that doesn’t require a computer, like handouts or worksheets, it’s best to put all your technology away . Turn off your television, put your phone and laptop in your backpack, and silence notifications on any wearable tech you may be sporting. If you listen to music while you work, that’s fine...but make sure you have a playlist set up so you’re not shuffling through songs once you get started on your homework.

If your homework requires your laptop or tablet, it can be harder to limit your access to distractions. But it’s not impossible! T here are apps you can download that will block certain websites while you’re working so that you’re not tempted to scroll through Twitter or check your Facebook feed. Silence notifications and text messages on your computer, and don’t open your email account unless you absolutely have to. And if you don’t need access to the internet to complete your assignments, turn off your WiFi. Cutting out the online chatter is a great way to make sure you’re getting your homework done.

#3: Set a Timer (the Pomodoro Technique)

Have you ever heard of the Pomodoro technique ? It’s a productivity hack that uses a timer to help you focus!

Here’s how it works: first, set a timer for 25 minutes. This is going to be your work time. During this 25 minutes, all you can do is work on whatever homework assignment you have in front of you. No email, no text messaging, no phone calls—just homework. When that timer goes off, you get to take a 5 minute break. Every time you go through one of these cycles, it’s called a “pomodoro.” For every four pomodoros you complete, you can take a longer break of 15 to 30 minutes.

The pomodoro technique works through a combination of boundary setting and rewards. First, it gives you a finite amount of time to focus, so you know that you only have to work really hard for 25 minutes. Once you’ve done that, you’re rewarded with a short break where you can do whatever you want. Additionally, tracking how many pomodoros you complete can help you see how long you’re really working on your homework. (Once you start using our focus tips, you may find it doesn’t take as long as you thought!)

Two Bonus Tips for How to Do Homework Fast

Even if you’re doing everything right, there will be times when you just need to get your homework done as fast as possible. (Why do teachers always have projects due in the same week? The world may never know.)

The problem with speeding through homework is that it’s easy to make mistakes. While turning in an assignment is always better than not submitting anything at all, you want to make sure that you’re not compromising quality for speed. Simply put, the goal is to get your homework done quickly and still make a good grade on the assignment!

Here are our two bonus tips for getting a decent grade on your homework assignments , even when you’re in a time crunch.

#1: Do the Easy Parts First

This is especially true if you’re working on a handout with multiple questions. Before you start working on the assignment, read through all the questions and problems. As you do, make a mark beside the questions you think are “easy” to answer .

Once you’ve finished going through the whole assignment, you can answer these questions first. Getting the easy questions out of the way as quickly as possible lets you spend more time on the trickier portions of your homework, which will maximize your assignment grade.

(Quick note: this is also a good strategy to use on timed assignments and tests, like the SAT and the ACT !)

#2: Pay Attention in Class

Homework gets a lot easier when you’re actively learning the material. Teachers aren’t giving you homework because they’re mean or trying to ruin your weekend... it’s because they want you to really understand the course material. Homework is designed to reinforce what you’re already learning in class so you’ll be ready to tackle harder concepts later.

When you pay attention in class, ask questions, and take good notes, you’re absorbing the information you’ll need to succeed on your homework assignments. (You’re stuck in class anyway, so you might as well make the most of it!) Not only will paying attention in class make your homework less confusing, it will also help it go much faster, too.

What’s Next?

If you’re looking to improve your productivity beyond homework, a good place to begin is with time management. After all, we only have so much time in a day...so it’s important to get the most out of it! To get you started, check out this list of the 12 best time management techniques that you can start using today.

You may have read this article because homework struggles have been affecting your GPA. Now that you’re on the path to homework success, it’s time to start being proactive about raising your grades. This article teaches you everything you need to know about raising your GPA so you can

Now you know how to get motivated to do homework...but what about your study habits? Studying is just as critical to getting good grades, and ultimately getting into a good college . We can teach you how to study bette r in high school. (We’ve also got tons of resources to help you study for your ACT and SAT exams , too!)

These recommendations are based solely on our knowledge and experience. If you purchase an item through one of our links, PrepScholar may receive a commission.

Ashley Sufflé Robinson has a Ph.D. in 19th Century English Literature. As a content writer for PrepScholar, Ashley is passionate about giving college-bound students the in-depth information they need to get into the school of their dreams.

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Khan Academy Blog

Making Homework Easier: Tips and Tools for Parents

posted on September 20, 2023

By Stephanie Yamkovenko , group manager of Khan Academy’s Digital Marketing Team.

Homework can present challenges for parents and children alike. You naturally want to provide support for your child’s learning journey and ensure they are reaching their full potential. In this blog post, we will delve into practical strategies to assist your child with their homework. From fostering understanding and offering encouragement to breaking down tasks and implementing rewards, we will explore a variety of effective approaches to help your child achieve academic success.

Step 1: Set Up Your Child for Success

Your child’s study environment can have a significant impact on their homework performance. Create a space that is free from distractions like the television, smartphones, or noisy siblings. The study space should be comfortable, well lit, and have all the necessary materials your child might need, such as pens, papers, and textbooks. If your child’s workspace is noisy or uncomfortable, they may have difficulty focusing on their homework, resulting in lower productivity.

For example, if you live in a small apartment, consider setting up a designated corner with a small desk or table where your child can focus on their work. You can use dividers or screens to create a sense of privacy and minimize distractions.

If the only place to do homework is in the dining room or kitchen, try to establish a routine where the area is cleared and organized before study time. This can help signal to your child that it’s time to concentrate and be productive.

Remember, it’s important to adapt to your specific circumstances and make the best of the available space. The key is to create a dedicated study area that promotes focus and minimizes interruptions regardless of the size or location of your home.

Try Confidence Boosters for Your Child Here!

Step 2: make it fun.

It’s important to make homework fun and engaging for your child. Here are some examples of how you can do it:

Use games : Incorporate educational games like card games, board games, or puzzles that align with the subject your child is learning. For instance, use Scrabble to practice spelling or Sudoku to enhance problem-solving skills.
Turn it into a challenge : Create a friendly competition between siblings or friends by setting goals or time limits for completing assignments. Offer small rewards or incentives for accomplishing tasks.
Make it interactive : Use hands-on activities or experiments to reinforce concepts learned in class. For science or math, conduct simple experiments at home or use manipulatives like blocks or counters to visualize abstract concepts.
Use technology : Explore online educational platforms or apps that offer interactive learning experiences. There are various educational games, virtual simulations, and videos available that can make homework more enjoyable.
Incorporate creativity : Encourage your child to express their understanding through art, storytelling, or multimedia presentations. For example, they can create a comic strip to summarize a story or make a short video to explain a concept.

Remember, by making homework enjoyable, you can help your child develop a positive attitude towards learning.

Step 3: Use Rewards

Rewards can be a powerful motivational tool for children. Offering positive reinforcement can encourage them to complete their homework on time and to the best of their ability.

Here are some examples of rewards our team has used with their children:

Extra screen time: “I use Apple parental controls to add screen time on their iPad.”
Access to a favorite toy: “My eight year old has a drum kit, which drives us all up the wall. (Thanks, Grandma!) But when they’ve been doing a lot of school work, we put on headphones and let him go nuts.”
Praise for a job well done: “Specific, measurable praise is what works best.”
Trip to the park: “A trip to the park is good for everyone, especially for the kids to run around with the doggos.”
Movie night: “I know every word and song lyric in Moana ; we now reserve showings for good behavior.”
Stickers or stamps: “Gold stars were such a thing growing up in the 80s; turns out they still work.”
Stay up a little later: “An extra 30 minutes feels like a whole day for my young ones; use this reward with caution as it can become the expectation!”

So, celebrate your child’s efforts and encourage them to continue doing their best.

Step 4: Break Down Difficult Tasks

When facing daunting homework assignments, follow these step-by-step instructions to break down the tasks into smaller, manageable chunks:

Understand the requirements and scope of the task.
Break down the assignment into individual tasks or sub-tasks.
Splitting the middle term
Using formula
Using Quadratic formula
Using algebraic identities
Determine the order in which tasks should be completed based on importance or difficulty.
Start with the easiest task. Begin with the task that seems the least challenging or time-consuming.
Progress to more challenging tasks: Once the easier tasks are completed, move on to more difficult ones.
Take breaks: Schedule short breaks between tasks to avoid burnout and maintain focus.
Check completed tasks for accuracy and make any necessary revisions.
Finish the remaining task(s) with the same approach.
Celebrate small achievements to boost confidence and keep motivation high.

By following these steps, you can make daunting homework assignments more manageable and less overwhelming for your child.

Step 5: Get Targeted Help

If your child is struggling with homework, it might be worth considering seeking personalized assistance. You have the option to search for professional tutors or explore online tutoring platforms, such as Khan Academy’s AI tutor, Khanmigo .

This AI tutor can offer personalized guidance and support tailored to your child’s specific needs, helping them grasp complex concepts and practice essential skills. Incorporating this approach can effectively complement your child’s learning and enhance their homework performance.

Enhance your child’s learning and boost homework performance!

Homework can be a challenge for both parents and children. But with the right approach, you can help your child overcome difficulties and support their learning. Encourage and understand your child, create a comfortable environment, break down difficult tasks, use rewards, get professional help when needed, and make it fun. With these tips and techniques, you can help your child achieve success, develop a love for learning, and achieve academic excellence. Remember that each child learns differently, so it’s essential to adjust your approach to meet their unique needs.

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Ten Homework Motivation Strategies for Children and Teens

Use these 10 strategies to end the homework wars..

Posted September 6, 2015 | Reviewed by Ekua Hagan

When it comes to homework, parents get burnt out hearing these hollow and suspicious words: "I did it at school," "They didn't give homework today," "It hardly counts for my grade," "My teacher never looks at my homework anyway," "That assignment was optional." As parents, hearing these words is enough to drive you crazy.

As I write in my book, 10 Days to a Less Defiant Child , parents must not let their emotions get the best of them when their kids are not getting homework done. The strategies below are for helping your child or teen get unstuck:

Nix the nagging! Pestering creates an adversarial, shaming dynamic that backfires. Instead, try my Calm, Firm, and Non-Controlling approach. Gently empower your child or teen by supportively saying, "I see that you are frustrated. Let's think of ways to help you get back on track with your homework/schoolwork."
Encourage effort over perfection. Be mindful that kids tend to get intimidated when they have a hard time understanding material. They may get into negative self-talk like, "I can't do this." Even if they're truly thinking this way, parents may instead hear comments like, "I hate this." or "This is stupid." Remind your child or teen that doing his best effort is better than not doing it at all.
Prioritize. Coach and encourage that the order that homework is done based on urgency, complexity, and workload. At the same time, realize that some students do better by starting with easier tasks and that this can help spark them to tackle more demanding assignments.
Break it down. Reinforce breaking up homework time into manageable chunks and encourage taking regular breaks. Encourage moving around and walking away for a bit. Remind that an apple really does provide the same effect, and is healthier than an energy drink.
Think "15 minutes of pain." Have the student set a timer for only 15 minutes. Keep it lighthearted and explain that even if it "hurts" doing the work, she can stop after 15 minutes. Like most things in life, once we push ourselves and get going, it's not so bad.
Don't be consequence ravenous. Imposing consequences for homework not being done can backfire with defiant behavior. If you use consequences, don't present them with yelling. Keep them reasonable and ask the student to help you be able to move towards rewards (don't go overboard) and minimize consequences. Remember that real, natural consequences are the best motivators.
Encourage connection. Encourage the student to make or re-establish a connection with his teacher. I have seen hundreds of kids "shoot themselves in the foot" with incomplete homework if they don't have a decent relationship with their teacher.
Change up the homework/study surroundings. Try putting an inspirational poster by the desk, moving to a different room, or silencing the cell phone. New changes can create more changes.
Use those study halls. Encourage the use of them as much as possible. Some kids lose sight of that more done at school, means less to do at home.
Allow for some fun. Notice if your student is racing through the homework just to have fun. Fun time like, TV, phone time, or surfing the web, is welcome, but make sure you put limits on it.

Jeffrey Bernstein, Ph.D. , is a psychologist and the author of seven books, including 10 Days to a Less Defiant Child.

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How to Create Effective Homework

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Based on a recent spate of articles on homework, it’s clear that the homework wars -- how much? how often? -- are still topic of big interest to both parents and teachers. Some teachers hate to give homework; others see it as a vital necessity. But according to some research presented by Annie Murphy Paul, the question isn’t how much, but whether the homework teachers do give actually advances learning.

“A recent study, published in the Economics of Education Review,” Paul wrote in “How Can We Make Homework Worthwhile?” , “reports that homework in science, English and history has ‘little to no impact’ on student test scores. (The authors did note a positive effect for math homework.) Enriching children’s classroom learning requires making homework not shorter or longer, but smarter.” Paul goes on to describe specific practices, like spaced repetition (in which information is presented and repeated spaced out over time), retrieval practice (testing or quizzing not for assessment, but to reinforce material learned), and cognitive disfluency (“desirable difficulties” used to make learning stick) -- all memory/retrieval techniques that may help homework move beyond busy work and advance real learning.

But to get those elements to work, said Fires in the Mind author and speaker Kathleen Cushman, students must be motivated to do their homework in the first place. One example Cushman gave was creating a project so interesting and involved, students naturally wanted to keep working on it after the bell rang. She pointed to a chapter in the book where she describes a particular motivation for some high school students she interviewed, under the heading “Homework We Actually Want to Do”:

“Christina and Nicholas both remembered a global studies unit on the French Revolution in which students acted out a courtroom trial of the king and queen. The project brought even routine homework assignments to life, they said.

“I was the queen. So of course I wanted to do my homework all the time, so I could know the facts of what happened and what didn’t happen, know what I wanted to say when someone tried to say I did this or that thing. I could say, ‘Oh no, I didn’t!’ - because I’d read my homework,” said Christina.

Christina was using a form of retrieval practice -- but because it was so much fun to be the queen, she only knew she wanted to stay in character. The queen had to study the information to get it right.

Another way teachers can take a good, hard look at homework practices, said Cushman, is to ask themselves a few vital questions: “Does this homework ask each student to practice something that the student hasn’t yet mastered? Does the student clearly see its purpose? When students are asked to repeat or rehearse something, does it require them to focus? Or can they do it without really paying attention?” If the homework meets these criteria, she said, then it falls into the desirable realm of “deliberate practice .”

Dan Bisaccio, former high school science teacher and now Director of Science Education at Brown University, said that after years of experience giving homework to high school students, he now “preaches” to his future teachers: “Homework should be practice and extensions of what happens in class and should not be ‘new learning,’” he said. “That is, students [shouldn’t be] having to teach themselves new content or skills.”

He said he agreed with Cushman that motivation is key, and tried to design homework that kept students interested. “Teachers need to clue into what motivates their students, giving them something that they really want to complete, and complete well.” One assignment Bisaccio used, called an “Experience Map,” asked students to create a map of their experiences after a field study or other important project - a technique employing both retrieval practice and the somewhat trickier interleaving, a “desirable difficulty” in which problems of different types are presented in one assignment, making students think harder to come up with solutions and answers.

“We ‘map’ mentally and physically each day. It helps to keep us orientated through our frenzied sun-up to sun-down daily experiences,” reads the assignment. Directions are to draw a field experience map, including -- with regard to the class -- where students have been, what they have done, new challenges, and insights. Special suggestions for drawing include “a place of danger, a favorite place, a place of power, a place with a secret.” Students are also called upon to map the places where they learned the most, where they were challenged the most, and where the funniest experience happened.

In addition, Bisaccio asked students to write what had challenged them most as a learner, what had stretched their limits most -- meant to be reflections just for students themselves, and asked to be kept on the back of the map. “What they wrote on the back was not shared with others,” he said. Once the assignment was completed, maps were posted to form a class atlas of what they had learned.

All the examples included here, however, are examples of homework in a traditional classroom. What about homework in a flipped classroom , where the lectures, usually videos, are the homework? A recent New York Times article on flipped classrooms may provide insight into flipping homework on its head, too: it quoted high school senior Luwayne Harris, saying, “Whenever I had a problem on the homework, I couldn’t do anything about it at home. Now if I have a problem with a video, I can just rewind and watch it over and over again.”

Articles / Homework

Smart Homework: 13 Ways to Make It Meaningful

by MiddleWeb · Published 08/04/2014 · Updated 11/17/2019

In the first installment of Rick Wormeli’s homework advice, he made the case for take-home assignments that matter for learning and engage student interest . In Part 2, Rick offers some guiding principles that can help teachers create homework challenges that motivate kids and spark deeper learning in and out of school.

These articles are adapted and updated from Rick’s seminal book about teaching in the middle grades, Day One & Beyond: Practical Matters for New Middle Level Teachers . Rick continues to offer great advice about homework, differentiation, assessment and many other topics in workshops and presentations across North America. Check back in Part 1 for some additional homework resources.

I’ve been accumulating guiding principles for creating highly motivating homework assignments for many years — from my own teaching and from the distilled wisdom of others. Here are a baker’s dozen. Choose the ones most appropriate for students’ learning goals and your curriculum.

1. Give students a clear picture of the final product. This doesn’t mean everything is structured for them, or that there aren’t multiple pathways to the same high quality result. There’s room for student personalities to be expressed. Students clearly know what is expected, however. A clear picture sets purpose for doing the assignment. Priming the brain to focus on particular aspects of the learning experience helps the brain process the information for long-term retention. Setting purpose for homework assignments has an impact on learning and the assignment’s completion rate, as research by Marzano and others confirms.

