Does your kid cooperate with homework assignments?

Vanessa Doofenshmirtz · February 2012

I tend to get too wrapped up in the special needs/autism we're dealing with, and I know that some challenges are probably more universal. So before I go trying to get advice from the teachers, therapists, doctors, etc., is it typical for your 3 or 4 year old to resist or completely refuse to do homework assignments?

They are fairly rare, and meant to be fun and age-appropriate. The one we've struggled with all week is to have him sign his name to 21 valentines for his classmates. We've gotten him to do...zero. He did scribble on one. We know he knows how to write his name, he does it at school every day (they sign in). Another example, they each took home a poster with a letter (his was "T") and were to find and glue pictures/objects that start with that letter.

I just can't find a positive way to motivate him and it gets frustrating for both of us. DH started to do it for him and I said "absolutely not." He tends to be pretty lazy (which sounds harsh...but kiddo won't do anything for himself because he thinks someone else will do it for him).

How important is to stick to your guns on NOT doing kids' homework for them, even if it means sending them to school with an incomplete assignment? It's embarrassing for me that I can't get him to do something his teachers can, but I'd rather be embarrassed than reinforce something that could hurt him down the road.

We try to make it fun, positive, rewarding, etc., but he gets so distracted or just flat out refuses. He is very smart, all the adults who deal with him agree, but he is pretty unmotivated. He already told me he doesn't want a job and just wants to live with me and let me take care of him when he grows up. Reach for the stars, little man!

Wally3 · February 2012

My son is 3 and goes to speech classes at the local pbulic school. Yes it is difficult sometime to get him to do his homework - which is usually saying words. I try to break it up into small chunks. I would lean towards allowing him to go in not having homework done and allowing him to have natural consquences. I would probably check with the teacher and see if she agrees.

KL777 · February 2012

Rarely does DS cooperate with homework the way I would like him to. I figure at this age---I just let him do the amount of homework he wants to do and send in partially completed assignments. I don't want to make homework a "negative experience" for him.

KathrynMD · February 2012

my DD doesn't get any homework at this point, but even if she did, I doubt I'd spend anytime enforcing it. If I had DD put her name on her Valentine's it would take approximately 20 days - no thank you!!

penguingrrl · February 2012

My daughter doesn't get homework. That was a critical criteria to me in choosing a preschool. I don't think homework is age appropriate until a child is 6+ (so 1st grade).

kmhunt11 · February 2012

I am surprised there are so many preschools that give homework of any kind. By the time these kids are done with school in the afternoon they are exhausted. They are tired of the school thing and being told what to do and sticking to a schedule. I don't think they're building any study skills or academic skills by having homework. If you really feel like it needs to be done, maybe present it as a Mommy/DC project for fun and don't tie it into school at all. I would not be on board at all with homework at this age, but understand that you don't want your child to see you undermining the teacher by blowing it off. Maybe you could suggest that they make it, and present it as totally optional. It's really not developmentally appropriate for them to continue schooling after school is over.

lite-bright · February 2012

Have you talked to his therapist(s) about this? Maybe they have some ideas for motivation.

A lot of this sounded familiar, because I've been going through the same thing for DD1's V-day party tomorrow. Our teachers also asked us to let the kids sign their names. It's a LOT of times signing their names, when she's used to only doing it once a day -- 16 students, plus four teachers/therapists. Her teachers suggested that we have her do just a few each day, so we've been working on it since Saturday. She would give out between 3-5 (depending on how the day was going) and just be done with it for the time being.

A few things that worked for us:

- letting her choose pen vs. marker (much easier to write with than crayon or pencil), which color she wanted to use, etc.

- letting her know who each one was for. If she knew that "this one is for Ms. Geri" or "this one is for Michelle", she was more likely to cooperate.

- Asking "But how will they know who it's from if you don't sign your name?" so that she would think about the fact that there was a purpose for what we were asking her to do.

- Lots of praise and admiration when she finished each one; buying enough extras that we could throw out the ones she felt that she "messed up" on rather than try to convince her that whatever she'd done was okay.

- Doing them right before something she wanted to do more. So I would say, "Let's sign your name four times and then we can do _____!" and she'd be less likely to dawdle over it.

- Knowing when enough was enough. Both for each little signing session and overall. DD1 signed her name to 17 valentines over the last few days, and we didn't quite get to the last few tonight before she ran out of gas. So I forged her "signature" on the last couple of kiddie cards and will have her sign one last card for a teacher in the morning. I'm fine with that, at age four, for v-day cards -- she did the vast majority of the work, did it well, and certainly accomplished the point of the "assignment."

luvmagoldn · February 2012

Our "homework" sounds like yours. About once a month each child gets the share bag to bring home. Last time they had to bring in two things that started with the first letter of their name. I let them know a couple days ahead to start thinking about it and both boys did fine - that their 2 to 3 items in the bag on the day they needed them.

Their only other "assignment" so far was to sign all their valentines themselves. The teacher suggested starting a few days ahead so they only had to sign a few each day. This worked great for us. The first night DS#2 did two then resisted doing anymore. But I kept working with him and he finished his set for the night.

I don't anticipate any more assignments though. How often does your DS have these types of tasks to do at home? Maybe that's more the issue - not the task itself but just too often?

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