Homework can be a source of tension in many homes. Maybe your child is whining, coming up with excuse after excuse to avoid getting started, swears they’ll get to it later, or can’t find their materials in their messy backpack or where the assignments are located on the portal. Maybe the harder you are fighting them to get work done, the more stubbornly they hold on to their excuses. 

What can you do when you’d like them to just get to work and get it done, without an argument? While there’s no perfect cure, we are excited to share a few ideas which may help!

Who owns this responsibility?

One key to a happier, healthier relationship with your child is to understand when something is their responsibility versus yours as well as what feelings and expectations are yours versus theirs. All parents want their children to be successful in life but that also means we as parents need to do the hard work of letting go of control and allowing our children to accept responsibility for completing their work (or keeping their space neat or managing their hygiene, etc). 

Your success as a parent is not proven by your child completing homework, and while in the day-to-day stresses can make it seem that way, in the longer-term picture, your success is about managing your feelings and how you behave. 

This is really important, so I’m going to say again: your parenting success is not proven (or disproven) by whether your child completes homework. You never know what might happen when you step back and take a new approach. But that doesn't mean throwing your hands up and abandoning them to their fate, don’t worry! We’ll discuss some proactive strategies below. 

Be what you want to see and help normalize struggles

Model successful executive functioning skills yourself! To better understand how you can do this, survey yourself and your behaviors: 

• Do you allow yourself a break when you come home from work (or maybe on your commute home)?

• When you have tasks to do around the home, do you also procrastinate? How do you work through that?

• What time of day do you find that you are most productive?

• Do you give yourself rewards? Do you take things away from yourself or deny yourself a preferred activity when you didn’t get your tasks done?

• What environmental set-up is most conducive to you getting work or tasks completed?

• How do you center yourself and focus when you’re feeling strong emotions or distracted?

• How do you and to whom do you ask for help?

Talk through your routines with your child: why you do what you do, where you struggle, and what you’re doing to help you take control of completing your responsibilities. Discuss together how we all have forms of “homework”, and, as adults, we have to work through many of the same problems! The above bullets can be great starting points for these discussions!

Work with your child

You’ll feel most comfortable letting go of control and letting your child own this responsibility if you first teach your child the tools and set up an environment for getting work done. 

Start with knowing who they are and have a conversation with them about what works best for them, using your own experience (above) as a starting point. This can be done at any age.

You’ll need to understand what the challenge is. What is standing in the way of them completing their homework?  Are they procrastinating and why? Does your child need decompression time? Are they having trouble with organization? Are they having issues with perfectionism or anxiety? Do they struggle to see a purpose to homework (“it’s too easy” “why do I have to do this”)? Are they having challenges completing the work due to academic deficits?

Once you feel you have an understanding of why your student is struggling to complete homework (keep in mind it might be a combination of reasons), you can start to make a plan to meet them where they are. Some questions follow which may help guide you to an environment that is most likely to result in reduced fighting related to homework:

• Where do you want to do your homework? What environment works best for you (alone in your room? In the kitchen where you can easily access assistance or have someone monitor your focus?)?

• What time works best to get homework done? How does this differ on weekdays and weekends?

• Do they need to work in one block or does it need to be broken up? How can they break it up?

• Do they have the tools and materials available?

• Do you need to talk to your child’s teacher about workload or reducing the difficulty of the assignments?

• What level of independence do they want? How will they show that that level of independence is working for them? 

Launch the new homework system!

Now that you’ve established the environment and skills needed to complete homework, you can set expectations and provide lots of praise:

• Set homework time daily or follow a specific order of activities. Having a consistent routine will really help! (e.g., come home, eat snack, homework, dinner, practice instrument, free time OR come home, eat snack, go to practice, homework, dinner, free time OR come home, free time/destress for 30 minutes, homework, dinner, free time)

• Provide specific praise (“thank you for sitting down and completing your homework after snack”)

• Acknowledge and appreciate independence and your child taking ownership (“I’m impressed that you’ve been following your homework plan that you helped create”)

Allow for changes

Keep in mind no system works forever, so you might have to go back to the drawing board a few times. Their activities might change, it might be flu season, you might have a lot going on as a family. Be willing to be flexible and support your child in adjusting as needed. Allowing your child to own the responsibility can be a challenge but in the end, you’ll both be happier and there will be less fighting, at least about homework that is!

Want to keep building self-reliance and giving your child control over their systems and schedules? Check out my article on free apps and extensions for executive functioning skills! If you feel your child needs additional support, contact us about executive functioning coaching! We are a team of tutors in Chicago who also serve suburban areas across Chicagoland. 

About the author:

Tulin S. Akin is a certified school psychologist who has been working as a tutor and Executive Function coach with Chicago Home Tutor since 2015. Prior to CHT, she worked in public schools (elementary and high school) for eight years, after getting her specialist degree in school psychology for Illinois State University. Tulin works with students in all academic areas but has chosen to specialize in EFs after observing the affects of poorly functioning EF skills on student performance and long-term functioning. Her articles are based on reviews of current research literature, texts for practitioners, and hands-on supports for students through college age.