2. Incorporate a cause into the assignment. Middle level students are motivated when they feel they are righting a wrong. They are very sensitive to justice and injustice. As a group, they are also very nurturing of those less fortunate than them. Find a community or personal cause for which students can fight fairly and incorporate your content and skills in that good fight— students will be all over the assignment.

4. Incorporate people whom students admire in their assignments. Students are motivated when asked to share what they know and feel about these folks. We are a society of heroes, and young adolescents are interested in talking about and becoming heroic figures.

5. Allow choices, as appropriate. Allow students to do the even-numbered or odd-numbered problems, or allow them to choose from three prompts, not just one. Let them choose the word that best describes the political or scientific process. Let them identify their own diet and its effects on young adolescent bodies. Let them choose to work with partners or individually. How about allowing them to choose from several multiple-intelligence based tasks? If they are working in ways that are comfortable, they are more likely to do the work. By making the choice, they have upped their ownership of the task.

6. Incorporate cultural products into the assignment. If students have to use magazines, television shows, foods, sports equipment, and other products they already use, they are likely to do the work. The brain loves to do tasks in contexts with which it is familiar.

7. Allow students to collaborate in determining how homework will be assessed. If they help design the criteria for success, such as when they create the rubric for an assignment, they “own” the assignment. It comes off as something done by them, not to them. They also internalize the expectations—another way for them to have clear targets.

With some assignments we can post well-done versions from previous years (or ones we’ve created for this purpose) and ask students to analyze the essential characteristics that make these assignments exemplary. Students who analyze such assignments will compare those works with their own and internalize the criteria for success, referencing the criteria while doing the assignment, not just when it’s finished.

9. Spruce up your prompts. Don’t ask students to repeatedly answer questions or summarize. Try some of these openers instead: Decide between, argue against, Why did ______ argue for, compare, contrast, plan, classify, retell ______ from the point of view of ______, Organize, build, interview, predict, categorize, simplify, deduce, formulate, blend, suppose, invent, imagine, devise, compose, combine, rank, recommend, defend, choose.

10. Have everyone turn in a paper. In her classic, Homework: A New Direction (1992), Neila Connors reminded teachers to have all students turn in a paper, regardless of whether they did the assignment. If a student doesn’t have his homework, he writes on the paper the name of the assignment and why he didn’t do it.

11. Do not give homework passes. I used to do this; then I realized how much it minimized the importance of homework. It’s like saying, “Oh, well, the homework really wasn’t that important to your learning. You’ll learn just as well without it.” Homework should be so productive for students that missing it is like missing the lesson itself.

12. Integrate homework with other subjects. One assignment can count in two classes. Such assignments are usually complex enough to warrant the dual grade and it’s a way to work smarter, not harder, for both students and teachers. Teachers can split the pile of papers to grade, then share the grades with each other, and students don’t have homework piling up in multiple classes.

There are times when every teacher on the team assigns a half-hour assignment, and so do the elective or encore class teachers. This could mean three to four hours of homework for the student, which is inappropriate for young adolescents.

13. Occasionally, let students identify what homework would be most effective. Sometimes the really creative assignments are the ones that students design themselves. After teaching a lesson, ask your students what it would take to practice the material so well it became clearly understood. Many of the choices will be rigorous and very appropriate.

This is one reason I always recommend that, as a basic premise, we avoid Monday morning quizzes and weekend or holiday homework assignments. Sure, there will be exceptions when long-term projects come due. But if we are really about teaching so that students learn and not about appearing rigorous and assigning tasks to show that we have taught, then we’ll carefully consider all the effects of our homework expectations. Our students will be more productive at school for having healthier lives at home.

▶ More resources from Rick Wormeli:

Although Rick never mentions the word homework in this article about helping adolescent students improve their “executive function,” you will immediately see the connections! At the AMLE website .

NEXT: In our final excerpt from Day One & Beyond, Rick Wormeli shares his approach to homework assessment – with an clear emphasis on maintaining teacher sanity.

His books include Meet Me in the Middle ; Day One and Beyond ; Fair Isn’t Always Equal: Assessment and Grading in the Differentiated Classroom ; Differentiation: From Planning to Practice; Metaphors & Analogies: Power Tools for Teaching Any Subject, and Summarization in Any Subject , plus The Collected Writings (So Far) of Rick Wormeli: Crazy Good Stuff I Learned about Teaching Along the Way .

He is currently working on his first young adult fiction novel and a new book on homework practices in the 21 st century.

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This is a really great article. It has helped me tremendously in making new and better decisions about homework.

Fabulous sage advice! Although I love every single suggestion you’ve included, I am particularly fond of the elimination of the “homework pass”. As a former middle-level teacher and administrator, I too found the homework pass diminished the importance of follow-up work – a necessary component in determining the level of student understanding.

I do give 2 passes, but they just extend due date by a day. And if not used, they may be returned at the end of the 9 weeks for extra credit.

Rick Wormeli’s ideas and tips in this article continue to be stimulating and useful. That said, it’s been more than a decade since the first edition of his book on grading, homework and assessment, Fair Isn’t Always Equal appeared.

In the intervening years, Rick’s thinking about homework has benefited from his work with teachers and in schools and plenty of debate. In April 2018, he published a new 2nd edition of Fair Isn’t Always Equal that includes an even deeper discussion of homework and its relationship to best practice, differentiation, and the moral obligation of educators to insist on effective homework policies.

Visitors to the Stenhouse page for the new book can preview the *entire* text for free, so be sure to check that out.

Here’s a brief excerpt from the new book:

Tenet: Homework should enable students to practice what they have already learned in class and should not present new content for the first time. Principled Responses:

• I will not assign homework to students who do not understand the content. • I will give homework to some students and no homework or different assignments to others, depending on their proficiency. • I will use exit slips and formative assessment during class so I can determine proper after-school practice for each student. • I will not give homework because parents and administrators expect me to do so, or assign homework because it’s a particular day of the week. • I will assign homework only if it furthers students’ proficiency in the field we’re studying.

Thanks to Rick for giving us permission to share this!

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Tell us your homework tips

How does your kid get through it?

By The New York Times

The school year is underway, and homework sheets, tests and papers are piling up. As we all adjust to a more normal school year, we’d love to hear your best homework tips.

What are some of your family’s strategies for focusing? How do you deal with homework screen time? What are ways that you help your child get through a tough problem — do you let them figure it out or sit down and do it together? Is there a way to make homework fun?

Tell us one specific trick that works for your family. We may feature your response in the Education Briefing newsletter in the upcoming weeks. Thanks!

Share your homework tips

How to help a child with their homework

Reviewed by: Professor Mark Dadds and Dr Lucy Tully

Key points :

Make a homework action plan with your child before the school year begins.
There are 10 simple steps you can follow to help your child conquer their homework each day.
Think of yourself as your child’s ‘homework project manager’. It’s not your job to do their homework for them, but you can help them get it done.

Helping your child with their homework can feel like stepping into the ring. But it doesn’t have to become a daily battle. Here are some steps you can follow to make homework a more positive (or at least more bearable) experience for you and your elementary schooler.

Before the battle: make a homework action plan

Don’t wait until your child brings home their first homework assignment. Make a plan before the school year begins, so you can set them up for success.

Reach out to your child’s teacher . Ask what their homework expectations are: how much there will be, when it should be turned in, and so on.
Set expectations with your child . Speak with your child about their teacher’s expectations – as well as yours – for getting homework done. If they know what’s coming, chances are there will be fewer homework battles along the way.
Choose a designated homework space . Pick a spot together. It could be a common area like the dining room or the kitchen table. Make sure it’s a well-lit space, free from clutter or distractions. Keep plenty of school supplies on hand too.
Set a designated homework time . Pick a time that works best for your child. It could be: - Shortly after they get home from school (give them 20-30 minutes first to catch their breath and get a snack – no screens before homework, though) - After dinner (but don’t make it too late in the evening) - In the morning before school (as long as you’re not too rushed)

Brother and sister getting help with their homework

Staying on task: 10 tips for homework success

Once you’ve laid a foundation for the year, follow these steps to help your child conquer their homework each day.

Focus on what matters. Homework should be ‘an opportunity to learn rather than perform’, according to education expert Melissa Barnes . Remember: the measure of success is not how many answers your child gets right. The skills they hone are more important than the grade they get.
Sit with them. This is especially important for younger students. They need you close by to help stay on task, and so they can ask for help when they need it. But your presence matters for another reason , according to Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education: it ‘sends the message that homework is important business, not to be taken lightly’. If you can’t sit with them the whole time, try to be in the same room. Ask your child to share what they’re learning about as they complete each task or assignment.
Offer plenty of praise and positive reinforcement. Be specific and enthusiastic. Watch for signs of improvement over time and point them out – for example, as they get better at writing sentences or as their handwriting gets neater.
Do as you say. Your child might be assigned a certain amount of reading each night. Make sure they catch you reading too. Better yet, make it a family activity and read together. If your child questions the point of learning maths (we’ve all been there), let them see you managing the family budget or using maths in your everyday life – whether it’s while shopping, cooking, or doing a home improvement project.
Give your child some control. If they have more than one assignment to complete, let them choose what they work on first. If they have some control over the tasks in front of them, they’ll be more motivated to complete them.
Make a daily homework plan. First, have your child make a list of what’s to be done. They can check off each item as they go – the sense of accomplishment will give their confidence a welcome boost. Next, make sure they understand each assignment before diving in. If necessary, break larger assignments into smaller, more manageable tasks.
Use a timer. Ask your child to guess how much time each assignment will take, then set a timer and see if they can finish before it goes off. If they are struggling to focus (this is common for younger kids especially), have them work in shorter batches – a few minutes at a time, to start. They gradually increase the amount of time they spend working. Make sure your child understands, however, that getting homework done quickly is not the main goal. If they sacrifice quality for speed, they’ll need to do the assignment again.
Change things up. If your child gets frustrated or distracted, a chance of scenery may help them refocus. You could have them move to a different room, preferably one with few distractions. Or let them take a short, 5-minute break to cool down, ideally before they get too overwhelmed.
Keep a positive vibe. Homework sessions can quickly turn into a battle of wills. Try to maintain a positive attitude. Reprimanding your child for getting frustrated is a sure-fire motivation killer. Instead, when the frustration starts to build, give yourself and your child a break to cool down. You can also schedule fun activities after homework as a motivator, too. For example, once your child finishes their math assignment, let them play outside for a bit.
Know when to call it a night. If your child is at the end of their rope, don’t force it. Call it a night. You can always pick things up in the morning after they’re rested. Also, keep track of how much time your child spends on homework. If it’s getting to be too much, reach out to their teacher (nicely).

Young boy doing homework at home on the family table

What to do (and not do) when your child needs help

How much actual help should you give your child with their homework?

It can be helpful to think of your role as ‘homework project manager’. Specifically, your job is to:

Keep your child on task.
Help them get and stay organized.
Offer plenty of encouragement and praise to motivate them.

It’s not your responsibility to teach (or reteach) the material

In fact, it may do more harm than good. If your child is struggling with multiplication, for example, you might be tempted to show them how you learned in school. But if they’re learning a different method, this can cause more confusion.

If your child is struggling to master a concept or a lesson, message their teacher and ask if they can go over it again.

Give your child the right kind of help

Remember, helping them get their homework done is not the same as helping them do their homework.

When they get stuck, resist the urge to jump in and solve it for them. Use it as an opportunity to hone their problem-solving skills. Instead of giving the answer right away, ask questions to help reframe the problem or find another way of solving it.

Remember, there can be ‘too much of a good thing’ when it comes to parental involvement in homework. Studies have shown that ‘helicopter parenting’ (one of many common parenting styles) can have a negative effect on a child’s academic performance over time.

Let your child make mistakes

Check enough of their work to see if they understand the concept, but don’t correct every mistake. If your child turns in perfect homework every time, their teacher won’t be able to see how well they’re really mastering the material.

Remember, this season won’t last forever. Most likely, your child will need less support with homework as they grow older and develop the skills needed to complete tasks on their own. In the meantime, making a homework action plan – and sticking to it – can set your child (and you) up for homework success.

Want to learn more?

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Learn how to master kick-ass parenting strategies by getting started with Family Man . It’s an interactive parenting video series that's expert-backed and funded by Movember.

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Or learn more before diving in.

How to motivate your child

Healthy Screen Time For Kids

How to Get Kids to Do Their Homework and Raise Self-Starters

Homework is one of the best opportunities for kids to practice being self-starters. But how can parents encourage this self-reliance in their kids and avoid fighting over homework?

It had been nearly an hour since my eight-year-old had begun her vocabulary homework. With four pages still to go, she was on the verge of tears and sleepiness as we approached bedtime.

She was overwhelmed and in over her head.

The issue wasn’t an exorbitant amount of homework, but rather that she had left this assignment for the last minute. With a week to complete a unit in her workbook, she hadn’t planned carefully enough, and now was scrambling to get it done the evening before it was due.

This was the first year my oldest had received homework. Wanting to give her a sense of ownership over this responsibility, I had generally let her determine when and how to complete her work .

But as I sat beside her and saw her struggle, I wondered if I had done too little to coach her in time management. Not wanting to become a dreaded helicopter parent, I had probably overcompensated in the opposite direction.

The RIGHT way to get kids to do homework, according to experts

After this experience, I felt a little lost – wondering how much checking in with kids about their homework was too much and how much was too little. Where was the balance?

Searching for answers, I decided to dig into this topic. After identifying three experts in this field, I reached out to them and arranged interviews. Here’s what they told me:

In the early years, actively coach kids on organization and time management

The first thing I learned, not surprisingly, is that my approach to letting my daughter figure out time management on her own was all wrong.

The experts I spoke to pointed out that few young kids have executive functioning skills or the ability to plan ahead when they first begin receiving homework – often in early elementary school. This lack of organizational understanding can be a barrier to getting homework done.

Here’s what they suggest parents do to help their kids develop these skills:

Set up a specific place for kids to do homework: Betsy Brown Braun , a child development and behavior specialist, believes that kids should have a special place where homework is completed other than the dining room table or kitchen counter. “Kids should have a place of their own – like a desk,” she says. “We want to set them up to respect homework.” This creates a physical place kids associate with doing work, and later with planning for doing work.
Have a homework routine : Kids benefit from knowing there’s a certain time every day set aside for doing homework, according to Ann Dolin, owner of Educational Connections , a tutoring company in the metropolitan D.C. area. The hour doesn’t have to be the same every day – especially if afterschool activities vary each afternoon. But kids should have a general sense of when homework time takes place. And Braun suggests that parents should involve their children in deciding when this time should be: “Because that shows his responsibility in it,” she says. Knowing there’s a specific time to do homework gets kids in the habit of setting aside time each day to complete their work.
Ask kids if they need a reminder: Braun suggests asking your child if they want a reminder when the agreed-upon homework time approaches. Ask if they’d like for you to set an alarm or simply tell them when it’s time. By taking ownership of being aware of when it’s time for homework, they’ll start to move towards taking ownership of managing their workload.
Help kids get started – and then walk away: At this young age, some kids might feel overwhelmed by the idea of simply getting started with their work. Parents can help by making sure their kids understand the directions. But after kids have completed a few problems in an assignment, both Dolin and Braun agree that parents should then walk away and let kids independently complete the work on their own. Completing each assignment independently is, again, a stepping stone towards independently managing the flow of homework assignments.
Make a rule that homework isn’t considered complete until it’s in your child’s backpack: A good habit to form early on is to make sure homework goes right into kids backpacks as soon as it’s done, Dolin says. This avoids any assignments being turned in late.
Make sure kids have some downtime: After a long day of school and activities, kids need a bit of downtime before digging into homework. “Most kids need at least a half hour to unwind,” Dolin suggests. This downtime helps kids recharge and increases their ability to focus. Braun also emphasizes that parents need to watch out for overscheduling after-school activities and making sure these don’t supersede homework.

Help kids plan their homework with this weekly homework planner. Click on the link below to access the planner. In addition to receiving the planner, you’ll also be signed up for my weekly-ish newsletter with tips on how to raise independent, self-reliant kids:

Eventually, kids can independently manage homework on their own

Every child is different. But after a year or two of getting help from parents on these intermediary steps towards better time-management, most kids are ready to take on independently the full responsibility of homework management.

But how can parents know if their child is ready? “By asking a lot of questions”, Dolin says.

“How might you organize this? How long are you going to spend on this? Depending on their answers to these questions you can tell if they can be independent,” she says.

Questions about organization and time management also help kids begin problem-solving on their own. And once you’ve seen a consistent pattern of kids having a well-thought-out plan for completing their homework, you can begin to step back and let kids manage their own time.

Ready to teach your child life skills? These cards can help! Each card in this eighty-one deck contains a skill your child can begin practicing with you or on their own. Click here or the image below to learn more.

Ways parents sabotage their kids’ self-reliance with homework

Often without even knowing it, parents get in the way of their kids’ independence with homework and other responsibilities. Here are a few things to avoid in order to raise kids who are homework self-starters:

Don’t focus too heavily on the quality of the work: It’s natural for parents to want their kids to do their best school work. But leave the quality of the work up to the teacher, Dolin says. “I hear of so many fights about the quality of work between parents and students,” she says. “And then kids will start to avoid homework. The goal of homework – especially when kids are younger – is to practice skills and learn independence and responsibility.”

