Yet again this blog begins with a conversation with Mama. I was telling her about my plans for the day. I was telling her that I had lost track of time this week with Tyler's homework and forgot to get it turned in on Friday so I had to help him finish that up and get it in his bag. She insisted that this sounded like prime blogging material. So here you have it. This is how we get homework done.
Right out the gate let me start with the key to successfully getting the homework completed. Consistency. If you make the rule of homework having to be done immediately after school, having to be completed before you are allowed to do anything else, and never allow for exceptions then you are most of the way home. This rule is easy to enforce when your children are smaller and then as they get older they will be used to it. If your child is already older it will take time, but it will be accepted as they learn you are no longer budging on the mater.
When Tyler was younger there came a change in his homework routine that made getting his homework done a bit more difficult. It would get done BUT it was painful. So to encourage him to come right in and do his homework after school I allowed him to pick a snack of his choosing that he really wanted and said he could only have it if he was doing his homework while he ate it. For years every single day Tyler sat down at the table in the exact same chair with pizza rolls and did his homework. Sure much of his homework would have a few smears of pizza sauce on them, but who cares? The homework was done and with NO problems.
Last year was a bit more difficult. It was the first year of having homework that often was things that made Tyler uncomfortable. This brought us to many meltdowns. Those meltdowns were always just a necessary part of the path to emotional cleansing and acceptance. Once the emotion was washed away he could accept that this assignment made him uncomfortable BUT mommy was going to help him through it. I am straight forward with his teacher's when they are asking for something of him that he is unable of giving freely on his own and therefore that I helped with it.
This year we stay after school most days. What are we doing? We go to the library and do our homework. Once it's done we go to the playground to play. Do not hesitate to do homework some place other than home if you feel like you can use it to your advantage. If you are currently already having trouble with getting homework done this could be a helpful path for you to setting the routine and expectation for getting the job done. Many children will be hesitant to throwing a fit or having any other disagreement where other people are so close by. We do our work a school because Tyler likes being able to play some more (he's in disagreeance with the short recess time).
In talking with Mama about homework, this is what she had to say about how she get's things done around her house:
"I will sit right beside them until it's all done and i don't flippin care if I have to sit there all.
night. long. because every minute I'm sitting with them
is another minute I'm sitting on my ass knocking back an alcoholic beverage "
Setting up any new routine for a child, whether on the spectrum or not, can be hard. All children will push boundaries and test limits. The key is to stick with it even when it's hard. It is only at the end of that road that easy will be found.
Be in communication with your child's teacher/s. Know what the homework schedule is. Don't be afraid to look in their backpack. If you pick your child up from school ask about the homework before leaving. Do you have it? Do you have everything you need for it? Is there anything you don't understand about it? Don't be caught at home with the excuses of "I don't understand what she wants us to do" or "I left my book in class" or "I must have forgot the paper in my desk".
Does your school use Edline? If you don't know ask about it. It is a means of knowing what is going on in your child's classroom. Class assignments, homework, dates. Then you can say, "Have you done/turned in this assignment?"
Summary:
1) Set up the rules of the new routine.
2) Offer a daily "reward" for following the routine.
3) Reinforce, daily, that they will not be able to do anything they want until the routine is completed.
4) Be informed. The more informed you are with knowledge that you did not acquire from your child the more able you are to combat against things like "I don't have any homework".
With my son this usually just would NOT work, he would rip up pages, draw all over the page or just stubbornly sit there, and would do so until bedtime, for four years I had to deal with that and get into trouble because he wasn't completing homework, and I did sit there beside him until bedtime most nights. The new special school has a very simple remedy to this, they say try that for five minutes and if he doesn't do it, then close it up and he can do it during his choosing time in school the next day... seems a much better deal for me....
ReplyDeleteThat is why I do the best I can to make the process as appealing as possible as well as offer a reward for doing it. I seek to teach that there are always going to be things you don't want to do, but they have to be done....BUT you can make them a bit more pleasant to deal with than how it was first presented to you. Modifications.
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