Motivating a teen to do homework

ska_lover

svain wrote: »

Free range parenting because i dont agree with your homework regime .... do me a favour :rotfl: .... Sending them away to do homework for hours on end is the easy option. Interacting, engaging and sharing time & interests with them is the more difficult task and as kids far more beneficial to them in the long run.

No one has said anything about 'sending them away for hours on end to do homework'

Parents have their part to play too and the second part of your paragraph is a completely different topic about family time




Classic case of tick box, middle class, social media, bubble type modern parenting
You say this in response to my comment about social housing being impossible to gain these days. Your response confuses me. The fact that social housing is impossible to get is not really anything to do with any kind of good or bad parenting - more of a societal issue. There is nothing 'middle class' about expecting your kids to do homework

Writing them off because they may not do well at school is more toxic to them than not achieving a few certificates. Believe it or not, in the real world success can happen in spite of school not because of it and brow beating them into submission is the easy option, that rarely works long term

No one has mentioned anything about 'writing them off because they don't do well in school'' ..that would just be sad. Not all are academic but all teenagers do need to learn work ethic. There needs to be a balance, and they need to know that just because at times they 'don't really feel like it' work still needs to be completed.

My point is about getting a good work ethic installed in lazy teenagers, not banishing them to their bedrooms, neglecting them from family life or writing them off.

Yes in the real world success can and does happen in spite of qualifications, However success does not happen to the lazy who do not put in the effort and will not land in anyone's lap if they sit and wait for it to come and don't put in the effort to what they want to achieve

iammumtoone

mattpaint wrote: »

You're going to have to start putting your child ahead of your own needs. Sit next to him for two hours and make sure he does his homework. If he doesn't then he loses everything until he's willing to try again.

Comments like this are not helpful did you read the OP they are not leaving their son to go out parting every night they have to work.

I am having my own problems with my son and have had the same said to me. I know he comes first but keeping my job is also very high on the list what comes first, if I lose my job due to getting the sack as I am having to put my son first, then I haven't put him first as it could happen that we lose our home due to not being able to pay the mortgage/bills.

Its a very easy statement to make and whilst everyone knows its true in reality if you are in danger of losing a job you can't manage due to your childs needs then its a difficult situation.

iammumtoone

Have you spoken to the school regarding the difficulties at home, could they help by allowing him to do some off-line homework? Are they able to provide print outs of the homework?

When he has to watch a video for 3/4 hours could you watch it with it, then could he type the written work in Word, the router could be turned off for that part. If the written work needs to be submitted on line then either copy and paste or ask the school if he could be allowed to submit it printed.

ska_lover

iammumtoone wrote: »

Comments like this are not helpful did you read the OP they are not leaving their son to go out parting every night they have to work.

I am having my own problems with my son and have had the same said to me. I know he comes first but keeping my job is also very high on the list what comes first, if I lose my job due to getting the sack as I am having to put my son first, then I haven't put him first as it could happen that we lose our home due to not being able to pay the mortgage/bills.

Its a very easy statement to make and whilst everyone knows its true in reality if you are in danger of losing a job you can't manage due to your childs needs then its a difficult situation.

Sorry to butt in to this

This is the same issue that every family in the word has, time management...and unless both parents are working permanent evening shifts/weekends then they haven't got any more difficulties than anyone else..we all have to work

What is wrong with setting them up doing homework at the kitchen table, whilst the parent keeps an eye and preps the evening meal for example - it doesn't have to mean constant hovvering or doing the homework for them, more the fact they know they will get caught if they start browsing the internet - this lad in question he has two parents and in that respect they actually have it easier than many families

svain

ska_lover wrote: »

No one has mentioned anything about 'writing them off because they don't do well in school'' ..that would just be sad. Not all are academic but all teenagers do need to learn work ethic. There needs to be a balance, and they need to know that just because at times they 'don't really feel like it' work still needs to be completed.

My point is about getting a good work ethic installed in lazy teenagers, not banishing them to their bedrooms, neglecting them from family life or writing them off.

Yes in the real world success can and does happen in spite of qualifications, However success does not happen to the lazy who do not put in the effort and will not land in anyone's lap if they sit and wait for it to come and don't put in the effort to what they want to achieve

You are, by suggesting they deserve nothing better than social housing.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Most school internet connections block games and computer rooms are monitored by staff - it would be madness to leave 30 Year 9s unattended around expensive equipment, after all.