Braun agrees: “I don’t believe that parents should correct their kids’ homework. The quality of the homework is between the child and teacher. How else will the teacher know what the kid needs help on?” She also notes that parents often think they are helping their kids by getting involved in their homework, or not letting them fail. But parents don’t realize the message they’re sending – that their child is not capable or good enough.

Don’t create your own consequences for incomplete homework: Again, let that be between the student and the teacher. If a student doesn’t finish his homework, “he must deal with his teacher,” Dr. Frances Walfish , a family and relationship psychotherapist, says. “Don’t bail him out, criticise, or chastise him,” she continues. Let the teacher decide what the consequence will be and eventually he should begin to realize that it’s easier to get homework done the night before.

If a child declares that she won’t do her homework on a particular evening, parents can state – in a non-threatening way – that they ‘ ll write the child’s teacher and make them aware of her decision, Braun suggests. But she warns that parents still need to be alert to tiredness, an uneasiness about getting started or other reasons why kids might resisting doing their homework – and address those reasons first.

Don’t do homework with your kids : “Don’t get in the habit of doing homework with your child too much. Parents get in the habit of doing the homework with the child and when it’s time for kids to do their homework on their own they haven’t had the experience of doing it alone,” Braun says. This gets back to the notion of making sure kids understand what they need to accomplish and then walking away to let them work on their own. “A seven or eight-year-old should be able to get his homework done on his own.” she says.

Don’t send the general message that your child isn’t capable: By constantly correcting kids – not letting them try and fail – and doing things for them that they’re capable of doing on their own, we are sending the message to kids that they aren’t capable, Braun says. But by “working to cultivate self-reliance early on you are putting kids in a position to make them self-starters in everything including homework.”

Coaching while also letting go

After that fateful evening of disappointment and frustration, I changed my tactic in helping my daughter plan her time.

“Let’s sit down and decide when you will have an opportunity to work on your vocabulary homework for this week.” I began to ask her every Monday evening. Play practice was on Thursdays, basketball on Wednesdays. That left Monday and Tuesday as the best evenings for her to work on her assignment.

Writing out the days of the week, we determined on which evening she would have more time to get her work done.

As the weeks progressed, she became more aware of how much time was needed and how long an assignment would take. Sure, there were a few hiccups along the way, but by the end of the year, she was just about ready to tackle homework on her own.

And now that’s she’s in fifth grade, that work has paid off. While every now and then she still discovers she hasn’t allowed enough time to finish a math assignment or didn’t read her book report book quite as quickly as she had hoped, on most weeks her homework is complete – and she gets to bed on time.

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10 Life Lessons Kids Need to Experience Before They Leave Home

How to Raise Responsible Kids – Not Just Obedient Ones

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About Kerry Flatley

Hi! I’m Kerry, the mother of two girls and a certified parent educator. I believe it is possible for parents to have a supportive, loving, and warm relationship with their kids while raising them to be independent and ultimately self-sufficient. Over the years, I’ve read numerous books and articles that support this belief and I’ve put these ideas into practice with my own kids. Read more about me and Self-Sufficient Kids here.

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Successful Homework Habits for Beginning Learners

Establishing routines in preschool and the lower grades can lay the groundwork for success in later years..

The goal of homework is to help students remember and understand what they learned in school that day. For children ages 5 to 7, it can also help teach them independence, responsibility, as well as time-management and planning skills — all keys to success in the real world.

It’s important for beginning learners to understand that homework is more important than dance class, soccer practice, karate, or the long list of activities they may be involved in outside of school. A little homework goes a long way toward reinforcing classroom learning. Just 10-20 minutes of homework or home practice a day for children in kindergarten through second grade is seen as most effective.

Here are four homework habits you and your child can develop right now for more successful school days (and stress-free nights) ahead.

1. Set the Stage

Your child needs a quiet, well-lit, clutter- and distraction-free spot to do their homework. This should be the same place every day, whether it’s the kitchen table or a desk in their room. Make sure all the materials your child needs to complete their homework are within arm’s reach, including pencils, paper, crayons, or anything else.

2. Time It Right

Decide with your child the best time to tackle homework. For some children, it’s best to complete assignments right after school, while the information is still fresh in their minds and they have ample energy. (An after-school schedule provides structure your child can stick to.)

If you choose to schedule extra-curriculars first, keep in mind that children may be too tired after these activities to focus on schoolwork. Bedtime is never the time to rush through homework.

3. It’s Not Your Homework, It’s Theirs

Parents should be involved in their child’s homework, both to see what they’re learning and to gauge how well they’re absorbing concepts. Being nearby while your child does their homework also allows you to monitor any frustration they feel — and encourage breaks when needed. But this doesn’t mean you will do their homework for them. You want them to get that feeling of pride and accomplishment on their own.

4. Get Excited and Be Positive

As your child’s role model, if you view homework as a chore or something that interferes with your personal schedule, your child will mimic that behavior. Let your child know how grown-up it is for them to have homework and how proud they should be of their hard work. Try to instill in them that it is “fun” to be able to do the assigned tasks.

Let them show you their work and praise them for finishing homework. Be encouraging — it will make a difference.

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August 11, 2022

Why Homework Is Important to Kids and Parents

The great homework debate is an ongoing conflict, with some experts saying the take-home lessons should be abolished, while others think they should be limited by age or completion time. Despite the controversy, homework is still a normal assignment for most school-age students to receive. So, what’s the importance of homework in a learner’s life? Well, answering the question of why is homework important for students will also answer the question of why is homework important for parents, too.

10 Benefits of Homework

Acts as a bridge between school and home.

Even if teachers and parents aren’t using the margins of a child’s homework to send messages back and forth in writing, a student’s take-home assignments can still be a de facto communication network used by two of the people most responsible for their unassuming courier’s continued learning.

When teachers assign homework, it can help teachers and parents unravel the puzzle that is their student’s learning preferences—an invaluable piece of knowledge to have in their quest to encourage enrichment and progress. Additionally, some parents like homework because it provides a window into their child’s daily lessons.

More Time with Material

Despite a teacher’s best efforts, there are concepts that may continue to elude some students even after ample instructional time and effort. That’s okay—children learn in different ways and at different speeds.

During homework, the additional time learners spend engaged with a subject can be exactly what they need to begin piecing things together and grasping the lesson presented in the day’s materials. Homework affords them all the time they need to explore those ideas without the societal pressures or time constraints they may experience in a classroom setting.

Using Resources to Their Advantage

In an academic setting, knowing something means being able to recall it from memory and prove that knowledge on an exam, in an essay or during a conversation. Knowing how to find that fact using an educational resource like a library, a reference book or the Internet can be an equally useful long-term skill, though.

Working from home and having access to resources outside the classroom helps show a child the best avenue for finding the information they require and teaches them to use those tools when searching for relevant, factual information.

An Environment Conducive to Learning

Teachers can devote a lot of effort to making their classrooms feel like welcoming, safe areas that allow for the exploration and internalization of important academic concepts. However, despite an educator’s best attempts, some students may never be able to feel as comfortable as they do when they’re at home.

For those learners, homework exists as a chance for them to interact with the day’s material in their most open, relaxed state. At home, they’re free of the distractions and hindrances of a public place, allowing them to truly be themselves.

This can help accelerate the development of those children since learning while comfortable and in a good mindset is the best way to internalize and memorize the lesson at hand.

Teaches Students to Efficiently Manage Their Time

We’ve already touched on homework’s ability to familiarize kids with resources available to them beyond those they’ve come to rely on in their classrooms. Time management skills are another secondary lesson that homework can bestow upon young people, and it’s an important one to learn if they hope to make the most of their waking hours.

Self-regulating the task of homework helps kids figure out how to manage their own workloads and increases their ability to act autonomously and responsibly. Homework always has a due date, and taking on this due date—with the responsibility of meeting it—encourages independent thinking and problem solving.

If learned properly, time management is a skill young people will carry with them, first utilizing it to manage multiple facets of their life during any post-secondary educational pursuits before relying on it to get the most out of their adult years.

Improves Self-esteem

Whether they’re reinforcing a lesson they’ve already explored or successfully grasping the concepts after a healthy amount of after-school study time, homework can help foster the self-esteem necessary for students to excel in both academics and everyday situations. Taking the lessons learned during class and applying them independently to assignments can do wonders for a child’s self-autonomy and self-reliance. It can also give them the confidence necessary to trust their learning process and fight through failures to their eventual understanding.

Enhances the Next Day’s Lesson

When students explore their take home work, they may find questions they didn’t know they had. This allows each student to have a grasp on the homework and come ready for a class discussion. Effective homework does more than just ask students to complete its tasks before the next class period, it also engages kids and lays the groundwork for an enriching learning session.

Helps Identify Weaknesses

Homework can instill confidence and self-esteem by giving students a safe environment to practice problem solving and self-reliance, but homework can also shine a spotlight on the weaknesses particular lessons may expose in a student’s knowledge. Even if they find these revelations discouraging, identifying areas needing improvement can be just as important—possibly more important—than strengthening self-esteem.

Facing a shortcoming can teach a student how to handle adversity, fixing that shortcoming can help a student learn that progress is possible, and repeating the process can solidify a student’s confidence in their learning process and ability to internalize concepts.

Improves Performance

Benchmarks like grades and academic awards may be external motivators and less effective than intrinsic motivation, but these can also be happy secondary effects of healthier motivational styles—and homework can play a big part in reaching those milestones. Keeping up with after school work can improve student’s grades and scores on standardized tests.

Widen Attention Span

When doing homework, students—especially older students—are responsible for managing their own attention span. There aren’t any teachers at their homes yelling about daydreaming, doodling or other self-imposed distractions. Teachers assign homework, then homework teaches some life skills necessary to excel in high school and beyond.

How to Help Your Child with Homework

Praise hard work.

Making a point to recognize the effort and hard work school students are putting into their out-of-the-classroom learning can help them form a positive relationship with their homework. It can also help craft the act of completing that work into an internal motivation. It’s important to avoid praise that promotes achievement motivation, such as a focus on a specific award or position, but the work a child is putting into those possible achievements shouldn’t go unpraised.

Homework Sessions

On nights when a large amount of homework seems to be a daunting task, make a plan with your young person to tackle their assignments. Splitting work up into sessions helps make tasks more manageable.

It’s Not Your Homework

Help your learner grasp concepts by supporting them and answering reasonable questions, but ensure they’re learning by making sure they’re the ones completing homework.

A Child’s Home Office

Create a dedicated, well-lit area where students can complete homework without worrying about distractions. Keep the area stocked with items they’re frequently using to complete assignments.

Affix Homework to A Certain Time

Routines can help people maintain responsibilities and get used to doing certain tasks. Figure out the best time for your child’s productivity and deem that period as homework or study time.

Discuss Lessons Before Your Child Tackles Homework

If a child feels like the subject of their homework is a little too difficult for them, they could lose interest in a topic or subject that used to make them excited to learn. Even if you have good communication with your learner, this may be difficult to observe, so it’s recommended you speak with kids about the new subjects they’re learning in school and go through some of their homework with them before allowing them to complete the rest on their own.

Check in on your child periodically and provide help where necessary. While checking in, let them know you’re always there to help and they’re never completely on their own. This safety net can be an important part of the learning process.

Monitor A Student’s Progress

Research consistently shows a link between parental involvement concerning the learning of a child and that child’s achievement in a school setting. Homework is an easy, tangible way for parents to see their child’s progress while taking an active approach to their child’s educational career.

Help Your Child Excel at School

Healthy, positive and productive homework habits with the right amount of parental intervention can push a child’s academic performance to the next level. The at-home lessons don’t have to stop there, though.

Virtual learning materials like Juni Learning’s online courses can supplement homework lessons or become one of a child’s out-of-classroom academic resources. Find Juni Learning’s curriculum overview here and, when you’re ready, browse their selection of courses here . Juni Learning can help your child become a more confident student, inside and outside school.

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28 Ideas On How To Make Homework Fun For Students

Do your children seem to need continual nagging to complete their homework? If your answer is “yes,” then don’t worry; we’ve all been there. Parents naturally want their kids to advance and do well in class, but after a full day of paper, pens, and books, many students won’t feel like doing their assignments.

No matter what the ages or grades of the students are, academic burnout may happen to any student, which affects overall learning and development. To solve this issue, we have brought 28 ideas on how to make homework fun and interesting for students of any age. Not only for parents but also if you are a tutor, these tricks and tips will come to your use.

28 Ideas on How To Make Homework Fun for Students

Homework enables the students to revise and evaluate the classroom learning and develops a habit of self-study, which in turn helps the students to score better. But it can be energy-draining, challenging, monotonous, and difficult to focus upon for students of any age.

Getting students to enjoy their homework and assignments could be immensely difficult at times. Especially after a long break or vacation, they find it difficult to focus on homework. Simultaneously, the importance of home tasks cannot be ignored. Wondering what the solution is?

It’s easy – why not make the homework fun and engaging? Yes, this is the ALL-IN-ONE solution to create a spark of interest in homework. There is practically a plethora of ways to let students feel enthusiastic while doing homework. However, not every strategy suits every student.

For instance, some students love to go outdoors and complete their homework or study amidst nature. On the other hand, some students simply want to stay indoors and complete home tasks in their study area.

So, while implementing a strategy or adopting ways to make homework fun and interesting, you must make sure you are doing the right thing for the right individual so that the student receives maximum benefits.

Here are 28 brilliant ideas that will guide you on how to make homework fun for elementary, middle, and high schoolers. Take a look:

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1. rewards are magical motivators.

It’s nothing new to provide children with little rewards in the classroom. But when it comes to the concept of homework for students, these approaches are rarely used. Instructors aren’t always aware of what’s offered or if it’s useful, and some parents may create their rewards. A great idea is to offer rewards inside the classroom.

Giving out vouchers, stickers, snacks, toys, or meal coupons that let youngsters earn money by doing their homework is something we advocate. The advantages of these magical motivators include having a friend sitting next to you in class, access to the internet, and unscheduled time in the classroom. If they link accomplishing their tasks to positive classroom experiences, students will be more engaged and motivated both inside and outside of the classroom.

2. Get Some Favorite Snacks

How to make homework fun and captivating? Let’s face the truth: A hungry student will be disinterested, uninspired, and miserable. Give them something healthful and palpable to eat while they do their schoolwork because most young kids are ravenous when they get home from school. Some options are apple slices, popcorn, grapes, crackers, flapjacks, and cheese.

If you want to attempt something a little more systematic, make a list of nutritious after-school snack suggestions and recipes and try them out every day. A delicious, crunchy apple is one of the healthiest nutrients for youngsters’ brain development. Some other nutritious and palpable snacks for students are Pancakes, Butter Popcorn, Fruit-flavored Yogurt, nut mix, sliced pears with ricotta cheese, Banana Smoothies, etc.

3. Beat the Clock

This is perfect for young kids who are reluctant to complete their schoolwork. Try it out, and you’ll thank us later. Young children like competing in races. By creating timed tasks, you may make schoolwork feel more like a race. For instance, keep track of the number of words they can spell properly or the number of arithmetic problems they can do in five minutes. Challenge your child to beat their previous best the next day.

To make it more fun, a little competition with siblings or best friends will work great. Nevertheless, make sure that the competition is healthy and doesn’t turn into an aggressive one. Often, students’ psychology works differently, and they tend to be violent in these kinds of situations.

4. Get A Homework Buddy

Allow your child to have a buddy or two over to study if they struggle with a particular topic or have difficulties concentrating in a quiet, empty room. If a second child is too distracting, set an example by helping your youngster. You may pay bills, prepare supper, respond to emails, or even work on a crossword puzzle or other mental exercise while they are doing their schoolwork.

Working on homework teaches children that work is a part of life, not just school, and fosters friendship without being overpowering.

5. Design an Awesome Workspace

Improve the area where your kids complete their schoolwork to increase efficiency, creativity, and problem-solving abilities. Have tools and materials available, such as cool notepads or notebooks, colored pens, highlighters, and sticky notes, to assist students in completing difficult projects.

Use calendars, whiteboards, chalkboards, corkboards, or even simply paper and tape to help them visualize and keep track of all they need to complete. You may also decorate it with art and other items that inspire you. For pupils older than 5 years old, you may also hang up some aesthetically pleasing motivating quotations and photos in their study space to help them stay focused and goal-oriented.

6. Make Them Feel Comfortable

The comfort level of the students is the first and foremost thing you have to take care of while making them complete their homework. Not every learner has the same comfort level in the same ways, and these levels tend to differ from one person to another. It’s the responsibility of a parent or a teacher to understand their comfort zone and then plan accordingly.

For instance, provide them with a variety of alternatives or let them design their strategy. You might also inquire as to what time they like to complete their assignment. You won’t need to repeatedly remind people of their duties if you reach an agreement.

7. Incorporate Intervals and Breaks

Some learners might be able to finish their entire load of homework in one sitting. If your class has any pupils that can’t sit still, think about introducing breaks into the assignment process. Weekly study regimens can accommodate breaks.

Give a food break, allow them to complete one level of a video game, or let them talk to a buddy during a quick break. To establish expectations for when and how homework breaks should be taken, teachers might talk about these concepts with parents and students.

This functions in two main ways. It first rewards pupils for finishing their schoolwork. In addition, it gives them a mental break so they can come back to their job reenergized and motivated.

