How to Motivate Your Child to Do Homework: 4 Success Tips

"I don't want to do my homework!" How many times have you heard your child say this? And how many times did you say it yourself in your own life? Indeed, homework never ends: yesterday, we didn't want to solve maths problems, and today, we don't feel like dealing with our own finances. Yesterday, we didn't want to open textbooks again after school, and today, we don't feel like working or studying after work.

Why does homework bring us down? How can we benefit from it? And how can we change the situation for the better? The answers lie deeper than we think, so let's find it out step-by-step.

What's the purpose of home assignments?

As a parent, you need to understand the main functions of homework. It is primarily designed to reinforce material learned at school. It should provide an opportunity to practice and apply concepts themselves. This repetition is vital for transferring information from short-term to long-term memory and developing the much-needed neural pathways for our brain's health.

These tasks are supposed to foster some critical skills:

• Time management and organisation
• Self-discipline and responsibility
• Problem-solving and critical thinking
• Self-reflection and independent learning

Well-designed home assignments should encourage students to become independent learners, promote curiosity and engage with the subject matter on a deeper level, not just for "checking the box". These are crucial aspects that cannot be successfully implemented within the classroom.

To make parental help more effective, you can stick to the following principles.

Change your approach

First, avoid excessive pressure and negative motivation, as this approach inevitably leads to lower grades, increased stress and anxiety, and decreased confidence. Instead, provide a supportive environment, offer encouragement and positive reinforcement, and help your child set realistic goals.

Instead of focusing primarily on grades, celebrate milestones related to learning, both big and small. This might be when your child successfully solves a tricky math problem or when he or she finishes writing the first draft of an essay.

It's also important to help children apply their knowledge and skills to the real world as much as possible. Imagine your child is struggling with maths percentages. Instead of pressuring them to memorise formulas, involve them in a practical experience using real-world data from the best combi boilers in the UK.

Provide them with efficiency ratings and annual costs for three popular models:

1. Worcester Bosch Greenstar 8000 Style: 94% efficiency, £900 annual running cost
2. Viessmann Vitodens 100-W: 93% efficiency, £920 annual running cost
3. Ideal Logic Plus: 92% efficiency, £940 annual running cost

Work together to calculate the difference in efficiency between each model as a percentage. You could also determine the percentage increase in annual running costs from the most efficient to the least efficient model. Lastly, let them calculate how much money could be saved annually on their own by choosing the most efficient model over the least efficient one, expressing this as a percentage of the higher cost. After all of the calculations are done, remember to celebrate this achievement as a significant learning milestone.

Create a favourable environment

There are children who don't need countless reminders to complete their homework assignments. But for those children who get down to their homework stressed and anxious. In this case, help your child understand their feelings about learning and identify stress triggers to remove those triggers or help the child deal with them.

It can be that your child is flunking a particular subject or has misunderstandings with the teacher, so knowing this, you have enough information to understand how to resolve the issue.

However, even the best learners need a favourable learning environment, so make sure to create a special quiet coroner for studying by removing distracting factors like toys, noises, or disruptive family members. This way, you will create a spot suitable for focused brainwork and studying.

Apply time management

Children, especially younger learners, don't know how to organise their time to manage their homework effectively. So, set aside a specific timeframe for homework time. Alternatively, you could experiment with different time options, like immediately after school, before or after dinner, or after a short break. The main idea is to be flexible and find what works best for your child.

Teach your child to use the 10-5-10 method: 10 minutes of work, a 5-minute break, and then another 10 minutes of work. You might want to employ visual timers to help children understand time constraints. Teach them to break assignments into smaller steps and gradually reduce your involvement.

Monitor the workload balance

Keep a close eye on the amount of homework their children receive. A general guideline is the "10-minute rule" per grade level:

• Kindergarten to 2nd grade: 10-20 minutes per day
• 3rd to 6th grade: 30-60 minutes per day
• 7th to 12th grade: 60-120 minutes per day.

If your child keeps spending more time on homework, don't hesitate to reach out to your child's teacher. Remember that your child's mental well-being is more important than perfect grades.

After all, the initial goal of homework should be to reinforce learning and develop good study habits, not to cause undue stress or exhaustion. By maintaining a balanced approach, you can help your child develop a healthy relationship with learning and academic responsibilities.