Four years ago I had a similar situation with my oldest, then a 6th grader. She is so smart that she can get away with skipping assignments and still make the honor roll. In her opinion as long as she kept her grades up skipped assignments were no big deal. I very much disagreed. This is what her dad and I did. When progress reports came home, we made her complete any missing work, even though she would not receive credit for it, and write an apology letter to the teachers, which she attached to the assignments. So that we knew the teacher had seen the completed work and letter, we had her and return both with the teacher’s signature. Her dad and I told her that all school assignments would be completed but it was up to her to decide if they were turned in on time for credit or late for a zero. She figured out pretty quickly that it was foolish to take a zero for work she would have to complete anyway. I hope this was helpful. Good luck.

I wish there were more comments, because i'm going through this now with my 7th grader and i'm out of ideas. He's on weekly progress reports, no computer or tv privileges unless he does all his homework for 2 weeks in a row (is that really too much to ask? 2 good progress reports in a row?) and he can get a cell phone if he gets any variation of a B on his report card in every subject. This was all started in November (after the first grading period), and he has yet to accomplish either task.

So--rewarding the good, holding back privileges--and yet none of it seems to be working. Is it the age? Is it me? The other 2 are doing fine (well, the older one is, the middle one is treading lightly on thin ice). I have him do his homework when he gets home, but passing it in, or writing down what he has to do in the first place--that's up to him. I feel like he's sabatoging himself. The whole thing is just very frustrating.

amy

M_Shell

I love your idea. I'm going to file it away for the future, which seems like very far away right now since my kids aren't even in kindergarten yet (one isn't even in preschool!).

My kids are doing well in school, but I get so angry when I see a zero for homework. It's black and white people. You hand in homework, you get 100. You don't hand in homework, you get a zero. Do the math! Do you have any idea how many 90s it takes to pull up a zero????? I have no answers, only commiseration.

I try not to be grade focused...as opposed to my husband who, when a child brings home 4 As and 1 B, immediately asks, "What was the B in?"...but I am bewildered by Wake County's grading system in which a 91 is a B! I think the grading scale is 93-100 = A; 86-92 = B, or something like that. How would you like it if your kid was striving for the A/B Honor Roll and missed it because he got a C that was an 84????

Obvious, but maybe you can relate homework to sports. A tennis player who is naturally good, but doesn't practice very often, will never be any good. But a player who plays just a little every day, becomes much better. Homework doesn't have to be fun, just make it like brushing teeth: done every day without thinking, without fail, at a certain time. So make 5 to 6:30 homework hour at a certain desk, no matter what, without fail. Then it becomes not an option not to do it. A no-brainer activity. Like going to sports team practice at a certain time every week, no matter what.

I worked for an expensive tutoring company for several years as a tutor. Often parents paid me handsomely for working "miracles" with their kids. Usually I did nothing but make parents pay for having their kid sit with me for a couple hours a week while I watched them do homework. No miracle. Only an imposed dedication of time and effort. IF getting homework done is the only issue...