8. Role Plays Work Wonders

Create your little school and let your youngster take the role of the instructor to make enjoyable learning-based games. Assume the position of the student, and have your youngster explain a concept to you in the teacher’s role. This game will help players better comprehend the topic and develop their logical and reasoning abilities. It works especially well with courses that call for theory, like science.

By letting your kid pick their favorite stuffed animals and playthings and placing them in their little classroom, you can make schoolwork enjoyable. Begin by registering, saying “mummy,” “gift,” “Mr. Teddy,” etc. Since kids love to pretend to be teachers, you’ll soon notice that your kid is becoming more self-assured.

9. Make Them Stay Positive and Focused

Ensure to keep the students’ attitudes toward school and the values of their schoolwork are always positive. To keep them inspired and on track, shower your youngster with compliments on how great they’re doing. If they are getting pissed off with the pressure of homework, make them understand its importance and how positively it can impact their learning.

Spend five minutes after each homework session going over your child’s accomplishments. Have a look at our selection of free-to-download home learning packs if you’re out of things to do. To keep them motivated, you can reward or recognize their achievements in front of their peers. This will not only boost their confidence but also will help them maintain a positive outlook toward homework and studies.

10. Take It Outside

Outdoor learning is one of the most feasible ways to do homework with fun in a natural environment. If the weather is good, create a cozy and safe study space outside and let the student finish all the homework outdoors.

Studies also demonstrate that being outside, nearer to nature enhances productivity. The fresh air can aid students’ attention if they have spent the entire day in a classroom. In between jobs, rewarding them with a brief game of football or Frisbee will keep them engaged. You can conduct some fun outdoor Math or English fun homework activities.

11. Altering the homework concept

Many kids feel burdened by their homework assignments. What if, though, you adopt a whole new approach to homework? It can be argued that schoolwork has a lot of unfavorable associations. These concepts usually start early in life and persist into college.

By referring to assignments in different ways, teachers can change these mental habits. Better ways to describe homework include home learning, brain workouts, and study time. You might try using these phrases in place of homework in the classroom.

12. Get Help If You Need

Homework can be frustrating if your child doesn’t understand the material or gets bored easily. Furthermore, excessive pressurizing or insisting on too much can mess up the student’s psychology. To be honest, in extreme cases, none of the methods will work. If your child or student is struggling beyond the normal limit, get them some expert help!

Education Advisors have plenty of advice for students who are not able to cope with homework. They also conduct counseling sessions from time to time in case it’s required.

13. Go for Audio-Visual Resources

Engaging additional senses in the at-home learning process is another technique to cheer up your boring assignments. Focus may be improved by using a child’s perception of touch, smell, or taste in a unique manner.

Sending kids home with instructions for making scented play dough, for instance, improve learning. The dough may be used in classes including math and spatial concepts. Plus, the aroma of scented/colored clays keeps kids focused while they work. Additionally, it enables children to link the smell to what they learned, improving memory and recall.

Another item that teachers might give their pupils as a take-home is a stress ball. Before, during, or after tasks, using a stress ball can encourage creative thinking and anxiety reduction positively.

14. Meditation Can Reduce Stress

Stress is not something that happens only to adults. With the increased competition in academics, young learners nowadays are suffering from severe stress, which ushers’ negative impacts on their mental health. Sometimes, both the little children and older students can’t express this stress and fail to explain how they are feeling.

Homework pressure often creates such challenging situations which disrupt the emotional equilibrium of youngsters. In situations like this, meditation can reduce stress and improve focus. Positive thinking, fear and the tension and anxiety that lead to depression may all be lessened by meditation. Being aware without judgment is one of the foundational elements of meditation, and this attitude of acceptance may ward against unpleasant thoughts.

15. Make It a Group Effort

Since time immemorial, team working is super effective for any activity. The same applies to homework as well. If students sit for the home task in a group, they will be able to wrap all the assignments up quickly.

Now the question is – how? Teamwork involves group discussions as well as brainstorming, which gives rise to new ideas. Students try to develop new ways to complete homework through mutual discussion.

16. Take Help from Learning Apps and Libraries

If your child struggles with their homework, it can be difficult for you as well. Games and visual examples in amusing math practice applications may be a terrific way to give your youngster practice with things he is having trouble with. Therefore, make schoolwork enjoyable for your youngster by downloading an app that simplifies the subject.

There are so many online applications and libraries that will help students enjoy fun and encouraging homework sessions. If the toddler or an older student specifically refers to a particular app or a website, talk to him/her about it properly. Then visit the online resource, and if you think it is a legit and helpful one, let your child or student use it during his/her homework time.

17. Tell Them Not to Take It Too Seriously

There are more important things in life than homework and grades. Too much focus on grades can affect your child’s love for learning. Think about what values you want to instill in your child and make sure the homework is not getting in the way.

If you believe your child’s teacher is giving out too much homework after you see your child demonstrate an understanding of the subject, don’t be afraid to voice your concern. Even if nothing changes, it will show your children that you care and empathize with them. That matters a lot!

18. Storytelling Can Be a Great Idea

Storytelling is a fantastic idea to make children complete their homework without facing any boredom. Especially for specific subjects like Math, History, and Literature, storytelling develops a context that allows the students to grasp things very easily.

If you find a student is finding it difficult to understand a concept and complete assignments on it, you can give a try to the storytelling method a since it works well. Storytelling has the power to captivate learners and keep them engaged irrespective of their age and grades.

19. Create A Homework Mood

Creating a mood for homework is a bit difficult for younger students but setting the right environment can help them complete the tasks as quickly as possible. However, it’s not an issue for the senior students but can be a bit overwhelming for the little kids.

You can select a comfortable location for them to study and use their favorite stickers, lights, etc., to decorate the space. Keeping in mind the results as well as their abilities to take the pressure, set goals and establish rewards. It’s vital to make them understand the goals and disclose a bit about the rewards but don’t let them know exactly what’s going to happen. This will create an enthusiasm to complete the homework in no time.

20. Turn on Some Music

The psychological effects of music are undeniable. Music brings concentration and helps to focus on a particular work pleasantly. Then why not use it for your children’s homework? Science dictates that music is the best aid for studying.

Play some soft music while the student is doing his/her homework and this will help to create an ambiance. You can also play cool, energetic, upbeat music since it radiates energetic vibes and the student will find immense energy as well as positivity to complete the tasks.

21. Ask Them to Do the Tough Tasks First

One more cool thing to try out is doing the tough tasks first. It’s a perfect strategy if the student has a list of various tasks of different levels of complexity. You will be able to realize how much time he/she needs to complete the tasks and edit afterward if needed.

Completing the more complex tasks at first enables a student to think and decide critically. The remaining time can be enjoyed with much lower stress while doing the easier assignments. If your child gets bored very quickly you can try this method out.

22. Get Creative

Wondering how to make homework fun creatively? Homework doesn’t sound exciting to students. To be more specific, solving sums after sums or writing science projects doesn’t sound fun alone. Rather, if you mingle these tasks with an artsy adventure, the same old boring homework sessions become interesting.

For instance, you can ask them to paint out the math problems, prepare a model for their science projects, or act a portion of the history or literature books. Some other effective ideas may include creating a range of paintings while explaining a paragraph to a child, making clay characters, and doing some moves with the music.

23. Doing Homework at School

Nowadays, as the syllabuses are changing, students have too much pressure from homework to deal with. After coming home from school, it’s quite natural for them to feel exhausted. At times it becomes impossible for a kid to keep their eyes open for homework.

The best remedy here is to complete the majority of their homework at school. Your child also doesn’t have to stay up all night looking for answers or trying to understand how to remember academic facts. They can use their free time at school to complete some of the homework to stay relaxed later. Also, completing homework with peers involves so much engagement and fun.

24. Ask Them to Work on Different Subjects in a Session

Are you trying to know how to make homework fun without putting in much effort? Plan a routine for your child so that they can work on different subjects in a single session. Try to mix and match the subjects to make them feel comfortable with the pace of the study.

Working on a maximum of 3 subjects a session will help a student to get rid of the homework quickly without considering it as a pressure. Ensure they are not in a rush to complete one subject after another. Make it as systematic and orderly as you can to avoid any unwanted confusion.

25. Get Academic Help

Getting a little homework help is a feasible way to make homework fun. Nevertheless, you must make sure that none of you, the teachers, or the program facilitators are not spoon-feeding them, or else it will affect the student’s development in terms of learning.

If there is a math problem that is too difficult to solve or a paragraph with heavy words, you or the tutor can give your helping hand to the student so that he/she can complete it on his/her own. For instance, you can give a clue to solve the sum or narrate the context of the paragraph.

26. Planning Is the Key

Planning is a powerful habit to make homework sessions fun and organized. Not only at school, but also this habit will help a student throughout his/her life. It’s required for a student to be extremely serious about homework in a studying period and systematic planning can help in completing all the assignments on time.

If your child is in high school or middle school, you can guide him/her to make homework routines. However, elementary school kids and preschool students need their parents’ or teachers’ assistance to make advanced homework plans.

27. Ask Them to Write on Their Favorite Topics

Working on something you love will make you feel more connected to the work. The same applies to both the kids’ homework and older students’ homework. If you are thinking about how to make doing homework fun, you can ask them to write a paragraph or a short essay on their favorite topics.

To implement this strategy, first, talk to the students on a one-on-one basis and try to know their individual preferences in terms of writing. Then assign them a task where they will write whatever they want on their favorite topics. This will act as a warm-up session before doing the homework.

28. Provide Choice

One of the key reasons why younger and older students become disengaged with their homework is they find it meaningless. This is where the mentors and the parents have to play the biggest role. They need to make the student understand why homework is important and how it can benefit them in the future.

This will make the kids’ homework sessions more engaging and they will be able to connect emotionally or personally. How to make homework fun in this way? It’s simple, provide the students with more choices while assigning the homework. For instance, if there is a tough project, they can choose to work alone on it or work with partners.

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Elementary school homework tips.

Homework gives elementary students a way to practice the concepts. But you have to be very careful while making them do the home tasks as at this age they don’t develop an understanding regarding the benefits of homework. To them, homework is just something that parents and teachers use to restrict them from doing what they want.

Below are some effective tips on how to make homework fun for kindergarten students.

Make sure kids have a creative, engaging, and well-lit place to do the homework.
Give the kids delicious snacks from time to time so that they don’t get distracted due to hunger.
Encourage the children to complete their homework by giving them small rewards or recognizing their efforts to make the entire process more manageable.
Instead of dictating to them what to do and threatening them, be a mentor, a leader, and a motivator.
Create a homework routine for elementary students manually or use desktop app for planning your homework. Don’t forget to keep short breaks in between.
Try to keep distractions to a minimum. This means no phone calls, loud music, and TV during homework time.

Set good examples for them but without comparing them with anybody. Have you ever seen your little one saving money? Point that quality out, praise him/her for it, and set it as an example.

Middle School Homework Tips

Middle school students develop a fair understanding of the importance of homework. So, you are not supposed to face much trouble to make them complete their tasks. Check out these middle school homework tips below. These tips will work wonders if you are looking for ways to make homework fun for 7th graders or 8th graders.

Designate a specific amount of time for homework. This will help them to complete work on time.
Help them prioritize which tasks to do on a priority basis. In this way, they will develop the ability to make decisions.
Continuously encourage them to evaluate their work so that they can find the mistakes and correct them on their own.
Put away the phone to prevent them from being distracted from time to time.
When needed, help them to complete homework instead of spoon-feeding the whole thing. Give clues to solve a sum, point out some important areas, or explain them in a paragraph so that they can complete the next tasks by themselves.
Don’t pressurize or force yourself to do homework. Parents need to know when to stop, especially when they are feeling exhausted, frustrated, and confused.

High School Homework Tips

When it comes to homework, high school students are better able to manage their time, stay focused and finish their tasks. This enables them to understand the value of homework. They don’t do any tantrums and get less distracted because they understand the consequences of not completing home tasks on time. But if you want to know how to make homework more enjoyable for high school students throughout the school year, here are some effective tips:

Tell them to write down their homework every day in a notebook, or a planner to keep it more organized.
Ask them to write their homework with a blue pen on a white sheet to remember their writing. Also, it’s the best combo to do homework faster.
Help your teens to divide their homework schedule in a planned way and keep short breaks to freshen up their minds. For instance, if they work for 30 minutes, they can take a 5 minutes break.
Doing homework with buddies is a proven method to complete homework on time and also in an accurate manner.
If they get stuck while doing any specific homework, ask them to take help from online resources, libraries, video demonstrations, and journals.

Homework Dos and Don’ts

Let’s face it – nobody loves homework although it’s super important for your child’s learning and development. While high school students understand the importance and need of doing school assignments at home, elementary and preschool children can’t develop the understanding at their age.

Several things are to be kept in mind while expecting homework from students in proper time. To make the students complete their homework happily, we have brought some amazing dos and don’ts that parents or teachers need to follow:

Homework Do’s

1. monitor the answers.

After your child has completed his/her homework, check it once to find what went right and what went wrong. If you find any mistake in his/her work, try not to point that out directly. Instead, give your youngster clues so that he/she can find out the mistakes now.

2. Remove the Distractions

Thinking about how to make homework more fun for your child? Remove the distractions from the study room first including social media on the computer, mobile phones, unnecessary toys, etc. Remember, a decluttered environment is the reason behind a decluttered head. They will be able to focus more on the homework when there isn’t a pile of distractions around them.

3. Be A Cheerleader

Always be your child’s motivator when he/she is doing homework. Students may not be correct always but humiliating them may make them demotivated and frustrated at the same time. Celebrate small successes such as completion of the tasks within time, the maximum number of correct answers, the maximum time the child has devoted to homework, etc. Give treats like candies, stickers, pens/pencils, and colored boxes to celebrate their success.

4. Work in Collaboration

The parents and the children need to work together in terms of homework. There must be a proper channel of communication between both parties so that the child’s overall performance can be monitored.

Homework Don’ts

1. don’t force them to homework.

Forcing a student to do the homework can bring immensely negative results. Children won’t like homework – it’s quite normal but forcefully making them do it is tremendously fatal as it will develop a permanent fear or discomfort that will hamper their overall growth.

2. Don’t Show Them Your Frustration

Kids have a lot of tantrums. Especially, the tantrums increase while doing homework. Often teachers and parents get frustrated but showing them the frustration is not at all a good idea. Not only will the child become stubborn but also, they will develop a fear of doing assignments or getting help from you. If you want to make homework fun for 6th graders or students of any other grades, don’t show your frustration in front of them.

3. Don’t Compare with Their Peers

Comparison is something that demotivates a child to a great extent. It develops a deep resentment in their mind which doesn’t fade away even after growing older. Comparing their grades or skills with their peers is probably the worst idea to make students do homework.

4. Don’t Keep Electronic Devices in Front of Them

Yes, you can give the students electronic gadgets for a few minutes as small rewards but don’t keep the devices in front of them all the time when they are doing homework. This may loosen their concentration and will make them distracted from their respective tasks.

How A Homework Planning App Can Help a Student?

A homework app is the best time-management tool that enables students to organize everything they need to do throughout a week, month, academic year, or semester. It’s an easy way to keep your homework sessions organized. In case you are still thinking about how to make homework fun for your child, software with proper features of homework planning can help him/her out.

The academic pressure on school children sometimes becomes too difficult to handle, especially when there is so much to do. This is where student planners for their home assignments are found to be beneficial. Here is an explanation of how an efficient home assignment planning tool can help students finish their tasks on time:

1. Gives Students A Break

It might also be helpful to make sure that kids have some downtime to unwind and not become overburdened with assignments. If teachers are assigning homework through software, they will see how long a piece of homework will take to be completed, and they can allocate the tasks accordingly scheduling breaks in between.

2. Reduces Stress

Homework pressure may not sound like a big deal to you because you have already left those days behind but to your child, it’s a headache. The fear of being scolded by parents/teachers is one of their biggest concerns to them. Thanks to digital planners, these tools know exactly how to help each student in a customized way.

3. Increases Productivity

How to make homework interesting? Students who use a school planner are more productive and can manage their time more effectively. Students today struggle with procrastination because the internet age offers so many diversions. However, if they have noted down the tasks they must complete, they will be more motivated to complete them.

4. Easier for Parents and Teachers

A homework app with intuitive features of planning helps to complete an assignment within time in a systematic manner. Younger students who still rely on the help of their parents and teachers to do their schoolwork often fail to inform them about their homework status. Having homework software can easily sort this problem out and reduces mentors’ work and hassle.

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How to make homework fun with clarifi.

To assist students to achieve their highest potential, Clarifi is a homework software that acts as an ideal digital homework attention coach. We are dedicated to helping students achieve their academic goals. The pupils may complete their homework independently with the help of this digital planning app for homework.

It is a straightforward and uncomplicated desktop program that gives them more confidence to finish their assignment as quickly and effectively as possible. It is the only research-backed desktop application that enables children who are easily distracted to do their schoolwork without a parent watching over them. Monitoring student behavior is the only way to be sure they are doing their assignments.

However, keeping track of pupils’ activity is a time-consuming and important duty. However, Clarifi is available to make this procedure as easy as possible. With the aid of this program, students can effortlessly enter each homework assignment and keep track of the due dates for each one based on the class or the current day.

