I have a 9 year old son who is way behind in math and reading skills he is in grade 4 and does school work with an Ontario Canada IEP with grade 2 and 3 grade levels.I can’t get thim to do homework unless it his spelling work book or study or take this serious. He doesn’t care if he fails tests and I spend alot of time working with him but he doesn’t seem to care and per pressure don’t sem tobrother him to keep up.
I am so frusterated I feel like running away from home.
How care you shape up a generally good natured kid who likes going to school.I have explained that I am worried about him bu he seems to be too laid back!
Re: child to take homework seriously
I think you need to determine if the problem is attitude or ability…or both.
If there is a problem with ability, then homework may need to be adjusted to your child’s ability. However, if it is appropriate for his ability than you might want to determine what may be the best form of motivation.
When my kids get home from school they have a very rigid schedule. They eat a quick snack, talk about their day and start setting books and homework out on the table. There’s no T.V., telephone, playing, etc… until all homework is completled.
This does require me to be quite strict. Sometimes I have to tell a child (mostly my older one!) that they cannot leave their seat until homework is complete. If it takes all night. That’s fine…they’ll just have to sit there until it’s done.
Another thing I do is I pay for good grades (For my non-LD child I pay for every “A” on her report card and will buy her things she wants when she gets a series of “A’s” on quizzes or reports. For my LD child the focus is on improvement and I pay him for effort).
This might sound a bit harsh, but if homework isn’t completed my children are basically “grounded” until the work is finished.
Hang in there
Thing may well improve as he gets older. My ds, with effort and my close supervision would do the 3rd grade homework. By the fourth grade he was in full refusal. Nor did he care about grades—never looked at returned tests, never asked to see his report card. Last year in sixth, he looked at his report card for the first time. Still no homework, unless I was there urging him on through every step. Now, a seventh grade miracle—he’s decided on his own he has to get it done himself, is aware of grades, and is actually try to improve them. I’m not really sure what happened here, but all along I stressed that I was far more interested in him learning and being able to take responsibility for that himself than I was in his actual grades.
If he is ‘way behind’ on math and reading skills, that may explain his issues with homework. The homework may not be geared to his best learning needs.
You paint an interesting picture. He enjoys doing his spelling work? What is his other work? It would help to know that.
I would say as a teacher I’ve rarely met the child who truly didn’t care. I have met students who took on the stance of not caring as it felt safer to be that way.
In the meantime, are his skills improving? I would be less concerned with his performance on tests so long as his reading skills and math skills are showing growth.