Dissolving the Homework Battle

CONCENTRATION:Making sure a child is being taught at their level and according to their learning style can greatly enhance their ability to focus. (Ariel Marinkovic/AFP/Getty Images)

As a family therapist, I often find parents in a bitter battle with their children over homework. As both sides hold their ground, they fire off at each other with slammed doors leading to denied privileges, or nasty words followed by threats of more punishment. Summer is truce season, and it can be a good time for self-reflection and developing a realistic plan for settling this battle once and for all.

As you sit down to start planning things out, it’s always a good idea to sort out your priorities for your child’s education. Why is this battle worth so much? Most parents have a strong innate commitment to doing/providing everything they can to empower their children to be successful in life—starting with school. However, I have a few other priorities to consider.

Put Family First

Family comes first and foremost. It’s the most important arena in setting the stage for success. There is a lot of evidence that says relationships are the most important factors in determining happiness in life. The most important relationships are with parents and these relationships will set the stage for all that follow.

Consider how your child’s homework battles are affecting your relationship with them. I’m not suggesting being their buddy or avoiding momentary upsets. However, if this battle is permanently damaging your relationship with your child, it’s not worth it. If your child says they hate you, and it seems to last longer than a day, you’re probably doing more damage than good.

Maintain Creative Wonder

What’s really important for your child’s education? Young children like to explore their environment with such vigorous curiosity—they are fascinated with new information. Older kids, especially the ones who struggle in school, say they hate school. The emotion behind this is quite strong and real, so where does it come from?

If a child is surrounded by interesting opportunities to learn new things and a benevolent guide to help them down the path, they will be filled with curiosity and wonder about the world around them. If a child always feels like a failure and pressured to do things they don’t want to, they will try to run away from the situation.

It may be that maintaining your child’s sense of wonder and love for learning new things is more important than the letters on the report card, which are often highly dependent on homework instead of actual learning or educational achievement.

If you keep in mind that your relationship with your child is the real basis of their success in life, and maintaining their creative wonder is the basis of their education, you are ready to help them tackle the reality of today’s school systems—including homework. Hopefully by this point the battle is starting to dissolve and you are getting ready to join your child’s exciting journey and help them learn.

Listen and Connect

What’s causing your child’s difficulty with homework? It’s often easy to see the problem as the child’s fault, assuming they are simply too lazy and undisciplined. However, when I sit down with a child and listen to them about their school problems, I learn the most fascinating things about their struggles and the causes of them.

While you attentively listen as your child explains all the issues that surround their homework not getting done, you may hear a lot of things that sound like excuses. Try avoiding the temptation to interrupt or interject with your own ideas/opinions and just listen. This is a great step toward connecting with your child. A basic rule of relationships is that people are much more willing to listen when they feel they’re listened to.

When you’ve heard (and listened to) all they have to say, you can subtly shift any excuses into more helpful and actionable thoughts. Hopefully, this will open the door to some real problem solving you can do together.

Understand Your Child’s Needs

Each child is unique, but there are some pretty common problems. One problem students struggling with homework often have is poor organizational skills. When this happens, they may not even know what their assignments are and/or have trouble finding the additional materials they need to complete the assignment.

Problems with concentration and attention are also very frequent. This situation arises when they can’t sit still or seem easily distracted. And some children are not being taught at their level. This causes problems for children even when they are ahead of their peers. Some children don’t fit the standard curriculum or learning style and need some adjustment or modification to their instruction. Different problems have different solutions.

One method that helps with many types of homework problems is allowing your child to take breaks from their homework while rewarding them with attention in between. For example, after your child works for 20 minutes, you go outside and play (something they like) with them for 15 minutes. The actual times may vary, even 10 minutes of concentration is ok for some kids. Follow the next concentrated period of homework with another fun activity.

Do you see how balanced this approach is? The fun activity with your child builds your relationship, while keeping them more focused and interested on the homework and they can get their homework done one chunk at a time.

Whatever the problem is, if you can understand your child’s needs, you can end the homework battle. Joining with your child on their educational journey, you will have made great progress.

It is also helpful to identify some baby steps that your child can make toward their homework challenges. For example, if a child who struggles with keeping track of assignments can simply tell you what their assignments are and when they are due, they have made progress and it will be easier for them to get their work done. Identifying and accomplishing one simple goal can build confidence and generate momentum toward the next one.

If you’d like to write me about a specific homework problem you’re having with a child, I’d be happy to address it in a future article. I’d also love to hear about solutions that have worked for you and your child.

Michael Courter is a clinical social worker, family therapist, and entrepreneur in Northern California and can be reached at [email protected] . All the advice and answers provided by the columnist are general in nature and are intended to be used for educational and/or entertainment purposes only. Information provided in this column is not intended to be used as a substitute for specific medical or psychological advice, nor should you consider it as such.