Kids & Homework - creating a more joyful duo!
Homework battles rampage through a lot of households but there are things you can do to decrease the battles, increase motivation and help your child engage with the work that needs to be done.
What do you think about homework?
A waste of time, a nightmare, a nasty old chore, something you hated at school, stress & anxiety-inducing?
Or
An opportunity to delve into an interesting topic, a chance to consolidate the days learning, time to get to grips with something that's a struggle, something that helps teach self-motivation and self-discipline?
Your thoughts matter because your child will pick up on them and will probably mirror them back at you. If you've been looking at homework in a negative light, can you help yourself and your child reframe it into something more positive?
before homework
According to Nancy Kline of Time to Think, how people are treated when they are thinking either helps or inhibits their thinking. Your role as a parent is to consciously create an environment that is conducive to helping your child think well.
In brief your child will think well if you are able to give them your easeful attention, and if you appreciate and share with your child what is valuable about them and if you encourage them to think beyond the limits they may have set for themselves through comparison with others. Your child is distinct from you, they will think differently to you, and if they know this difference is accepted and celebrated it will help them to think freely and problem solve better as will your belief that they are equally able to think well for themselves. Children often come home from school with a lot of pent up emotion, releasing feelings restores equilibrium and promotes thinking. Having information on the topic to be thought about is essential. Minds works best in the presence of a good question, posing one that helps your child think positively about themselves will help. Place too is important and needs to work for your child.
What does this mean in practice?
To be able to give your child easeful, attention and appreciation you need to be in the right frame of mind to do so. Do what is necessary to allow for this, including examining your own stess and anxiety around homework and using tools such as breathing and organising your day as far as possible to allow time for supporting your child through homework.
Allow for a release of your child’s pent-up emotion with an afterschool routine for example…sit together for ten minutes with a snack and drink while your child downloads their day, just listen and be present, squish the desire to fix any problems. When the ten minutes is up play one dance song and jump about together or march about while singing. Movement gets the blood and feel good hormones flowing and shifts negative emotions.
Get your child to tell you about the tasks they have and how they plan to approach it, avoid dictating or trying to control the plan - remember they think differently from you. Your interest will give them encouragement and show you trust they are equally able to find a solution. If, with your more extensive experience, you see flaws in their plan, simply invite them to experiment with their plan, sending the message that mistakes are ok and just help inform us when reviewing and replanning.
Find a suitable area for your child to work. Some children prefer tables and chairs and some prefer the floor, some children like company, others like solitude - go with your child's preference.
Check your child has the information they need to get on with the task and support them as needed to access it.
A hypothetical question can help cut through doubts in your child's mind about their ability to get their homework done well. You can play with the formation but something along the lines of ‘If you knew you are brilliantly capable, what bit of homework would you do first?’ This allows their mind to play with being brilliantly capable even if they don’t quite believe it and helps them gain forward momentum.
Tell your child something you love about them. When your child hears sincere, positive things about them it helps to calm their amygdala and reduces stress hormones.
These ten things - appreciation, ease, attention, feelings, difference, information, incisive questions, encouragement & place - make up Nancy Kline's Thinking Environment. Further reading can be found at www.timetothink.com
During Homework…
Set a timer - the length of time a child can concentrate will depend on age and ability (have a look at the Pomodoro technique). Keep expectations reasonable. If your child loses concentration before the timer goes off, take note of the time, if possible encourage them to keep going with a simple question like ‘What more can you do with the time you have?’ Sometimes it may be better to adjust the time to a length you know they can concentrate for and slowly increase it over time.
Be available to offer easeful attention, encouragement and appreciation when needed.
Take a short break between concentration time.
What's important
Most parents want children who are self-motivated and independent but many use bribes, punishment and rewards as motivation to get homework done. This kind of motivation is known as extrinsic, which means the child is only motivated because of some external influence. What works better long term is to work on developing your child's intrinsic motivation, this is when your child does homework because it makes them feel good - they see it as personally beneficial.
If you have been using punishments and rewards, stop!
While they may work in the short term they won't work in the long term and will probably have a detrimental effect on your child's ability to be motivated as an adult. If your child has been used to this kind of system, they will need time to adjust but stick with it. Be ready with your own calming techniques so you don’t lose the plot and yell.
Explore with your child how it feels to finish their homework, focus on appreciating their effort and process and empathise when they are struggling. Empathising doesn't mean allowing them not to do their homework because you feel sorry for them or can't bear to see them struggle, it just means showing that you understand how difficult it can be to stick at things they find hard.
If your child rages or meltdowns over homework, connect with them - perhaps a hug or a back rub, show empathy and understanding in as few words as possible. Creating an easeful, attentive, safe environment will help them move from their current state to one where they can think well again.
Perhaps give them in fantasy what they can't have in reality…'Imagine if we could blast your homework up to a martian and they could do it all for you, turn it into a paper aeroplane and zoom it back into your school bag.
When they're calm again, say let's give this homework a go for ten minutes and then we can giggle out these grumps. After ten minutes allow a short boundaried burst of play - chasing them, being silly, dancing about, or marching while singing a made-up motivational homework song. We always ended play with the song from Snow White ‘hey ho, hey ho it’s off to work we go' and marched back to work but anything that signals it's time to give work another go is helpful to ease the transition from play.
If this all sounds very time-consuming, that's because it is, but this won't be forever and it’s certainly no less time-consuming than locking horns over homework and dealing with the emotional fallout afterwards. You're helping your child develop mechanisms for coping when they find something difficult, for learning how to regulate emotions, for building self-motivation, you're deepening your bond with your child and creating an environment in which they can think well for themselves. So there's a lot of good stuff bundled up in this time you're spending.
Don’t think it will work for your child? Get in touch so you can think through a method that will work for you and I can answer any questions you may have. Whatever you do, don’t resign yourself to the homework battles because they don’t have to happen - promise!
