What can I do if my child is forgetting or skipping homework assignments?
There's a lot of steps about homework. A child has to bring the homework assignment home so that he or she can do it, they have to actually do it and then they have to remember to turn it in. So you're putting a lot of trust in your child in terms of the whole homework process. One of the things that I always ask students is to have some kind of calender or some kind of planner or agenda book where they write down their assignments. Little kids often get homework packets so then they don't have to remember all the different work sheets that they are supposed to do. But definitely have some kind of system where they write it down. In dire cases, you can even have the teacher check it over before the child leaves school and sign it off and say yes, everything that Johnny was supposed to complete is written here. Make sure they do it. Go over the things step by step asking to see each thing that he's done and it's his job to turn it in What I try to explain to parents is, there should be consequences if they don't do the things that they're supposed to do. If you know the homework is done, the hard part is done. All they need to do is remember to turn it in. You talk to the teacher. You figure out the system they use for collecting homework. Do they pass all the papers up? Do they put it in a basket? What do they do? You talk to your child so they can recognize the signs. Ok, all the other children are passing their papers up, so you probably want to figure out what they're passing up and get yours up there too.Then talk about it and figure out some type of appropriate consequence for the child if the homework is not turned in. Most teachers will give you a report if the student is turning in homework or not turning in homework during the course of the week. I like to think of school as work. I think it's your job. My job is to go to work and earn money for the family. Your job is to do your schoolwork. We earn free time by doing our homework. To me, Game Boys gets taken away or tv gets taken away or sleep overs get taken away or some kind of thing, not a huge thing, not a thing to ruin their life, not necessarily for a huge period of time, for them to understand, life goes well when I do what I'm supposed to do and life is really less fun when I don't do what I'm supposed to do.
