What to Do When Your Child Won’t Do His Schoolwork

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What do you do when your homeschooled child won’t do his schoolwork? That can be a frustrating situation for both the parent and the child, but how to handle it really depends on why it’s happening. In most cases, resistance to doing schoolwork isn’t caused by blatant defiance.

What to Do When Your Child Won’t Do His Schoolwork

First, determine the cause of the resistance. The response will obviously vary if there is a discipline issue rather than, say, a readiness issue.

Consider factors such as:

  • The age of the child
  • Possible physical or medical issues (ADHD, vision or hearing problems, Asperger’s)
  • Potential learning challenges (dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia)
  • Major changes in the child’s life (divorce, death in the family, birth of a sibling, a move)
  • How your current curriculum meshes with his learning style and/or your teaching style

Resistance to work may mean your child isn’t ready for formal learning.  Just because traditional schools start formal learning at age 5 doesn’t mean that all kids are developmentally ready at that age. One of the biggest benefits of homeschooling is being able to customize each child’s education to his needs. For some kids, that may mean delaying formal learning.

If your child is crying or acting angry, frustrated, or bored, he might not to ready to begin formal learning yet. Spend time exploring the world through active play, hands-on learning and reading great books.

Resistance to work may result from subject-specific readiness issues. We went through a period with my oldest when it was clear that a formal spelling program was a waste of our time. She wasn’t retaining what she was learning and was clearly not ready for the material.

Although it made me nervous to do so, we put spelling aside for a year or so. When we came back to it, her retention improved and her attitude toward the subject had remained positive because I hadn’t made it a battleground.

If your child isn’t retaining what he’s learning or appears frustrated, you may need to put the material aside for a few weeks or months to give her time to reach a level of developmental readiness.

Resistance to do schoolwork can be related to difficulty staying focused.  When my oldest was in 3rd or 4th grade, it used to take her forever to complete one simple math worksheet.  It wasn’t that she was incapable of doing the work, she just didn’t enjoy math and found it difficult to maintain focus.

For us, a reward system for completing her work in a timely fashion proved to be an effective solution. After determining that she should be able to complete the work in about 30 minutes, I gave her a goal of 45 minutes, allowing a little buffer time.

For each day that she finished her work before the timer went off, she got to put a sticker on a sheet.  She could trade a few stickers for a small prize, such as a candy bar at the grocery store checkout line, or save them up for a bigger prize, such as a date night with Mom or Dad.

It wasn’t long before she figured out that she had much more time to do what she wanted if she didn’t drag her feet over math, and we quit using the reward system.

If your child is procrastinating over his work, it could be a focus issue. You may need to look at a different curriculum or approach to learning, or try something like our reward program.

What to Do When Your Child Won’t Do His Schoolwork

Resistance to work may be an indicator that your child is feeling overwhelmed. If your child is dragging his feet in one or more subject areas, it could be that he is struggling with understanding the material, managing his time, or feeling overwhelmed with the amount of work. I have known more than one kid – and not all of them my own – who dealt with those issues by just shutting down.

In this case may need to:

Resistance to work make indicate that your child is bored. If your child is procrastinating or dawdling, it may be that she finds the work tedious or boring. If you’ve got a quick, ready learner, he may need more more challenging or engaging materials or a different approach to learning. Some kids may prefer video-based teaching. Others may prefer reading great literature.

If your student seems bored, consider changing or tweaking your curriculum or providing opportunities for more depth.

Resistance to work may be a character issue. How to proceed in this case is going to vary from family to family and based on the root cause of the behavior. I would begin with prayer and discussion with my spouse about how to handle the situation.

I used to think that homeschooling parents who would encourage others to put schoolwork aside for a time while dealing with character issues were crazy. I mean, that was just going to teach the kids that they could act out and get out of schoolwork, right?

Not necessarily.

Sometimes you need to stop what you’re doing to have a heart-to-heart talk with a child. Often this will uncover what it actually going on and you can reach a solution – and sometimes, stopping to talk it over will get you nowhere.

On those occasions, I would sometimes send the defiant kid to his (or her) room until Brian got home to discuss the problem. Then, that kid finished schoolwork with Dad while everyone else went on with their day.

Don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying that dads should be the heavy disciplinarian or that moms can’t handle a kids’ bad behavior on their own. However, sometimes it helps for the child to have a different parent with a different style to work with.

And sometimes it’s better for everyone involved to do some tag-teaming with the parent who’s not already frustrated with the child and his behavior.

Like us, kids may need to work out their frustrations. Taking a walk or giving them a job to do can be effective. Picking up sticks or trash in the yard, for example, gets kids away from the source of their frustration, gives them a physical outlet for relieving it, and offers them a sense of accomplishment.

And, yes, we have taken away privileges and/or electronics for bad attitudes and done early bedtimes and such.

Resistance to work may be related to an emotional issue. Sometimes emotional struggles manifest themselves during school time. If your child has dealt with some major upheaval in his life, he may just need a little extra grace and someone (you, a family friend, another relative, or even a counselor) to talk with to learn more effective coping skills.

Thankfully, we really haven’t had many issues with a kid refusing to do work in a defiant manner, but we have dealt with learning struggles, readiness issues, feeling overwhelmed, and emotional issues. It’s been my experience that taking time to address these, even if it means working through the curriculum at a slower pace, usually resolves the issue without any lingering negative impact.