They receive prizes from the automated coach for maintaining concentration and doing their homework. When all pupils turn in their schoolwork on time, they will receive diamonds as a reward. This element motivates pupils to develop the positive habit of finishing their home assignments on time. Clarifi is an easy digital homework attention planner that provides kids with the ability to filter out distractions, improve their executive functioning, and keep all of their assignments organized in one location.

Clarifi guarantees to raise their capacity for concentration and focus as well as their academic performance. It incorporates functions that provide users the means to remain centered, motivated, and organized while finishing their schoolwork on their own. When kids use the app, it is specially designed with cutting-edge technology that blocks all other apps.

Generating an undistracted and focused environment for students with Clarifi is the answer to “how to make homework less boring.”

Students Can Now Complete Homework with Fun!

With these tricks and tips, students can now efficiently engage themselves in homework. Learners need to study and complete their homework/assignments with a positive mindset and not forcefully. As soon as a student starts doing his/her homework strenuously, the interest is eventually lost, leading to mistakes and burnout.

But with the tricks mentioned above, homework sessions can now be immensely fun and interesting. Whether you are a teacher, parent, or student, these are some tried and tested ways to complete home tasks engagingly. Stay tuned to Clarifi for similar informative blogs like this. If to need help with your children’s homework and know more about how to make homework fun get in touch with Clarifi today.

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What’s the Right Amount of Homework?

Decades of research show that homework has some benefits, especially for students in middle and high school—but there are risks to assigning too much.

Many teachers and parents believe that homework helps students build study skills and review concepts learned in class. Others see homework as disruptive and unnecessary, leading to burnout and turning kids off to school. Decades of research show that the issue is more nuanced and complex than most people think: Homework is beneficial, but only to a degree. Students in high school gain the most, while younger kids benefit much less.

The National PTA and the National Education Association support the “ 10-minute homework guideline ”—a nightly 10 minutes of homework per grade level. But many teachers and parents are quick to point out that what matters is the quality of the homework assigned and how well it meets students’ needs, not the amount of time spent on it.

The guideline doesn’t account for students who may need to spend more—or less—time on assignments. In class, teachers can make adjustments to support struggling students, but at home, an assignment that takes one student 30 minutes to complete may take another twice as much time—often for reasons beyond their control. And homework can widen the achievement gap, putting students from low-income households and students with learning disabilities at a disadvantage.

However, the 10-minute guideline is useful in setting a limit: When kids spend too much time on homework, there are real consequences to consider.

Small Benefits for Elementary Students

As young children begin school, the focus should be on cultivating a love of learning, and assigning too much homework can undermine that goal. And young students often don’t have the study skills to benefit fully from homework, so it may be a poor use of time (Cooper, 1989 ; Cooper et al., 2006 ; Marzano & Pickering, 2007 ). A more effective activity may be nightly reading, especially if parents are involved. The benefits of reading are clear: If students aren’t proficient readers by the end of third grade, they’re less likely to succeed academically and graduate from high school (Fiester, 2013 ).

For second-grade teacher Jacqueline Fiorentino, the minor benefits of homework did not outweigh the potential drawback of turning young children against school at an early age, so she experimented with dropping mandatory homework. “Something surprising happened: They started doing more work at home,” Fiorentino writes . “This inspiring group of 8-year-olds used their newfound free time to explore subjects and topics of interest to them.” She encouraged her students to read at home and offered optional homework to extend classroom lessons and help them review material.

Moderate Benefits for Middle School Students

As students mature and develop the study skills necessary to delve deeply into a topic—and to retain what they learn—they also benefit more from homework. Nightly assignments can help prepare them for scholarly work, and research shows that homework can have moderate benefits for middle school students (Cooper et al., 2006 ). Recent research also shows that online math homework, which can be designed to adapt to students’ levels of understanding, can significantly boost test scores (Roschelle et al., 2016 ).

There are risks to assigning too much, however: A 2015 study found that when middle school students were assigned more than 90 to 100 minutes of daily homework, their math and science test scores began to decline (Fernández-Alonso, Suárez-Álvarez, & Muñiz, 2015 ). Crossing that upper limit can drain student motivation and focus. The researchers recommend that “homework should present a certain level of challenge or difficulty, without being so challenging that it discourages effort.” Teachers should avoid low-effort, repetitive assignments, and assign homework “with the aim of instilling work habits and promoting autonomous, self-directed learning.”

In other words, it’s the quality of homework that matters, not the quantity. Brian Sztabnik, a veteran middle and high school English teacher, suggests that teachers take a step back and ask themselves these five questions :

How long will it take to complete?
Have all learners been considered?
Will an assignment encourage future success?
Will an assignment place material in a context the classroom cannot?
Does an assignment offer support when a teacher is not there?

More Benefits for High School Students, but Risks as Well

By the time they reach high school, students should be well on their way to becoming independent learners, so homework does provide a boost to learning at this age, as long as it isn’t overwhelming (Cooper et al., 2006 ; Marzano & Pickering, 2007 ). When students spend too much time on homework—more than two hours each night—it takes up valuable time to rest and spend time with family and friends. A 2013 study found that high school students can experience serious mental and physical health problems, from higher stress levels to sleep deprivation, when assigned too much homework (Galloway, Conner, & Pope, 2013 ).

Homework in high school should always relate to the lesson and be doable without any assistance, and feedback should be clear and explicit.

Teachers should also keep in mind that not all students have equal opportunities to finish their homework at home, so incomplete homework may not be a true reflection of their learning—it may be more a result of issues they face outside of school. They may be hindered by issues such as lack of a quiet space at home, resources such as a computer or broadband connectivity, or parental support (OECD, 2014 ). In such cases, giving low homework scores may be unfair.

Since the quantities of time discussed here are totals, teachers in middle and high school should be aware of how much homework other teachers are assigning. It may seem reasonable to assign 30 minutes of daily homework, but across six subjects, that’s three hours—far above a reasonable amount even for a high school senior. Psychologist Maurice Elias sees this as a common mistake: Individual teachers create homework policies that in aggregate can overwhelm students. He suggests that teachers work together to develop a school-wide homework policy and make it a key topic of back-to-school night and the first parent-teacher conferences of the school year.

Parents Play a Key Role

Homework can be a powerful tool to help parents become more involved in their child’s learning (Walker et al., 2004 ). It can provide insights into a child’s strengths and interests, and can also encourage conversations about a child’s life at school. If a parent has positive attitudes toward homework, their children are more likely to share those same values, promoting academic success.

But it’s also possible for parents to be overbearing, putting too much emphasis on test scores or grades, which can be disruptive for children (Madjar, Shklar, & Moshe, 2015 ). Parents should avoid being overly intrusive or controlling—students report feeling less motivated to learn when they don’t have enough space and autonomy to do their homework (Orkin, May, & Wolf, 2017 ; Patall, Cooper, & Robinson, 2008 ; Silinskas & Kikas, 2017 ). So while homework can encourage parents to be more involved with their kids, it’s important to not make it a source of conflict.

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Strategies for Getting Students to Complete Work

You're not alone if you're looking for ways to motivate your students to do their homework. Getting students to do their homework regularly can be a source of frustration for teachers. We know students who consistently complete homework will achieve more academically, particularly in high school, and students who don't do their homework will falter.

As a teacher, you want your students to benefit from good work habits — for success in the classroom and in life. After all, effective homework strategies teach responsibility and self-discipline while instilling confidence and motivation. The good news is you have plenty of options to make an impact.

We've put together this guide to help teachers make the most out of homework time and motivate their students. Here, we discuss some reasons students don't do their homework, what to do when students don't do their homework, how to create engaging assignments and the best approaches to take with your students in the classroom. We also offer tips for organizing your students and developing effective work habits.

Reasons Why Students Don't Do Their Homework

When a student leaves school for the day, you hope you have done enough to set them up for homework time, but many factors are beyond your control. If a student frequently fails to complete assignments, consider what may be going on at home. Understanding the root of the problem can help you get a better handle on the situation.

You may want to connect with the student in a different way, reach out to the parents or offer additional support. Once you're able to identify why students don't do homework, you can begin implementing strategies to encourage and enable your pupils to complete their assignments in the future. Here are some common reasons why students may not complete homework.

Issues in School

Although you try your best to deliver quality instruction and create meaningful habits, students sometimes face other school issues that inhibit their learning abilities. Thankfully, many of these problems have easy fixes, even if it takes time to craft a working routine that benefits the student. Here are common problems student face in school that can affect their homework performance:

Lack of understanding: Lack of understanding is one of the primary reasons students don't do their homework. When children don't receive enough instruction, they lack the basic skills they need to complete an assignment. It's essential that your homework instructions are as clear and specific as possible so that students can fully comprehend the task at hand.
No feedback: Many students feel motivated by feedback, which is why they may not complete their homework when they don't receive any praise or constructive criticism. Try incorporating homework feedback into your lesson plan by writing comments on completed assignments or building time into the day to address homework patterns with the class.
Being overwhelmed by the task: Hefty, time-consuming tasks can be mentally draining for students. If a student feels that an assignment will take a large portion of time and they don't know how to break it down, they may decide the work isn't worth the effort. For large tasks and projects, consider assigning one portion at a time. For example, you can easily break down a large research project. Have students craft source lists for the first few days and find valuable information. After this, ask them to create an outline. Then assign the paper due date. This way, the students have all the information they need to complete the assignment.

Problems at Home

Not every student has a supportive and welcoming home environment that enables them to do their best work. Although there may not be a surefire way to combat these issues, there are steps you can take to make homework completion more accessible and easier:

Parents are unavailable: A reason students may not complete homework is their parents are unavailable to offer help with at-home assignments. You can provide extra assistance to these students in the classroom . Set them up with a tutor or encourage them to reach out if they have any questions.
Lack of consistency: If a student's family moves around a lot, they may lack the consistency they need to sit down and work on their assignments at home. This is another instance where you can talk to the student and suggest a common workplace they can utilize to work on homework — like the library or an after-school study room — to give them a more stable place to focus.
A troubled home life: When kids have a chaotic or troubling home life, they may feel unmotivated to do their homework. You can handle sensitive situations like these by forming a positive relationship with the student, listening to their problems and making them feel valued and encouraged in the classroom.
Too much time watching TV or engaging in social media: Some students spend hours of their free time consuming social media and watching television, neglecting to do their homework. Unfortunately, you can't control how your students use their free time, but you can conduct parent conferences to discuss ways to help students focus at home.

Exterior Issues

Your students may have issues that span beyond school and home. Exterior challenges arise all the time, and although it can be difficult to pinpoint them, taking the extra steps to connect with your student will be worth it in the long run. Check out these exterior challenges to determine the best way to communicate with your students and help them overcome barriers:

Extracurricular activities or after - school jobs: Students who participate in after - school activities or jobs often have difficulty completing homework on top of their busy schedules. Activities such as these are enriching and shouldn't disable students from doing their homework. To accommodate, consider assigning homework ahead of time rather than the day before it's due so that students have enough time to manage their workload throughout the week.
No positive role models: Some students don't have access to positive role models who value education and encourage them to complete their homework. In these cases, you should try to work with the student, inspire them to succeed and teach them the importance of school.
Loud, distracting or cramped work environment: Another reason why students don't do their homework is that they may not have a work environment that is conducive to concentration and learning. Try having a one-on-one with your student to discuss what they can do to eliminate distractions, like staying after school to complete their assignments or spending time in the library.
Teenage pregnancies or parenting at a young age: If your student is pregnant or has recently given birth, they may be struggling to find time to do their homework. You can offer advice on how they can balance their homework and manage their time, or offer them resources for doing so.
Drug or alcohol use: This is another sensitive subject that can be difficult to navigate. If your student shows signs of drug use, you can talk to them privately and offer resources, contact the school counselor or have a conversation with their parents.

How to Motivate Kids to Do Homework

Communicating information effectively can set students up for success at home. On the first day of school, take a confident, upbeat approach with your students regarding homework. What you say and do in the classroom can help get students on track during homework time.

Below are eight homework strategies for teachers you can use to help your students complete homework . For the greatest impact, put these strategies into practice early in the school year.

1. Explain the Purpose of Homework

Students need to understand why it’s important to do their homework. Homework is intended to be a positive experience that furthers learning, and your students should never view it as a punishment. Make it clear every assignment has a purpose, and mastery only occurs when students work independently, without the safety net of the classroom. Let students know you will always explain how a given assignment will fit into the big picture.

Emphasize how homework is a way to solidify the concepts students learn in the classroom, and the best way to accomplish this is through consistency and repetition. With this practice, students will feel confident in their skills and transition well into the next day’s lesson. When students do their homework well, more learning can take place in the classroom every day.

2. Set Expectations on the First Day

Research shows students are more successful when teachers set high standards , so make your expectations clear. Explain students who complete their homework assignments will be successful in your class. For those who don't, it will be a tough road ahead.

Keep your tone positive and let students know what to expect regarding workload. Clarify how you will grade homework and the consequences of missed assignments. Spell everything out in a homework contract and have students sign it. Just make sure to explain it, too, so the information sinks in.

3. Give Homework Daily

Assign each evening's homework in manageable chunks. If you send students home with a weekly packet of information, they may become overwhelmed. Some students may procrastinate and leave the entire packet until the last minute, which defeats the purpose of daily practice. Over time, daily assignments become part of a student's routine and part of life, not a chore.

4. Provide Clear Instructions

Make sure to provide clear instructions and post homework in multiple locations, such as in your classroom and on your website. Ensure your students always have the ability to find further explanations or assistance. For younger students, you can provide instructions and handouts to parents, so they can assist if their child gets stuck when working at home.

5. Set Aside Classroom Time for Independent Learning

Teachers often make the mistake of creating an environment of dependency in the classroom. Some students may overly rely on teachers and peers for guidance and information. To truly master the day’s material, students need the opportunity to work independently through the learning process before they leave for the day. If this piece is missing, students may become frustrated when they sit down to do their homework.

6. Earn Respect

You need to gain a student’s respect before you can expect to influence their homework habits. To gain respect, be likable, build rapport with your students and always follow through. When students respect you, they will start to trust what you tell them, and through your influence, you can inspire a strong work ethic.

7. Take a Personal Interest in the Lives of Your Students

Get to know your students. Try relating to students by engaging them in conversations about topics that interest them. Once you've established a personal connection, they are more likely to listen to you, and it will mean more when you tell them to complete their homework.

Additionally, you'll be better equipped to handle student barriers if you understand and connect with your students. Your students may find it easier to speak with you to craft solutions if they believe you genuinely care about their well-being and accomplishments.

8. Foster a Growth Mindset

Students who foster a growth mindset can make immense strides in their education and lives. This kind of mindset involves accepting and seeking challenges for the sake of learning and growing. When people adopt this way of thinking, they view mistakes and failure as a natural part of the learning process rather than becoming upset or frustrated.

You can help foster this mindset in your students by explaining the importance of practice, learning and failures. Providing meaningful feedback can help this process, as students learn the difference between judgment and helpful tips that enable them to grow.

Organizing Homework and Tips for Turning in Homework

As students move into middle school, organization skills can become an issue. They have multiple teachers, multiple assignments to juggle, supplies galore and about eight or nine different classes they need to show up on time for each day. All this can be a bit overwhelming.

Organization skills are key to homework success. A student with crumpled-up papers in their backpack may get by temporarily, but, eventually, things are going to fall apart. To head off homework nightmares, help your students get organized from the start.

Use the following organizational strategies early in the school year.

Set up a homework file: Students need a simple, fail-safe system to stay organized. Advise students to keep all their homework in a central location, such as a pocket folder . Designate one place, and one place only, for all subjects. If students start filing information in separate notebooks, or corners of their lockers, assignments will get lost.
Incorporate planning time: Set aside time each week for students to plan their homework schedules. Have students use daily planners to map out after-school activities and schedule in blocks of time to complete homework. They can even schedule in downtime if they choose.
Offer encouragement: Organizing and planning homework can be tricky for many students. Offer encouragement and praise for any amount of progress. Your feedback goes a long way.

8 Ways to Create Engaging Homework Assignments

Even though you may have exemplary communication skills and the best-laid plans for organization, you still need to keep homework interesting. Homework needs to have a purpose and be engaging. If students don’t see the point or understand the benefits, they will be less likely to complete assignments.

Here are eight ways to create engaging assignments that will aid in motivating students to do homework .

1. Create Quality Assignments

If you’re going to give an assignment, make it worthwhile. Give clear and concise instructions and offer relevant resources. Try to narrow down the focus of the task. If you try to reinforce too many concepts at once, students may miss the point or feel overwhelmed. Never give busywork. If you get a reputation for giving busywork, students will not engage consistently and may miss assignments that really matter.

2. Give Homework as a Review or Practice

Homework is an opportunity for students to review and practice what they learned that day. It is not a time for teachers to introduce new material. Independent work solidifies skills learned in the classroom and boosts confidence and motivation. When students realize they can achieve success on their own, they feel good about themselves. When they feel good about themselves, they want to learn more. With the right tools in place, students will be motivated to complete homework assignments on a regular basis.

3. Make Students Think

Give students the opportunity to have an “a-ha moment” during homework time. Allow them to think independently and extract information from other resources outside of the classroom. Challenge students to think for themselves and explore new ideas. Thinking outside the box can be exciting and motivating for students.

4. Offer Choices

Give students options whenever possible. For example, have a few topics to choose from when you give a writing assignment. When students get to make decisions about homework, they become more invested and enjoy the process more. Meaningful choices can encourage students to capitalize on their strengths and become more engaged with learning material .

