My Kid Won’t Do His Schoolwork! Now What?
I see a variation of this on recent facebook threads and message boards, so while I’m not here to write too much about pandemic schooling in particular, I do want to address the fact that many families are pulling their kids out of school to homeschool because of the pandemic. For many, it’s a harsh adjustment, and getting kids to obey/follow through on their schoolwork seems like a daunting task.
For perspective, as a second generation homeschooler, I always call my mom for advice when my kids are acting up. She emphasizes that while we of course homeschooled for academic excellence (my parents are both trained educators, and my brothers and I were academically advanced), the most important thing about our homeschooling was teaching us character. Of course you can work on character with your kids when they are in school, but having them home is a chance to really address integrity, respect, honor, grit, and all the character traits you want to imbibe all through the day, as well!
So my mom always encourages me to really sift through and decide whether a child who is not wanting to do their schoolwork is doing it because of a character fault or if there are other factors. For two of my kids, who are gifted, boredom is a real issue (that's why my mom pulled me out of school in kindergarten--I was bored out of my mind and acting out), but that's not a character flaw. For my other two school age kids, the issue is often frustration because of lack of comprehension, but that's not a character issue. Sometimes the work is not developmentally appropriate, and I always encourage moms of kindergarten through second graders to offer to “scribe” the answers or let the child answer orally if it seems the root issue is really just being sick of writing things down. Children don’t need to spend hours a day writing answers in a workbook if they could demonstrate their comprehension to mom in less than five minutes! So resistance to formal schoolwork is not always rooted in disobedience or actually hating homeschooling.
But sometimes a kid’s refusal to do his or her assignment is rooted in a character issue. Often it's laziness, which is a character flaw I have to address. (My oldest spent a month last spring grounded because he let his math slide two letter grades in two weeks--the consequence was locking him out of his gmail, video chatting with friends, and electronics use until he had proven to me each day that he had been responsible and accomplished all the tasks his online teacher and I assigned him.) Sometimes it's restless energy, which is where it's so hard with everyone being stuck inside during a pandemic. My kids simply don't like the online exercising, while they never complained about dance class or martial arts. The best success we've had while all our activities are still on zoom is taking long family walks whenever the evenings are nice enough. And of course, if it’s possible where you live, make sure your kids are heading outside for a solid half hour of recess every morning (ours is from 10:30-11 am) and as much of the afternoon as possible. Bike, jump rope, play hopscotch, do cartwheels in the grass, play tag, and otherwise get them moving their bodies!
All of this is to say that this is HARD, but the bright side can be that if you fear that your child is a quitter in other areas of life, you can use this opportunity to really focus on the positive, HAVE GRIT! message every time you see the laziness come out. Just like every other of parenting, consistent and calm reinforcement of our family values goes a long way. But definitely don't assume that every time a child protests against homework, it's because they're a quitter.
