Does anyone have a good way of motivating a 9 year old to do his homework?

Question

Our 9 year old son is in 4th grade and hates homework with a passion. The rules are that homework time starts right after a small snack. He will sit down and get his books out, but he can sit there just staring out of the window for an hour and then spend another hour sharpening a pencil and nothing gets done, unless I sit with him and keep him moving. But we have another son who would also like some attention and I do not have the time or the patience to sit there every afternoon.
Part of the problem is, that he does not get all his work done at school (for the same reasons) and has to finish that at home too.
He has not been tested for ADD and since we are not willing to put him on meds, we don't see the point in testing him. His attention span when playing video games, football or baseball is just fine and math usually gets done fast. But if he has to write or read it takes hours.
We have tried a time limit, no football, baseball if homework is not done, but nothing has worked.

Answer 1

I just went to a meeting at my son's school about this topic last night.

A few thoughts for you:

Put this in the teacher's court. He is responsible to the teacher to turn his assignments in.....the same as an adult is responsible to his/her boss. What are the consequences at school if he does not finish his work? Has he had to suffer the consequences at school before? (Missed recess to complete the work is common here.)

Call the teacher right in front of him and leave a message, "Bob didn't finish his homework last night because he was distracted and goofing off. Just wanted you to know." OR you could have HIM call and leave a message on the teacher's voice mail himself explaining why he didn't do his work.

Email the teacher about what is going on. My son's teacher sometimes calls the kids up and asks them to read their parent's emails! Can you imagine his face?!

Letting him see that you and the teacher will help to keep him from playing you against each other, if he tries that at all. Knowing mom and dad and the teacher are all on the same side is good for him.

My son also has problems with getting distracted.

Try setting a timer. My son is in second grade and gets 30 mins at night to do his homework. If it's not done when the times sounds, then it's packed away. If he gets up early the next morning, he can use any time left after he dresses and eats before the bus comes to try to finish. Find out from your child's teacher how long his homework should take. For 4th grade, I'd guess it's 20-40 minutes of work. (The rule is generally 10 mins per year of school.)

Have you followed through on the threats of no football or baseball?

Make sure he has a good space to work in. All materials available and few distractions. The TV doesn't come on before all homework is done.

Maybe what is productive for him doesn't look like productivity to you. Maybe he could work faster if he could stand up and rock back and forth, shifting his weight as he worked, instead of sitting still. (After all, he's been sitting still most of the day already.)

Give him a stopwatch. Have him see how long he can work before he loses focus. Have him make a graph of how long he goes each day and watch for progress. Giving HIM the stopwatch puts it in his court and makes him responsible for it, because it is HIS job and HE needs to be the one who accepts the responsibility.

OR.....you have a stopwatch and have him race to see how fast he can do it. Can he beat yesterday's time?

Model behaviour for him. When he is doing homework, you sit and write grocery lists, pay bills, write a letter or read a book.

Consider if the homework battle is a ploy for one on one time with you, since you do have another child. Maybe he's taking this fairly negative attention in place of positive attention he could be getting at other times?

To keep him focused, break the work up into chunks. Have him do 5 math problems and then let him run a lap around the house or have a snack. Then set another small goal.

With big assignments, cover up part of the paper so he can only see a few questions at a time. (Kind of like covering the words in a book with your bookmark as you move through the page.)

Experiment with having him get some work done before he eats his snack. Figure out if that makes him more productive or if having the break is good for him.

How old is your other son? Set homework time as the same time period for everyone in the house.

TALK with your child's teacher if you haven't already. Find out why he isn't getting work done in class. Find out how much time they are given in class to do their work and also find out if they have "free work" time where they can work on finishing whatever is not done. Sometimes you may find the homework load is too much because of poorly used class time. The teacher needs to help fix the problem and help get him to work better during school. Find out if there is anyone at school who can work with him on time management and study habits.