5. Keep Assignments Interesting

Mix things up. If your students recognize you have a formulaic approach to homework, it can begin to feel like a repetitive chore. You may not know whether your students are learning from the material or memorizing the basic steps to find the answers. Additionally, students will tire of similar subjects and formats, so aim for a varied approach. One great way to pique a student’s interest is to assign a long-term project. Encourage students to seek new and unique research and bring interesting conversations to the classroom.

6. Align Assignments With Skill Levels

Although you likely can't individualize every assignment, you can tailor homework to homogeneous groups within your classroom. For example, at-risk or gifted students may have different assignments than the rest of the class. In high school, students in advanced placement or honors classes typically receive assignments that require more abstract thinking.

7. Assign a Manageable Workload

Be sure to schedule the right amount of homework. You want homework time to be effective and productive, not exhausting and overwhelming. Many educators follow the 10-minutes-per-grade-level rule. A first-grader would do 10 minutes of homework a night, a second-grader would do 20 minutes and so on, maxing out at about two hours for high school students. Coordinate homework with the other teachers on your team to keep the total amount of time consistent each night.

8. Make the Connection Between the Material and Life

If the subject matter is relatable, students are more apt to complete homework assignments. Hands-on assignments that make sense in the real world can spark a student's interest and really sink in. Be entertaining or share information through a story, then send students home with a related assignment.

For example, let’s say you are working on persuasive arguments in your language arts class. You could set up a classroom trial where students are lawyers, judges, plaintiffs, defendants or part of a jury. After the lesson and some classroom discussion, you could have students write a few persuasive paragraphs from their perspective for homework.

Teach Effective Homework Motivation Strategies

Good homework habits are key to getting the most out of an assignment and completing it on time, and it’s never too early to start. If you’re a kindergarten or first-grade teacher, consider sending age-appropriate homework home so students can begin to establish a routine. This can be as simple as having a parent read a few pages of a book to the student.

Regardless of grade level, encourage students to practice good homework strategies. Teach these strategies to the group or individually for students who are struggling.

Encourage students to:

Take notes during the school day.
Use an effective planner to keep track of assignments and due dates .
Set up a quiet place at home to study.
Assess assignment difficulty to determine how much time they will need to dedicate to completing it.
Gather and organize homework supplies such as pencils, erasers, calculators, paper, etc.
Use school resources during study halls and independent learning times.
Pick a time to do homework that works with the family schedule.
Practice time management strategies and learn to stay on routine.
Turn off cell phones, television or any other distractions during homework time.
Download education apps that can help them focus or set timers during homework time.
Prepare for a test or long-term assignments in chunks, instead of cramming.
Determine personal rewards for achieving their learning goals.
Work with other students who have similar questions or challenges.
Identify and understand their learning style.

Reinforce Effective Homework Habits

Being a great teacher means reinforcing effective homework habits is a critical part of the process. When students complete their homework, be sure to acknowledge it, or the pattern probably won’t continue. And, if students don’t complete assignments, make sure you have consequences in place.

Here are seven things you can do to reinforce good homework habits:

Always check homework: Only assign homework you plan to review and score. Hold students accountable by checking their homework in front of them each day. Taking time to get this system in place during the first month of the school year can really pay off. Once students realize you are the type of teacher who always checks homework, they'll be more likely to complete it. On the other hand, if you’re too casual about homework, students won’t think it’s important and probably won't complete it consistently. Make sure to grade for effort, as this encourages students of all ability levels.
Provide prompt feedback: The sooner a student receives feedback, the more it will resonate. Who can remember the details of an assignment from a week ago? Immediate feedback has a greater impact on student performance than long turnaround times. If a student knows they did well on an assignment, they will feel confident and motivated to move on. If they didn’t do well, you can evaluate why and remediate the situation. But, if too much time goes by, things can start to slip.
Praise students for both performance and effort: Everybody responds well to praise, so find something positive to say about a student’s performance or effort. Make sure your praise is genuine because students know when it’s not.
Use a points system with incentives: Assign points to completed assignments and take away points for missed assignments. Offer age-appropriate incentives for students with the highest number of points. You can also modify this system to incentivize the class as a group. Keep in mind, points systems with incentives are best suited for elementary and middle school students.
Allow make-up work with point deductions: To reinforce the importance of each assignment, give students the opportunity to make up missed work. Enforce consequences for missed assignments, or you will continue to see a pattern. Since every point counts toward a final grade, make sure students understand partial credit is better than no credit at all.
Give students a visual to manage missed assignments: When a student does not turn in homework repeatedly, print out a list of everything that goes into their grade. Highlight each missing assignment and the points associated with it. Some kids may not realize how many assignments they've missed, or how much this impacts their overall grade. Sometimes a visual can help drive the message home.
Offer help when needed: Some students have limited resources, and need to know they can ask you for help or guidance. You can set up help sessions before or after school, during lunch or even over the phone. Also, check with your school district to see what they offer. Some schools have peer tutoring programs, homework hotlines and study centers. You can also set up a study-buddy system in your classroom.

Connecting With Parents

Parents need to understand homework policies and expectations. At the beginning of the school year, let parents know they can contact you anytime to discuss homework or anything else. Make them feel like they are part of the team, and that they can make a difference. A good time to do this is at a parent back-to-school night. If parents don’t show up, you can send them an email or give them a call the next day. Let them know when you are available and the best way to reach you.

If a student is struggling with homework during the school year, reach out to their parents. Although some parents are more responsive than others, it’s a good first step. Some parents may just be unaware of the situation and need to begin reinforcing the importance of completing assignments at home.

When you put all the right pieces in place, you can motivate and inspire students to learn and enjoy the homework process . Encouraging your students to do their homework routinely promotes a love of learning and boosts their confidence . Students typically want to succeed, and giving them the proper tools to do their best work will positively affect them for many years to come.

Check out Our Student Planners

At Success By Design, Inc., we help students plan and organize their homework and other activities. We know that, as a teacher, you want to give your students every opportunity to succeed academically and for the rest of their lives. Check out our student planners to get students on the right track at the beginning of the next school year and view our online special for reduced price assignment notebooks . It will be here before you know it.

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Home / Expert Articles / Child Behavior Problems / School & Homework

“My Child Refuses to Do Homework” — How to Stop the Nightly Struggle Over Schoolwork

By janet lehman, msw.

For many parents, getting their kids to do their homework is a nightly struggle. Some kids refuse to do their homework. Others claim that they don’t have homework, but then the report card comes out, and you realize that their work was not being done.

So why is homework time so difficult? In my opinion, one of the major reasons is that it’s hard for kids to focus at home. Look at it this way: when your child is in school, they’re in a classroom where there aren’t a lot of distractions. The learning is structured and organized, and all the students are focusing on the same thing.

But when your child comes home, their brain clicks over to “free time” mode. In their mind, home is a place to relax, have a snack, listen to music, and play video games. Kids simply don’t view the home as the place to do schoolwork.

If the homework struggles you experience are part of a larger pattern of acting out behavior, then the child is resisting to get power over you. They intend to do what they want to do when they want to do it, and homework just becomes another battlefield. And, as on any other battlefield, parents can use tactics that succeed or tactics that fail.

Regardless of why your child won’t do their homework, know that fighting over it is a losing proposition for both of you. You will end up frustrated, angry, and exhausted, and your child will have found yet another way to push your buttons. And, even worse, they will wind up hating school and hating learning.

A major part of getting your child to do their homework lies in establishing a system so that your child comes to see that homework is just a regular part of home life. Once they accept that, you’ve already won half the battle. Accordingly, my first few tips are around setting up this system. If you get the system right, things tend to fall into place.

Put this system in place with your child at a time when things are calm and going well rather than during the heat of an argument. Tell your child that you’re going to try something different starting next week with homework that will make it go better for everyone. Then explain the system.

You’ll find that this system will make your life easier as a parent, will make you more effective as a parent, and will help your child to get the work done. And when your child gets their work done, they’re more likely to succeed, and nothing drives motivation more than success.

Structure the Evening for Homework

When your kids come home, there should be a structure and a schedule set up each night. I recommend that you write this up and post it on the refrigerator or in some central location in the house. Kids need to know that there is a time to eat, a time to do homework, and also that there is free time. And remember, free time starts after homework is done.

Homework time should be a quiet time in your whole house. Siblings shouldn’t be in the next room watching TV or playing video games. The whole idea is to eliminate distractions. The message to your child is, “You’re not going to do anything anyway, so you might as well do your homework.”

Even if your child doesn’t have homework some nights, homework time should still mean no phone and no electronics. Instead, your child can read a book or a magazine in their room or work on longer-term assignments. Consistently adhering to the homework time structure is important to instill the homework habit.

Start the Evening Homework Habit When Your Kids are Young

If your children are younger and they don’t get homework yet, set aside quiet time each evening where your child can read or do some type of learning. Doing so will help children understand that evening quiet and study time is a part of everyday home life, just like chores. This habit will pay off when the real homework begins.

Use a Public Place for Homework

For a lot of kids, sending them to their rooms to do their homework is a mistake. Many children need your presence to stay focused and disciplined. And they need to be away from the stuff in their rooms that can distract them.

You know your child best. If you think they’re not being productive in their room, then insist they work at the kitchen table or in some other room where you can monitor them and where there will be fewer distractions.

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If they do homework in their room, the door to the room should be open, and you should check in from time to time. No text messaging, no fooling around. Take the phone and laptop away and eliminate electronics from the room during study time. In short, you want to get rid of all the temptations and distractions.

Give Breaks During Homework Time

Many kids get tired halfway through homework time, and that’s when they start acting up. If your child is doing an hour of homework, have them take a 5-minute break every half-hour so that they can get up, have a snack, and stretch their legs. But don’t allow electronics during the break—electronics are just too distracting.

Monitor the break and ensure that your child gets back to work promptly.

Be sure to encourage your child when they’re discouraged. It’s okay to say things like:

“I know it’s a drag, but think of this—when you get your work done, the rest of the night is yours.”

“Look, if you do your work all week, you’ll have the whole weekend to do what you want.”

Show your child empathy—how many of us truly enjoyed homework every night? It’s work, pure and simple. But your child will be encouraged when they begin to have success with their work.

Help Your Child Get Started With Their Homework

Some kids have a hard time getting assignments started. They may be overwhelmed or unsure where to begin. Or the work may seem too difficult.

There’s a concept I explain in The Total Transformation® child behavior program called hurdle help . If you have a child who has a hard time getting started, spend the first five minutes with them to get them over the first couple of hurdles. Perhaps help them with the first math problem or make sure they understand the assignment.

For many kids who are slow starters, hurdle help is very effective. This doesn’t mean you are doing their homework for them—this is simply extra help designed to get them going on their own.

Help Your Child Manage Long-Term Assignments

If your child has a big, long-term project, then you want to work with them to estimate how much time it’s going to take. Then your child has to work within that time frame. So if your child has a science project, help them manage and structure their time. For instance, if the project is due in 30 days, ask them:

“How much time are you going to spend on it each night?”

They might say, “15 minutes a night,” and you hold them to that.

Don’t assume that your child knows how to manage their time effectively. As adults, we sometimes take for granted the habits we have spent a lifetime developing and forget that our kids are not there yet.

Make Sunday Night a School Night

The way that I structure the weekend is that Sunday night is a school night, not Friday. So if your child has homework for the weekend, and as long as they’re done all their work for the past week, they get Friday and Saturday night off and can do their homework on Sunday night.

If there’s a project or something big to do over the weekend, then work with your child to budget their time. They may have to put some time in on Saturday or Sunday during the day. But other than that, your child should have the weekend off too, just like adults do.

The Weekend Doesn’t Begin Until Overdue Work Is Done

If your child has overdue homework, their weekend shouldn’t begin until those assignments are done. In other words, Friday night is a homework night if their week’s work is not complete.

Believe me, this is a highly effective consequence for kids because it creates a great incentive to get their work done. Indeed, each minute they’re doing homework is a minute they could be hanging out with friends or playing video games.

If you can hold to this rule once and deal with the complaining, then next week the homework will be done.

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By the way, if they say they can’t do their homework because they didn’t bring their school books home, they should be grounded for the weekend. You can say:

“I don’t want to hear that you can’t do it because you don’t have your books. You’d better call around and find a friend who you can borrow them from. Otherwise, you’ll be staying in this weekend.”

Make Homework a Higher Priority Than Activities

Kids are involved in a lot of after school activities these days. I understand that. But my priority has always been “homework comes first.”

In my opinion, if the homework isn’t done on Monday, then your child shouldn’t go to football on Tuesday. It’s fine if he misses a practice or two. You can say:

“Here’s the deal. We’re not going to football today. You need to get your work done first.”

If your child says, “Well, if I miss a practice, I’m going to get thrown off the team,” You can say:

“Well, then make sure your work is complete. Otherwise, you’re not going to practice. That’s all there is to it.”

I personally don’t put football, soccer, or any other extracurricular activities above homework and home responsibilities. I don’t believe parents should be going from soccer to karate to basketball with their kids while homework and school responsibilities are being neglected.

Use Rewards for Schoolwork, Not Bribes

Most kids get personal satisfaction out of getting good grades and completing their work, and that’s what we’re aiming for. Nevertheless, it’s important to reinforce positive behavior, and that may mean offering an incentive for getting good grades. For instance, my son knew that he would get a certain reward for his performance if he got all B’s or above. The reward was an incentive to do well.

One of the shortcuts we take as parents is to bribe our kids rather than rewarding them for performance. It can be a subtle difference. A reward is something that is given after an achievement. A bribe is something you give your child after negotiating with them over something that is already a responsibility.

If you bribe your child to do their homework or to do anything else that is an expected responsibility, then your child will come to expect something extra just for behaving appropriately. Bribes undermine your parental authority as kids learn that they can get things from you by threatening bad behavior. Bribes put your child in charge of you.

The appropriate parental response to not meeting a responsibility is a consequence, not a bribe. A bribe says, “If you do your homework, I will extend your curfew by an hour.” In contrast, a consequence says, “If you don’t do your homework, you’re grounded until it’s finished.” Never bribe your kids to do what they’re expected to do.

Use Effective Consequences

When giving consequences, be sure they’re effective consequences. What makes an effective consequence? An effective consequence motivates your child to good behavior. They put you back in control and teach your child how to problem-solve, giving your child the skills needed to be successful.

An effective consequence looks like this:

“If you fall below a B average, then you can no longer study in your room and must study at the kitchen table until you get your average back to a B.”

For the child who prefers to study in their room, this is an effective consequence.

Another effective consequence would be the following:

“If you choose not to study during the scheduled time, you will lose your electronics for the night. Tomorrow, you’ll get another chance to use them.”

And the next day, your child gets to try again to earn the privilege of electronics. Short-term consequences like this are very effective. Just don’t take away this privilege for more than a day as your child will have no incentive to do better the next time.

For more on consequences, read the article on how to give effective consequences to your child .

Be Prepared to Let Your Child Fail

Failure should be an option, and sometimes you just have to let your child fail . Parents often do their kids a disservice when they shield them from the consequences of their actions. If your child chooses not to study enough and they get a failing grade, that’s the natural consequence for their behavior. And they should experience the discomfort that results from their behavior.

Let me be clear. If you interfere and try to get your child’s teacher to change their grade, your child will learn the wrong lesson. Your child will learn that if they screw up enough, Mom and Dad will take care of them. And they don’t learn their math or science or whatever it is they failed.

To be sure, failing is a hard lesson, but it’s the right lesson when your child fails. And it’s not the end of the world. In fact, for many kids, it’s what turns them around.

Don’t Fight with Your Child Over Homework

Don’t get sucked into arguments with your child about homework. Make it very clear that if they don’t do their homework, then the next part of their night does not begin. Keep discussions simple. Say to your child:

“Right now is homework time. The sooner you get it done, the sooner you can have free time.”

Say this in a supportive way with a smile on your face. Again, it’s important not to get sucked into fights with your child. Remember, you don’t have to attend every argument you’re invited to. If your child refuses to do his or her work, then calmly give the consequence that you established for not doing homework.

Also, trying to convince your child that grades are important is a losing battle. You can’t make your child take school as seriously as you do. The truth is, they don’t typically think that way. To get your child to do homework, focus on their behavior, not their motivation. Rather than giving a lecture, just maintain the system that enables them to get their work done. Often, the motivation comes after the child has had a taste of success, and this system sets them up for that success.

Stay Calm When Helping Your Child With Their Homework

It’s important to be calm when helping your child with their homework. Don’t argue about the right answer for the math problem or the right way to do the geography quiz. If you get frustrated and start yelling and screaming at your child, this sets a negative tone and won’t help them get the work done. It’s better to walk away than it is to engage in an argument, even when you’re just trying to be helpful.

For couples, it may be that one of you is more patient and acceptable to your child. Let that person take on the homework monitoring responsibilities. And don’t take it personally if it isn’t you.

Remember, if you can’t stay calm when helping your child, or if you find that your help is making the situation worse, then it’s better not to help at all. Find someone else or talk to the teacher about how your child can get the help they need. And try not to blame your child for the frustration that you feel.

It’s Your Child’s Homework, Not Yours

Remember that your child is doing the homework as a school assignment. The teacher will ultimately be the judge of how good or bad, correct or incorrect the work is. You’re not responsible for the work itself; your job is to guide your child. You can always make suggestions, but ultimately it’s your child’s job to do their assignments. And it’s the teacher’s job to grade them.