What suggestions do you have for dealing with a child who isn’t completing his schoolwork?

updated from an article originally published September 27, 2010

This post is linked to the Hip Homeschool Hop.

images courtesy of depositphotos

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Kris Bales is a newly-retired homeschool mom and the quirky, Christ-following, painfully honest founder (and former owner) of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. She has a pretty serious addiction to sweet tea and Words with Friends. Kris and her husband of over 30 years are parents to three amazing homeschool grads. They share their home with three dogs, two cats, a ball python, a bearded dragon, and seven birds.

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16 Comments

  1. Thank you for the timely post. We have this same issue because my son is dyslexic and there seems to be a struggle in certain subjects. I initially thought the issues were because he just flat out refused to do the work however I began to see he was simply struggling.

  2. I agree completely! I was thinking of the manual labor/job aspect too, and wondering if you would mention it, and there it was at the end!!

  3. Thanks for answering my question. It has been on my heart and mind *ALOT* lately.
    We do all these things and are going to start the ADD evaluation process now. I am hoping – not for a magic cure – but at least for some sound medical reason with other options to help him (drugs are an option but not our automatic choice).

  4. Great post. We deal with this off and on and handle it about the same way. I love giving my complaining boy physical labor. There is something about that sort of work that calms a teen boy down.

  5. Deanna, I know that ADD is extremely over-diagnosed and kids over-medicated in traditional school settings, but I don't believe that to be true among homeschooling families. I think most homeschooling families use medication as a last resort, but I've seen medication do wonders with kids who really need it.

    I hope you get some answers. Sometimes just having a diagnosis helps you know where to start in finding workable solutions for your family.

    You might want to check out a couple of helpful books such as "How to Get Your Child off the Refrigerator and on to Learning," by Carol Barnier or "Right-Brained Children in a Left-Brained World," by Jeffrey Freed. I gleaned some wonderful ideas from each.

  6. I agree on the ADD thing: my sister is NOT a behavior problem, but has ADD, and her grades improve dramatically when she is on her medications. My brothers have ADHD, and it's immediately apparent, visiting the evenings, if they've refused their meds that day. Not all kids are like that, and there are non-meds things that can be done to help (I recommend the book "Transforming the Difficult Child: the nurtured heart approach"), but meds can make a huge difference.

    The other thing I'd add to the list of things that Chris listed is a quick check to see if the child is tired, hungry, or sick. Last week Monkey felt grungy almost all week, and the resistance to doing school was large all week long, even though he usually enjoys the things we do. When I asked him to get his socks at one point, telling him I wanted to take him on a walk, he cried and asked for a nap. He loves going outside, and nearly always resists naps at least a little! So one of the first things I like to check when he's giving me static about doing things is, "How is this child feeling, physically?"

  7. Thank you! I am one who needs to be reminded about readiness issues – my first assumption is that behavior problems are discipline issues, and I need to get better at looking at the big picture.

  8. Thanks for this post. It is very enlightening. It is so good to be reminded of these. They are very encouraging thoughts.

  9. My ds has anxiety issues and possibly Aspergers (in the testing process right now), and for him, sometimes it's that he gets anxious and upset when he doesn't immediately understand something. Many times, once he is at that boiling point, he can't be reasoned with, so I let me go and do something that relaxes him for 20 minutes or so and usually he'll come in later on and be ready to complete his work. Another thing that has helped him is making a chart with pictures and words that shows each step of the school day. He knows that after piano is break time, etc. Frequent breaks help a lot too, though they make the school day much longer.

  10. I would like to add my two cents here, too. . . . .

    My son was diagnosed as being bipolar two years ago (imagine a.d.h.d, anxiety, depression, o.c.d., o.d.d., mania, slight psychosis and paranoia and only occasional normalcy cycling several times a day). We're doing much better now than we were a year ago, but let me tell you that we have been through a lot and tried a lot of different things.

    When I come across articles or posts on this subject I usually find very little that is applicable in my situation. Your thoughts here, though, are right on. I second everything you said!

    Tatiana
    http://www.worldstaracademy.com

    p.s. I really like your term "heart issue" – sometimes those are the hardest to figure out, but a kid with a "heart issue" just isn't going to learn until that heart is healed. Thanks again for your post.

  11. Oh, I had one of those major battles of the will with my youngest today. She is not adjusting to big school verses preschool well. We always have a TON of dog poop to clean up LOL One of the best ideas I’ve heard in awhile! Seriously, though, this is a great post. I am going to try the sticker/reward route. I am a veteran homeschooler of many years, but this little is by far my most challenging. My others just obeyed so sweetly. Glad to read this!

    1. It’s something about those youngest kids. They can be quite challenging. Hope the sticker/rewards work well for her.

  12. Wow, this post popped today in my Facebook feed and I needed it so much. I have been homeschooling (or rather trying to homeschool) my 13 year old daughter for 8 months and I am really frustrated, since I can´t seem to reach her.
    It is as if she thought homeschooling means no-schooling at all. I have her until december to adapt to not atteding school and didn´t push her to do schoolwork, but I think it really is time for her to start learning. She used to make very good grades at schol, but if I ask if she wants to go back, she says no.
    She definetly needs time management skills, but is not very open to learning them.

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