Take his computer away, take his phone away and he'll either have to do his homework at school or not at all, with the result that if he's in detention completing it, even though it isn't so much of a punishment anymore, he is at least doing it.


IIRC, you deal with nice, amenable little ones, rather than hulking, sulking Year 9s. The vast majority of them start sorting themselves out in Year 10, most of the remainder do so by the start of Year 11 - with or without parents hovering over them and watching every keystroke (and that would drive me absolutely bonkers right now, never mind as a stroppy teenager).


So it could be a plan to confiscate both phone and laptop or simply change the wifi password/not top up his data. It's then up to him what he does with his time outside of detentions - if he's short on friends (also something that tends to sort itself out in the next 6-9 months) or hobbies, he's going to have to do something to occupy his time - and if he's really that incapable of occupying himself without a screen, he's going to have to improve his homework/behaviour to get it back for the summer, isn't he?

ska_lover

svain wrote: »

You are, by suggesting they deserve nothing better than social housing.

Once again, what you are accusing me of, has never actually been said, or anything resembling it

You seem to want to argue, I will make it easy - you win.

Simple_Soul

Just a few thoughts:

1. Why would you ban homework at the weekends? As someone has already said, it is inflexible and puts a lot of pressure on weekdays.

2. As someone else has already said: 2 hours is a lot for his age. The rule of thumb is 10 minutes for each school year; so a Year 9 should be doing 90 minutes (1.5 hours) a day, including weekends. This amounts to about the same as 2 hours every weekday, but it is less concentrated, and therefore less pressured.

3. If he gets pocket money, could you increase/decrease it relative to improvements/deteriorations in his end-of-year results? His schoolwork is his job right now, and this would reflect how the adult world works. When I was at school, we had a report taken home at the end of each year with a percentage for each subject. If the OVERALL AVERAGE percentage for all subjects decreased by, say, 17%, you could decrease his pocket money by 17% for the next 12 months. By the same token, if his overall average percentage increased by say, 5%, you would increase his pocket money by 5% for the next 12 months.

4. Boys take longer to mature than girls. I suspect he will turn a corner soon anyway.

bylromarha

Thanks to those of you who actually took time to read my posts and suggest ideas rather than jump to criticise. Particularly love the MAKE HIM DO IT posts - the whole point of this thread was to ask how. I'm wondering if I'm supposed to hold his fingers to make him type, thus making him do it?!

He's done his homework in the kitchen since year 7, we're often in there while dinner is being prepared, making drinks. Hubby set up teen viewer, where you have their screen mirrored on your own screen, so hubby could call him out when he starts playing games. Doesn't stop him game flicking.

We don't allow weekend homework as we're under the opinion that 20 hours to complete it during the week is more than adequate. If he chooses to not use that time for his homework, then it's his own fault.

Can't turn the router off as he needs to constantly research for homework on the internet and all his homework tasks are on there as well as both hubby and I using it for our work in the evening. No point whitelisting sites, due to internet searching needed for homework, or blacklisting sites, due to game sites being infinite.

If we took his laptop away, he would fill his time with reading. Anything, everything, the toilet cleaner label would be on his list if you took every book out of our house. He does not do much else.

Pocket money is non existant for him, he forgets to claim it.

The age he's at, the life stretching out before him means very little to impact the behaviour now.

Too many other points to address, but if you read my 2 posts, most of them would be answered.

Daughter had her parents evening this week, and surprisingly 1 teacher began talking to me about son. As a result the SENCO is now involved. I'm fully aware this isn't a magic bullet, but school is beginning to make links between different inschool behaviours I wasn't aware of and his lack of focus in school/homework.

2 things for me to take away from this thread

1) Investigate apps which mean his laptop alone has limited internet time - if he hasn't done the research based tasks or found out the homeworks he's been given within those times, then tough. He can still type things up/write things without internet access.

2) MSE sadly still has too many users on it IMO who just seem to want to pick a fight, don't bother to read posts or criticise rather than help. I do miss the days when the site was smaller and people helped each other out on here. Thanks to those that helped or offered advice.

theoretica

I find banning weekend homework rather odd in the circumstances - why bother banning things he isn't going to do?

If he reads when deprived of a laptop one solution would be to have him read useful and relevant books, perhaps talking to teachers about a reading list. He wouldn't get his homework done, but would be learning, which seems to me the more important.