Know the Teachers and the Assignments

Build good relationships with your child’s teachers. Meet with the teachers at the beginning of the school year and stay in touch as the year progresses. Your relationships with your child’s teachers will pay off if your child begins to have problems.

And if your child does have problems, then communicate with their teachers weekly. If they’re not handing in their work on time, ask the teachers to send you any assignments that they didn’t get done each week. Many schools have assignments available online, which is a big help for parents. Just don’t rely on your child to give you accurate information. Find out for yourself.

The bottom line is that you want to hold your child accountable for doing their work, and you can only do that if you know what the work is. If you keep yourself informed, then you won’t be surprised when report cards come out.

Work with your child on a system to keep track of assignments. I recommend an old-fashioned paper calendar simply because we already have too many distracting electronics in our lives—experiment and use what works best for your child.

Finally, try to see your child’s teachers as your allies. In my experience, most teachers are dedicated and caring, but I realize that this isn’t always the case. So, for your child’s sake, do your best to find a way to work with their teachers.

If You Think Your Child Might Have a Learning Disability

Kids are expected to do some difficult work, and your child may struggle. If your child is having an especially hard time, talk with their teacher. Ask if it’s typical for your child to be struggling in this area.

In some cases, the teacher may recommend testing to see if your child has a learning disability. While this can be hard to hear as a parent, it’s important to find out so that you can make the necessary adjustments.

If it turns out that your child does have a learning disability, then you want to get an Individualized Educational Plan (IEP) set up with the school.

Most kids don’t enjoy homework, and for some, it will always be a struggle. Our children all have different strengths and abilities, and while some may never be excellent students, they might be great workers, talented artists, or thoughtful builders.

I have to admit that dealing with my son’s homework was one of my least favorite experiences as a parent. It was overwhelming at times. Often, I just wasn’t equipped to offer the help he needed.

Our son struggled with a learning disability, which made the work feel unending at times. My husband James was much better at helping him, so he took on this responsibility. But even with this division of labor, we had to make adjustments to our schedules, our lives, and our expectations to make sure our son did his homework as expected.

Life would be easier if all children were self-motivated students who came home, sat down, and dug into their homework without being asked. This is hardly the case, though. Therefore, you need to set up a system that is right for your child, and it’s going to be easier for some kids than for others.

We’re trying to raise our kids to be responsible and accountable for their homework. And we’re trying to avoid fighting with them over it every night. When I had parents in my office, I would take these concepts and show them how they could make it work for their families in their own homes. The families I worked with were able to turn the nightly homework struggle around successfully time and time again.

Related content: The Homework Battle: How to Get Children to Do Homework

Empowering Parents Podcast: Apple, Spotify

About Janet Lehman, MSW

Janet Lehman, MSW, has worked with troubled children and teens for over 30 years. A veteran social worker, she specializes in child behavior issues — ranging from anger management and oppositional defiance to more serious criminal behavior in teens. She is co-creator of The Total Transformation® Program , The Complete Guide To Consequences™ , Getting Through To Your Child™ , and Two Parents One Plan™ .

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Hello, my grandson recently moved with me from another state. He is currently in 8th grade (but should be in 9th). He basically failed the last 2 years and was promoted. I would say he is at a 6th grade level. It's a daily fight with him to do his homework. He won't even try. I know a lot of this is because no one has ever made him do his homework before. I thought he would just have to get in a routine of doing it. He's been in school for a month now and its a fight every single day after school. I have lost all the patience I had. I am tired of being a broken record and being the "bad guy". I don't want to give up on him and send him back to his mom, where I know he will never graduate. I have made so many sacrifices to get him here, but I am literally at my wits end with this. I knew it wasn't going to be easy but I didn't think it was going to be this hard.

My rule is homework after school. If he comes home and does his homework after school, it was easier for him to complete. That lasted a week and a half. Now, he just sits there and does nothing. Does anyone have any suggestions? I couldn't live with myself if I sent him back and he became nothing but a drop out. I know I am not one to have patience, and I am trying but at the same time, I am almost over it. I don't like going to bed crying and knowing that he is crying too. I am open to all suggestions. Please and thank you.

I'm so sorry you are facing these struggles with your grandson. We here from many caregivers in similar situations, so you're not alone in your frustration. We have several articles that offer helpful tips for managing these homework struggles, which can be found here: https://www.empoweringparents.com/article-categories/child-behavior-problems/school-homework/

We appreciate you reaching out and wish you all the best moving forward. Be sure to check back and let us know how things are going.

Jessicar Thank you for this article and strategies. I echo many of the frustrations expressed by other parents here, including my opinion (as an educator) that homework should not exist. I agree that teachers and parents are in a struggle about which adult is responsible for supporting the child in getting More homework done. The best thing for my son was a free "homework club" in fourth and fifth grade where a teacher monitored completion of homework. He has nothing like this in middle school so far. Where I really disagree with the article is about extracurricular activities. Kids need physical activity through sports! They need enrichment beyond academics through the arts, theater, music. Many families send their children to religious, language, and/or cultural programs after school. If I sat in school all day, I'd want to move my body and interact with others too. The solution is not removing extracurricular activities that are healthy or motivating or valued. The solution is for schools to limit homework. Given that there is still homework as a reality--I'd like advice on when to have child do homework AFTER sports or extracurricular activity. When is the best time for homework if the goal is to go to bed on time (in my house in bed around 9 pm)? Between extracurricular and dinner--when the kid is tired? After dinner? My child is in 7th grade and I still can't figure it out. What do others do/think?

I found school to be extremely boring, as a teen. Looking back I realize that I hadn't found the work challenging enough. Personally, I struggled with this all through high school. I was completely disinterested in school, as a result.

I noticed that there wasn't a section addressing situations where children, who are motivated by challenges, do poorly as a result of boredom.

I enjoy reading many of the articles; even those which don't necessarily apply to my current situations with my child. One never knows what obstacles or challenges one may come across. Thank you

Here's what I know. Correcting our children when their behavior is displeasing is what most parents focus on. Without a lot of explanation I'm going to try to get you to change your focus. All children have 4 emotional needs:

1. A sense of belonging

2. A sense of personal power

3. To be heard and understood

4. Limits and boundaries

Rather than focus on your child's behavior, focus on meeting these needs. Meet the needs, change the behavior. There a 25 ways to meet these needs. One of the most effective is to spend regular one-on-one time with your child doing what your child wants to do. How do you spell love? T-I-M-E. It seems counter-intuitive, but just try it for a week. Do this for 1/2 hour every day for a week. See what happens.

Frustrated Confused Parent, I went through similar challenges with my son when he was in high school. As a grade school student his grades were always B and higher. The changes began when his mother and I separated; my son was 12yo. Prior to our separation I was the one who maintained, and enforced the habit of completing his assignments before extracurricular activities could be enjoyed. His mother never felt she had the patience or intelligence to assist him with his homework assignments and upon our separation she completely ignored his school work. Although he continued to follow the structure I had established through grade school, he soon began to realize that no one was showing interest any longer and, thus, began shirking school related responsibilities. My son and I were, and still are, close. I am certain that the separation likely had some affect on him, but it was more than that. He was reaching his teens and becoming more self-aware. Friends began to play a more integral and influential part in his life. Unfortunately my son's grades began slipping as he reached his early teens. For me, this was extremely frustrating since I was aware of how intelligent he was and of what he was capable. After many aggravating, lengthy, heated, and unyielding conversations with his mother about maintaining the structure established through grade school, it became clear she was incapable or simply unwilling. Essentially, he was on his own. Of course I would do whatever I could to help. For starters, I facilitated a transfer to a Charter School, realizing that he needed more individualized attention than that which a public school could provide. It seemed as though he was getting 'lost in the shuffle'.

Unfortunately the damage had already been done. After two years under his mother's lack of tutelage my son had developed some poor habits.

He struggled with maintaining good grades throughout his high school career. By 'maintaining good grades' I mean that he would take a grading of 45 in math and bring it to a 70 within three weeks of the end of a marking period. He ALWAYS passed, though. He would somehow get his grades to or even above passing by the end of the period. As I began to see this, I began to have more faith knowing that when the going got tough he would step up and take charge. It also indicated that he did well with what might perceive as an impossible goal. So, I started to have faith that he'd find his way.

He has since graduated, he has a good-paying job, and he is beginning school to become an electrician within the next month or so. In two weeks he moves into his own apartment, also. He's never done drugs, never drank alcohol, and never started smoking cigarettes. All of which I have done as a teen and well into my adult years. I am in recovery. My son is aware of my own struggles. Most importantly, I believe, is that he has a complete understanding that we all struggle in our own ways. Working through the difficulties, challenges, and obstacles are what makes us stronger and it's our compassion for others, and ourselves, which help us grow into decent adults.

I came to realize that the 'grades' he received in school had nothing to do with the amazing adult he's become; it was literally everything else.

NanaRound2 My 6 year old grandson has just taken 2 hours to write a list and write 3 sentences. He thinks if the words were shorter it wouldn't take so long. Already went through this with his dad. I celebrated more than he did when he graduated. Can't drag More another kid through school. Losing my mind and like the previous comment have tried EVERYTHING.

Yeah -been there, done that. Doesn't work. At least not for my child. I've read every *actual* parenting book out there ( You know, the books publishes by Harvard & Stanford professors who've been studying parenting and child psychology for the past 30 years?) ... and you're all missing something - because I've tried it all.

My kid DGAF. This was almost painful to read. "oh, yup - tried that one. That one too. Oh, hey - I've tried that as well."

This is so frustrating; tell me something I haven't already tried 50 times.

Psych Fan I'm with you my sophomore son DGAF . I tried so much stuff even set time stuff and he just doesn't go get his work out. He's 5'9 so I am 5'1 and I can't move him to do stuff . All he does is debate with me that More Grades really don't matter that he's like I'm just going to get D's because I'm not going to care to do better because I do not like school. He doesn't understand why I don't approve of D grades because I know he has better potential but he's like D grades I will pass and get my diploma .

The first thing on the list is to try and stay calm. While doing homework with my children I'm usually very calm. When I do get frustrated I'll leave the room for a moment, wash my face, and take a few deep breaths until I calm down. Or I'll make hot chocolate to help calm my nerves. It's not a perfect system, but what is?

Number two is to set clear expectations around homework time and responsibilities. We have a standard homework time at our house, with a timer and everything. If our kids meet the homework time goal they'll be rewarded later in the evening with family time. Each of our kids know their roles and responsibilities in the house whether the work gets done before dinner or not.

Number three is a relationship with the teachers, each of whom e-mail us, some two or three times a day. Contact with them has never been better. They're teachers are all pretty awesome too.

Number Four, play the parental role most useful to your child...I have three kids. One needs no help at all, one needs minor help and advisement, while the third requires constant supervision or their e-mail might 'accidentally' open up. This we've provided through double teaming. One parent works with them until the other gets home, then they switch while the other goes to make dinner.

Five, keep activities similar with all your kids. We all live on the same schedule, if one of them finishes homework early they get the reward of extra quiet reading time-my kids are ALL book worms.

Six, Set up a structured time and place for homework. Done. Homework table with a supplies basket right in the middle of the room. Big enough for all of them to work at and then some, it's an octagonal table which my husband built. I also always have their 'homework snacks' waiting for them when they get home, and I usually try to make it healthy-even if they don't realize it.

Seven, start early. My kids have been doing 'homework' with me since they were babies, and (as I pointed out to them yesterday) they loved it. We'd learn about cooking, dinosaurs, amphibians, insects, math, English, chemistry, even the periodic table came up. We'd do work pages every day and they'd love it.

Eight, hurdle help, works in area's like math, but not so much with history or English when the problems aren't as straight forward. But we do use this method where it applies.

Nine, choose the best person for the job. I'm best at English and my husband at math. When I get stuck on math I know who to go to, and I'll even study in my spare time to get better at it so I can be more useful in case he has to work late. That being said, we both devote a lot of our time to helping our kids with their homework.

Ten, show empathy and support. Done, not only can I relate to my kids, but I've pointed out that not getting their work done will make them feel bad bad enough, and that that's why we should work on getting it done together, so they have something to be proud of.

Use positive reinforcement and incentives. :) There was this one time I sat my son down at a table with a work book about 400 pages long. He was young, not even in school yet. Next to the book I placed a giant bag of M&Ms. I told him for every page he got done, he could have one m&m. About ten minutes later he finished the workbook and grinned up at me. When I found out he'd finished the book, I quickly checked it to see if it was done well, and then pushed the bag of M&M's towards him and told him he could just have it...Now they get rewarded in video games and computer time...

It seems that according to this article I'm doing everything right...So why is my child still struggling with homework/classwork? They've literally just refused to do it. Have seriously just sat in their chair without saying a word and stared at the table, or desk, or screen- as the majority of work is now done on computers...I'll sit with them, ask them if they need help, try to help them with problems. They will tell me the right answer to the questions being asked and then refuse to write it down. I feel like I've done everything I can as a parent to help them, but despite all my efforts, it isn't working. So...when all of these things fail, when a parent has done everything right, and there is nothing more they can do short of taking the pen or pencil into their own hands and doing it themselves, (but that would be cheating their child out of an education) what then should the parents do?

When our kids don't get their homework done before dinner, they're sent down the hall where it's quiet so they can finish it at the desk there, while the other kids have family time. They are told to come and get us if they really need help after that. But at this point it's like ostracizing our child for not doing homework.

I agree with most of what's on this page, and our family lifestyle reflects that, but I will disagree with one thing it said. It is our job to help our kids and be supportive of them yes, to nurture them and help them get the skills they need to take care of themselves and their home when they're older...but it is not our job to do the teachers work for them, they get paid for that. Some days it seems like that's what's expected of parents. Some even send home classwork if the kids don't finish it in class. Which means the child now has even more work to do on top of their homework. Though I understand that the teachers want the child to finish the lesson, and were the homework not a factor I probably wouldn't mind it as much. I don't even mind them sending home study guides to help kids before tests (Which is what homework was originally) but to send home overwhelming piles of work each night for parents to help kids with, (Each child with different homework so that parents need to bounce from history, to math to English) it's unreasonable. When teachers send home homework, they're dictating what the parents can do with the little time they have with their child. Which is wrong. We once had to cancel a trip to a science museum because our child had too much homework to finish and there was no way to make it in time and get their homework done. They could have had an amazing educational experience which would overall help them get excited about learning with new and fun tactile experiences, but their schedule (and therefore our schedule) was being dictated by the teacher while they weren't even in class. Of course I try not to talk bad about homework in front of my children, because that would make it even more difficult to get them to do it. But children NEED family time, they NEED to be kids. To be allowed to get away from their work and be themselves, to go outside and play with their friends, or even go out to dinner once in a while with their parents. Homework has made it difficult to grow a relationship with our children beyond the confines of what the teachers are dictating. It's violating in some ways and frustrating in others. It's grown into this monstrous thing which it was never meant to become, and the funny part about it is that most studies done on it show that schools who don't have homework have higher test scores and graduation rates. Not to mention better mental health rates. Studies also show, that after a child is taught something, they'll only really learn it after a good nights sleep, and that no amount of homework will change that. Sleep is what our bodies need to absorb important information we learn throughout the day, so staying up late with homework might even be harmful to a child's education...

Sorry I guess that turned into a bit of a rant...In the end I was hoping to find something useful in this article, something I hadn't tried that might work, but I've done it all, and will probably continue to do all of it in hopes that consistency might be the key...It's just that even after years of already doing All of this consistently, it's still not working. It's as if my child has made a conscious decision Not to work. He's not unintelligent, he understands it, he's even been tested and found to have an above average ability to learn. He just not doing it..So what now? What more can I do to actually inspire him to do the work?

AshumSmashum Out of all of this, most of which I've read and tried a billion times, your comment hit deeper. My son scores in the 99% on tests but cannot sit down and do the simplest homework. He does have autism and adhd so when he freezes up on homework, despite More knowing it, I'm lost at how to help him get it done. He knows the work so why does he need to show it with 20 math problems after school that take forever to complete one? (whatever honors algebra stuff he's in, I was lucky to learn division lol) He has a high IQ and excels in all subjects and yet is being tutored, so far, in English just to get the work done. I'm so done with the emotional toll it takes on me and him at home. Nobody wants to go to work for 8 hours and come home and do the same for another 5 so why do we think our kids want to come home and do more classwork? I'm so appreciative of your comment!

JC Hi Barb, thank you for bringing this up! My son sounds a lot like you...and he really wants to get good grades and go to an Ivy League school. What could someone do to help an 8th grader in the moment of struggle, while making sure they don't get more More anxious from falling behind for the rest of the year?

Tb Hi Barb, I'm the parent of an 8th grader and I want to thank you for the comment you left here. You helped me look at the deeper issues and I really appreciate that. I'm going to approach the conversation with my son differently, thanks to you. Thank More you!