Answer 2

My son is 10. He loves maths and history, but hates drawing, writing etc... I'm sorry to say I've also tried every method, but nothing works! I think every person has preferences for some subjects, I remember being exactly the inverse! Doing maths homework simply did not get my interest and I took hours to get over them, when I did them that is! What I do is, I make him do his homework somewhere near me (in the kitchen or any place I am in the house) and keep motivating him when I see he did an effort with his handwriting or drawing... At home, homework time is when I get back from work, so the kids have about one hour to relax before doing it.

Answer 3

You may want to have him tested for ADD even if you aren't considering meds. He could qualify for some accommodations if he is diagnosed with it. Perhaps he may need his assignments shortened since he is unable to finish them in class. You could talk to his teacher about concerns about it, but she would not necessarily have any founded reason to shorten his assignments without an ADD diagnosis. Your son sounds a lot like a student I had last year. I let his guardian know that if he worked on an assignment for over an hour, that was enough. She would send me a note, and I would accept whatever amount was finished. This may be a better way for your son to work because if he can demonstrate his knowledge in 10 problems instead of 20, he has at least demonstrated his knowledge. Talk to his teacher and find out what your options are.

Answer 4

He does not have ADD and don't let anyone tell you differently. My son was diagnosed with ADD and ODD (with no testing whatsoever, they just looked at him). Then I met a child psycologist (who I married in March) and he took my son off of all medications because ADD and ODD are cop-outs. My son has been off of his meds. for 4 months and doing better than ever. You described my son to a T. A child needs rules, stability and a routine and it has worked wonders for my son. As soon as he gets home, he does his homework, we have to remind him to stay focused. He does his chores then has the rest of the day to himself until 8:30 he reads until 9:00. If none of it is done within a timely manner, then he gets grounded the next day and has to go to bed early. It's hard at first but it got drilled in his head the first few weeks and now it's just a routine and it's great. His teacher has even given him a thumbs up for getting all of his work turned in for 3 weeks in a row. If you have any more questions feel free to e-mail me [e-mail], good luck.

Answer 5

You might try:

> Giving rewards, like candy or little toys when he has done his homework successfully
> Consider that he may struggle with perfectionism, or perhaps the work is too easy for him?
> Try hiring a general tutor, it should help a lot for motivation, and just getting started
> Help him yourself, by getting involved. See exactly what work he's doing, and what he needs to do, then suggest some ideas or help him form a plan to get started on the work. Just get in there and take an active role, without doing the work yourself of course, but helping him come up with ideas himself.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

Answer 6

Give him a little free time when he comes home from school for a light snack and running around outdoors.

In the meantime, place his homework on the kitchen or dining room table. Also place a paddle (like a ping pong paddle) on the table. Explain to him he has the choice of doing his homework without complaining - or - a hard bare bottom spanking.

After a few days of this, he will be glad to do his homework.

Answer 7

well, at least he does the math, my gf's kid does the same thing, he spends more time trying not to do the work than it would take to do it. Nothing seems to work either. He has already stayed back a year, and seems to have no grasp at all about the work. His teachers are going to take away his recess time and give him a supervised study time. That may or may not work. Some kids just dont belong in school, some cause they are too smart others just dont get it. that may not be pc, but i think it is true.

Answer 8

that is a bummer i know. I used to hate homework, then i found that one day my parents were really proud of me when i did well. I started thinking of my future etc...

Basically, the way i have rewarded my employees is with incentives. Employees will do the absolute bare minimum to get their hourly, but if you given them incentives, they will actually work.

I used to get incentives if i got straight A's or got in the honor society. Hey employees are like children - right?


So i recommend a punishment incentive program like chores versus corvette. It's a motivator!

Answer 9

He just got out of school...He needs some free play..Its well know for getting oxygen in is body and brain and helps get the wiggles out.

Give him his snack, have him run around with free play to get some oxygen in his brain for about 20 mintues...and then sit him down to homework.

He will be in a good mood from playing.

Answer 10

My older brother had the same problems. We later found out that for one, he needed glasses. His sight problems are what caused him to have trouble with reading etc so he just lost interest in trying. After going to a optometrist and getting him a tutor his grades improved (actually straight A's, made me jealous) and he felt more confident in doing his homework.