Learning, Sharing, and Teaching > Mini Money Mustaches
Looking for homework help/advice for middle school/high school aged kids
MaybeBabyMustache:
I have two middle schoolers. One is very self motivated, gets everything done each day, tracks all assignments in his planner, and has great grades. My second child (who is in 7th grade) is . . . not that kid. He's incredibly bright, but not good at tracking, planning, managing his time, and/or remembering when things are done. Additionally, he often does homework, but fails to complete the entire task. (Didn't listen at time of assignment and/or read the full set of instructions).
We've been all manner of frustrated at home, taken away privileges, assigned extra chores, etc. At this point, I really want to focus on skill building. . . Helping our son develop the skills & capabilities to learn how to organize himself, track assignments, etc.
This is something that comes incredibly naturally to me, so I'm having a hard time stepping back & objectively thinking of how to teach this. Additionally, everything is online. All assignments, tracking, etc. So, there are no paper assignments for me to review and "check off" each evening. I also think he's getting distracted while online "doing homework", so we will find a technical solution to both track/monitor & potentially block any distractions.
I'd love any input from parents who have faced similar challenges, or have found solutions to help their kids. I know that eventually he needs to be able to do this on his own without a lot of parental intervention, but I'm hoping a few months of dedicated skill/teaching time will then allow us to step back & allow him to do this on his own.
jeninco:
The phrase you want to search for is "Executive Function". As in "Developing Executive Function skills in students". Things like using a planner (and learning to write down EVERYTHING), checklists (i.e for when homework is finished), checking in regularly with teachers/for completed assignments, and even stuff that seems obvious, like figuring out how teachers want him to prioritize incomplete assignments (some teachers prefer that heavily weighted assignments be completed first, some prefer that you start with the most recent and work back in history, ...) are all skills that help develop the ability to stay organized and on top of your stuff.
It's pretty typical for kids (especially boys) to not develop super-fast at this, so not being great at it in middle school is not a sign of anything in particular. I worked with a small group of kids doing an Executive Function seminar two years ago, and there were a bunch of exercises we worked through, but I think the material is pretty easy to search out and fairly straightforward.
You may want to think carefully about whether you're the right person to go over this material with him, however: it's one more thing to fight with you about (depending on your kid). Can you meet with teachers/principal and see what they suggest? This is far from a rare problem, and I'd expect (or, um, hope) they'd either have something formal or informal to help kids (especially boys) develop work-around skills for this kind of organizing.
True story -- my group (of 3 15-17 year old boys) and I did several self-tests on things like organization and learning skills, and I consistently tested "worse" then they did. Then I thought about how I keep myself organized with lists, and a paper calendar, and various cues, and always putting stuff like keys in exactly the same spot...
marion10:
I agree with the Executive Function- we had my son tested in 5th grade and he was classified as having a learning disability - his grades were not commensurate with his IQ. What this got him was an Individual Education Plan and a Resource teacher in a small group the last period of the day who helped him organize his stuff. We also was able to do a fair amount of his homework in that period. That was for 6,7,8. For high school his period was in the middle of the day and teacher not as good. What found was to email his teachers every Thursday morning about how he was doing and were there any long term assignments. I usually had an answer by Friday and this gave us the weekend to get things in shape. By end of sophomore year he said he did not want a resource period or for me to email his teachers. I said fine- keep the B average and we won't have resource and the emails. By then- junior year- everything went pretty well and college- he graduated with honors.
CrustyBadger:
There's a FANTASTIC book to help you teach these homework/Executive Function skills. Don't be put off by the title. It's called Homework Made Simple.
https://www.amazon.com/Homework-Made-Simple-Solutions-Stress-Free/dp/0971460981
It was published 8 years ago and the author (an experienced Special Education teacher) was teaching before then, so I'm not sure how much it deals with online distractions. But the principles she teachers are great and there are a ton of very useful, homework related ideas to explore.
Freedomin5:
Smart But Scattered is another great book for parents specifically on helping their kid develop executive functioning skills.
With regard to doing homework online, make sure the computer is in a high visibility location (no doing homework in their bedroom), and walk past him periodically to make sure he is staying on track.
You can also help him develop strategies to keep himself on track. For example, make a game of it — finish and submit one assignment, eat a snack or watch one YouTube video. He also needs to learn to read each assignment instruction twice before starting the work, and creating lists that he can check off based on the instructions.
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