My 11 year old daughter, Alice, has always helped her 7 year old sister, Chole, with homework. But just recently Alice has been giving Chole the wrong answers. We have been trying to get her to give Chole the correct answers

but she always yells at us. She has a baby sister 2 months named Ray and ever since Ray was born she has been giving Chole wrong answers. I once overheard her and Kevin, my husband, talking about how she felt left out. She came and talked to me and said exactly what she had told Kevin. She also told me she has been getting bad grades and doesn't get her homework. Me and Alice talked and she said "All the cool New York girls get straight A's and ever since I started getting D's and F's they said I wasn't cool anymore." We started having her grandparents come over and she would yell, hit, scream, and talk back to them. She is a great student but she spends all of her time on her phone. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and even at school she is on her phone. All I'm asking is that 1. How do I make her stop screaming, yelling, hitting, and back talking? 2. How do I make her feel cool and get A's again?and 3. How do I get her off her phone?

sounds like you have a number of concerns around your daughter’s behavior, and

it certainly can feel overwhelming. We would suggest https://www.empoweringparents.com/article/its-never-too-late-7-ways-to-start-parenting-more-effectively/ and focusing on just one or two of the most serious, to get

started. Behaviors like verbal or physical abuse would be of top priority,

while behaviors like https://www.empoweringparents.com/article/how-to-walk-away-from-a-fight-with-your-child-why-its-harder-than-you-think/ we would recommend ignoring, and not giving it any power or control.

Empowering Parents author Sara Bean offers some great insight into the reason

for poor child behavior in her article, https://www.empoweringparents.com/article/the-surprising-reason-for-bad-child-behavior-i-cant-solve-problems/.It sounds like your daughter is struggling to

find more effective ways to solve the problems she is facing, and the result is

the acting out behavior. Keep in mind, you can’t make your daughter do anything, but what you can do is help her to

learn better tools to solve whatever problems may come her way. Best of luck to

you and your family as you continue to work on this.

Emma Reed Alice also swears at school and she swears to teachers. Please we have tried everything, even her sister at age 18. What have we done wrong?

Being away from loved ones when they are struggling can be

distressing. It may help to know that it’s not unusual to see changes in

behavior as kids move from the tweens into adolescence, as Janet Lehman

explains in the article https://www.empoweringparents.com/article/adolescent-behavior-changes-is-your-child-embarrassed-by-you/. Normally responsible

kids can start to push back against meeting expectations and disrespect towards

parents and other authority figures can become quite common. The behavior you

describe isn’t OK; it is normal though. I can hear how much you want to help

your daughter and granddaughter

work through these challenges. If your daughter is open to it, you could share

some Empowering Parents articles with her, such as the one above and this one, https://www.empoweringparents.com/article/my-childs-behavior-is-so-bad-where-do-i-begin-how-to-coach-your-child-forward/.

We appreciate you writing in. Best of luck to you and your family moving

forward. Take care.

mphyvr Thanks for all these "strategies", they might work for some parents, but quite simplistic and just plain old common sense for more defiant kids... Thanks anyways and hope this article helps many.

Psych Fan I'm a mom of a sophomore he's also a swearing boy and will have quite a tantrum even with consequences of take away all he does is sleep. He doesn't like school says school is a waste of time and that grades won't matter in his adulthood . He says More it over n over about how schooling won't help him in the future as I go it will help you do good on a ACT and SAT he is like getting good scores on those are only good if your going to college. He also is like jobs won't look at my grades . I tell him homework teaches him responsibility once a job sees your amount of effort in school your going to have a heck of time getting hired. I even ask him how is he going to succeed to work real well at a job when he doesn't work hard at school he goes I don't need to work hard at school but I will need to work hard at a job.

dcastillo68 If it was only this simple, but, in reality it is not. Middle school syndrome is the worst. Kids don't want to be labeled as nerds so they do everything to try to fail. I went through that with my first born, and now again with my youngest. It is More very frustrating when I was the total opposite when I was growing up. I cared about my grades an I took it for granted thinking they will feel the same way. Now seeing how they are happy with just getting by is really frustrating to me because I am such an over achiever. They didn't even get an ounce of this. Very very frustrating. And I wish I have never invited video games to this household. That is all they want to do. I keep using this an incentive to bring them back on track, but as soon as I give them their games back, they are back to their old habits. Sorry, but I can't wait until they are finished with school and hopefully moving out of state to hopefully a college career. I may change my mind later, but at the moment, this is just how I feel. It is very hard too when you don't get any help. I find today's teacher to be lazy and pushing on more responsibility to the parents. Who has time to do a full day's of work, only to do additional work at home? okay, enough venting.

@frustrated single dad Diane Lewis Hi there - I have a son adopted out of foster care. He is 6 1/2 and has been in 5 homes. He is totally the same! They learn this behavior and are incredibly manipulative. They are so insanely smart. I worry about exactly the same thing. They turn on and off the behavior depending on who they are with and what they want.

We did Parent Child Interactive Therapy (PCIT) at the Mailman Center (Jackson Hospital Miami). It made a huge difference in the short-term. They basically taught us to be full-time behavioral therapists with my son. The effects wore off after a few months as my son adapted and found ways to circumvent the consequences techniques taught to us. He is like the Borg! I am going back to get more ideas on how to adapt and change and stay one step ahead of my son. The gals there are really smart!

So, that being said - we have to be Jean Luc Picard and constantly change and adapt and outsmart them - just like changing the phasers on a laser gun! It is bloody hard work. And, harder the older they get -

eg. He drops like a dead weight - throws his book bag and will not get in the car to go to school - response - next morning I headed it off by calling out to the kids "LAST ONE IN THE CAR IS A ROTTEN EGG!" This has worked for 2 days now.

Wont do homework 2 nights ago - response - "ooh I like doing word puzzles - Im going to do them and win" - this worked one night but not the next - he just then just left me to do his work - so I have told his teacher that there will be no school party for Alex next week unless he gets his homework finished - we will see if this works.....

It is totally exhausting and you have to be on your A game all the time. Im telling you this but - I have to tell myself this too. We have to stay really fit (like cross fit) and work out like a marine. We have to be very disciplined with ourselves - a healthy body is a healthy mind - we cannot let up at all. We have to stay calm at all times (again self discipline).

Im always looking for concrete reactions to situations with my son. Like I said - the entire day goes on like this with everything except what he wants to do. Wont get dressed in the morning - put out his clothes in dining room where there are no distractions or toys - tell him that if he gets dressed and ready for school quickly - he can spend the left over time on the trampoline. That worked this morning.

STAY STRONG MY BROTHER IN ARMS!!! If you can get into a PCIT program - do it.

Love to you - R

My child comes home and says he doesn't have homework, does something easy to make it look like he's doing his homework, or says he did it during free time in class. How do you combat this without going to the school everyday? Neither my husband nor I can do More this because of work, and the we asked the teacher's if it was possible to send us the assignments via email or let us come pick them up once a week with no cooperation. He is a very smart kid and gets "A's' on the work he does, but he is failing all of his core classes because he won't do homework.

@atmywitsend , my child is the same way. I'm at my wits end. I feel like I'm a failure as a parent because I thought I taught my smart kid to succeed - and instead she's lying to me.

Psych Fan NinaMays I'm with the same feelings as my son can be above a C student but he choose to go oh I rather just get F's on this work than to actually get at least a B or A on these many assignments.. I ask him why he chooses F's More in many assignments when he could get a grade to bring his grades up and me telling me he's not being his full potential as by making him not do his work how can I truly believe he's going to be successful and he's like I have big brains . Then I'm like why not show me by doing your school work he goes I don't need do that and I show you of my big brains by telling you school isn't important. Telling me I am brainwashed. He is a sophomore in high school.

FRUSTRATED PARENT NinaMays This is my reality too - "relationship" with teachers is difficult when they won't co-operate with homework expectations, or follow up email - the schools complain that kids are on the internet - yet its them providing wifi passwords - so kids are playing in class - lying about More homework - and since I'm not in the class, I have no idea until report cards surface.

Responses to questions posted on EmpoweringParents.com are not intended to replace qualified medical or mental health assessments. We cannot diagnose disorders or offer recommendations on which treatment plan is best for your family. Please seek the support of local resources as needed. If you need immediate assistance, or if you and your family are in crisis, please contact a qualified mental health provider in your area, or contact your statewide crisis hotline.

We value your opinions and encourage you to add your comments to this discussion. We ask that you refrain from discussing topics of a political or religious nature. Unfortunately, it's not possible for us to respond to every question posted on our website.

1. The Homework Battle: How to Get Children to Do Homework
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Teaching Students About What “Ad” Means: A Comprehensive Guide

Navigating cryptocurrency on campus: a student’s guide to bitcoin, teaching students about jay’s treaty: an essential lesson in american history, teaching students about sharon white: an inspirational educator, teaching students about the coaching legends of the steelers: a lesson in dedication, leadership, and success, teaching students about the tim donaghy scandal – learning from history, teaching students about kevin costner’s age: a unique approach to understanding hollywood’s history, teaching students about sonny landham: a journey through the life of a hollywood icon, teaching students about the summer olympics, teaching students about princess margaret’s death: an educational approach, 21 ways to ensure that students complete their homework tasks.

Are you looking for ways to ensure that students complete homework tasks? If so, keep reading.

1. Make sure the learner knows that homework not finished and turned in on time must still be finished and turned in.

2. Get the learner to orally repeat the homework task to reinforce the learner’s understanding of the task.

3. Get the learner to prioritize tasks by importance (e.g., task A must be done today, task B can be done today, and task C can wait until tomorrow).

4. Find a tutor (e.g., a volunteer in the community, one of the learner’s classmates, etc.) to help the learner finish homework .

5. Get the learner to set a timer to finish tasks in a sensible period.

6. Provide instructions orally to increase the likelihood of the learner’s comprehension of homework tasks .

7. Urge the learner to follow a less desirable task with a more desirable task . Make the conclusion of the first appropriate to perform the second.

8. Provide consistent expectations within the capacity and ability level of the learner.

9. Urge the learner to set time limits for finishing homework tasks . Urge the learner to be aware of time constraints when working on projects.

10. Urge the learner to say a mantra to themselves when they bring work home (e.g., I will finish, I will finish, I will finish).

11. Reinforce all measures of improvement.

12. Connect with the learner’s parents about the need to create homework rules at home (e.g., start homework upon arriving home from school, finish homework before watching TV or talking on the phone, ask for help when appropriate, etc.).

13. Urge the learner to lessen the number of visual distractions around them (e.g., move their work area away from windows, doors, kitchen, TV, etc.).

14. Urge the learner to put finished homework tasks in a designated place to be taken to school (e.g., in front of the door, at the bottom of the stairs, etc.).

15. Create homework task rules: • Remain on-task. • Finish tasks. • Meet task expectations. Examine rules often. Praise students for following the rules.

16. Urge the learner to select exciting or stimulating learning activities as a reward for finishing less exciting learning activities (e.g., finish homework before going to the mall).

17. Get the learner to keep a chart or graph representing the number of homework tasks finished and returned to school.

18. Urge the learner’s parents to check over their child’s homework when they are finished so the learner can be sure that everything is finished.

19. Connect the learner to other resource persons who may be of help in performing homework tasks (e.g., librarian, special education teacher, other staff members with expertise or time to help, etc.).

20. Connect with parents (e.g., notes home, phone calls, etc.) to disseminate information about the learner’s progress. The parents may reinforce the learner at home for returning finished homework to 21. Consider using an education app to help the student sharpen their organizational skills. Click here to view a list of apps that we recommend .

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COMMENTS

How to Do Homework: 15 Expert Tips and Tricks
Here's how it works: first, set a timer for 25 minutes. This is going to be your work time. During this 25 minutes, all you can do is work on whatever homework assignment you have in front of you. No email, no text messaging, no phone calls—just homework. When that timer goes off, you get to take a 5 minute break.
Brainly
Get personalized homework help for free — for real. Join for free. Brainly is the knowledge-sharing community where hundreds of millions of students and experts put their heads together to crack their toughest homework questions.
How to Get Children to Do Homework
Stay focused on your job, which is to help your child do their job. Don't do it for them. If you feel frustrated, take a break from helping your child with homework. Your blood pressure on the rise is a no-win for everyone. Take five or ten minutes to calm down, and let your child do the same if you feel a storm brewing.
Making Homework Easier: Tips and Tools for Parents
Step 1: Set Up Your Child for Success. Your child's study environment can have a significant impact on their homework performance. Create a space that is free from distractions like the television, smartphones, or noisy siblings. The study space should be comfortable, well lit, and have all the necessary materials your child might need, such ...
Homework Help: Everything You Need to Know
The Toronto District School Board offers a simple guideline to help determine how much homework is appropriate at each grade level. Following the guideline of 10 minutes per grade level, each grade should have this amount of homework: 30 minutes in Grade 3. 40 minutes in Grade 4. 50 minutes in Grade 5.
How To Motivate Your Child To Doing Their Homework
Low self-confidence. 2. Make Homework Time Easier. Make study time as easy as possible for your child by providing him or her with everything needed to get work done: Quiet space: Find a quiet, distraction-free space for your child to study. Food and drink: If your child is hungry, it can be hard to focus on work.
Ten Homework Motivation Strategies for Children and Teens
Reinforce breaking up homework time into manageable chunks and encourage taking regular breaks. Encourage moving around and walking away for a bit. Remind that an apple really does provide the ...
How to Create Effective Homework
But to get those elements to work, said Fires in the Mind author and speaker Kathleen Cushman, students must be motivated to do their homework in the first place. One example Cushman gave was creating a project so interesting and involved, students naturally wanted to keep working on it after the bell rang. She pointed to a chapter in the book ...
How to Improve Homework for This Year—and Beyond
A schoolwide effort to reduce homework has led to a renewed focus on ensuring that all work assigned really aids students' learning. I used to pride myself on my high expectations, including my firm commitment to accountability for regular homework completion among my students. But the trauma of Covid-19 has prompted me to both reflect and adapt.
13 Ways to Make Homework More Meaningful and Engaging
4. Incorporate people whom students admire in their assignments. Students are motivated when asked to share what they know and feel about these folks. We are a society of heroes, and young adolescents are interested in talking about and becoming heroic figures. 5.
Tell us your homework tips
By The New York Times. Oct. 27, 2021. The school year is underway, and homework sheets, tests and papers are piling up. As we all adjust to a more normal school year, we'd love to hear your best ...
How to help a child with their homework
Make a plan before the school year begins, so you can set them up for success. Reach out to your child's teacher. Ask what their homework expectations are: how much there will be, when it should be turned in, and so on. Set expectations with your child. Speak with your child about their teacher's expectations - as well as yours - for ...
How to Get Kids to Do Their Homework and Raise Self-Starters
This avoids any assignments being turned in late. Make sure kids have some downtime: After a long day of school and activities, kids need a bit of downtime before digging into homework. "Most kids need at least a half hour to unwind," Dolin suggests. This downtime helps kids recharge and increases their ability to focus.
Successful Homework Habits for Beginning Learners
Let them show you their work and praise them for finishing homework. Be encouraging — it will make a difference. Get ready for your child to go back to school with our guide — it's full of recommended books, teacher tips, homework help, and more resources for a successful school year. Shop workbooks and other effective materials to support ...
Why Homework Is Important to Kids and Parents
Self-regulating the task of homework helps kids figure out how to manage their own workloads and increases their ability to act autonomously and responsibly. Homework always has a due date, and taking on this due date—with the responsibility of meeting it—encourages independent thinking and problem solving. If learned properly, time ...
16 Ways to Motivate Students to Finish Their Homework
3. Repeat instructions to increase the learner's likelihood of comprehension. 4. Make sure the learner has learned the ideas presented at school. Homework should be a form of practice for what has been learned at school. 5. Get the learner to create a specific time each evening to work on homework tasks. 6.
How to Help Kids With Homework
You can make suggestions, but your child must do the work for meaningful learning to take place. Have patience, allow them to struggle a little, and resist the urge to simply give them the answers ...
28 Ideas On How To Make Homework Fun For Students
Working on homework teaches children that work is a part of life, not just school, and fosters friendship without being overpowering. 5. Design an Awesome Workspace. Improve the area where your kids complete their schoolwork to increase efficiency, creativity, and problem-solving abilities.
What's the Right Amount of Homework?
The National PTA and the National Education Association support the " 10-minute homework guideline "—a nightly 10 minutes of homework per grade level. But many teachers and parents are quick to point out that what matters is the quality of the homework assigned and how well it meets students' needs, not the amount of time spent on it.
How to Get Students to Complete Work
Keep your tone positive and let students know what to expect regarding workload. Clarify how you will grade homework and the consequences of missed assignments. Spell everything out in a homework contract and have students sign it. Just make sure to explain it, too, so the information sinks in. 3.
PDF Homework: A Guide for Parents
overwhelmingly support homework because it gives them a way to monitor the quality of their children's education. BACKGROUND Research shows that the benefits of homework are more evident at the high school level than at the elementary or middle school level (Cooper, 1989). There is little question that parental involvement in
I haven't done my homework, what should I do?
I've not done my homework!! Tell your teacher. If you can see early on that you might have an issue with completing homework before the due date, try telling your teacher as soon as you realise ...
My Child Refuses To Do Homework
Don't get sucked into arguments with your child about homework. Make it very clear that if they don't do their homework, then the next part of their night does not begin. Keep discussions simple. Say to your child: "Right now is homework time. The sooner you get it done, the sooner you can have free time.".
21 Ways to Ensure That Students Complete Their Homework Tasks
7. Urge the learner to follow a less desirable task with a more desirable task. Make the conclusion of the first appropriate to perform the second. 8. Provide consistent expectations within the capacity and ability level of the learner. 9. Urge the learner to set time limits for finishing homework tasks.