How to Motivate a Child Who Just Doesn't Care

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You understand that it's important to get homework done, but your child just doesn't get it. There could be lots of reasons why: She may need help and not know how to ask. She may be overwhelmed, in which case you can help her break big assignments into smaller steps. She may be hungry and need a snack first. She may be having a conflict she doesn't know how to deal with and just tuning out. What's your experience with the child who won't do her work? What ideas do you have to help?

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Parent Replies to "How to Motivate a Child Who Just Doesn't Care"

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I just wanted to let you know I have the same type of child. You seem to be talking about my child. Anyway I will look forward to the answers that may help both of us.

If it's any consolation, shanshan, lots and lots of parents are struggling with this with their kids. We hear from them every day at GreatSchools.

The experts we've tapped to try to solve homework problems (You can read some of their responses here:
www.greatschools.net/cgi-bin/showarticle/956,
www.greatschools.net/cgi-bin/showarticle/839 and www.greatschools.net/cgi-bin/showarticle/1154)
have suggested that sometimes a child locked in a power struggle with authortiy figures -- parents, teachers or both -- may balk at homework is a way to try to win the power struggle.

Whether this is the issue with your child or not, talking to the teacher would be a great step to take. Does your child do his work in class or does he resist? Is he keeping up with his classmates academically? If not, he might feel overwhelmed, doomed to failure and consequently resist even trying to do the homework. The teacher might provide some insights to help you get to the bottom of the problem. Taking it a step further and talking to the counselor might help, too. The counselor might have some suggestions ranging from dividing up the homework into bite-sized pieces to extra tutoring to a different reward/punishment system that will help motivate your son. In any case, it might be great to get opinions from others who are used to working with kids this age and with similar issues.

I hope some of this is helpful!

This is an area that I REALLY need help in. My 9 year old son has the I don't care attitude and will sit at the table all night long and still not get half of his homework done. Then when his progress report came home he came to me saying "well I guess I don't get to play baseball" with no bit of emotion behind it. (He lives to play baseball so this was a big shock for me.) Honestly he is a very smart child but just doesn't apply himself. He comes to me and his dad will silly questions and silly errors on his work. When we make him review it he knows what he did wrong and will make the mistake over again when we make him fix his work.

I do let the boys come home and have a snack before they start homework. My other 2 boys are done most of the time before dinner or shortly after dinner is over, but my 9 year old will sit at the table until it is bed time.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to help me here... I am ready to pull my hair out and walk away but I don't want to see my son fail.

One little trick that is working for my sixth-grader right now is to let him unwind for no more than 15 minutes when we get home, then have him work for an hour while dinner is prepared. If I let him drag the 15 minutes out or try to convince me that he'll start it after dinner, he ends up having a much harder time getting started. It took a long time for him to see that putting it off is a bad idea, but now he sees that "business before pleasure" is the actually a good policy. As a parent, I made the mistake of letting him unwind for too long in the past. Another thing that helps is for him to eat "brain food" as he works. His brain food isn't all that healthy...fruit juice and pretzels...but he needs a snack before he can think.

The best way that I have found to help get the kids to do their homework is to find out what is in it for them. What is important to different kids is always different, but focusing on the individual in them has helped us.

My middle schooler is motivated by being on the grade reward program at his school. So most of the time, reminding him that not doing his homework will cause him to miss that goal gets him going in the right direction - although sometimes it takes a couple of those reminders :). When that doesn't work, there is the old standby of not allowing the extracurricular activies if there is a continuous lapse in daily work.

Mom: "You can spend the time doing it now or we can do it together this weekend"
Child: "I have a campout this weekend"
Mom: "Then I guess you have a choice to make."

My elementary schooler doesn't have a problem doing the homework - once he gets it home. His issue is with getting it home in the first place! He will come home from school saying he has nothing to do and then come home the next day with a note from the teacher saying he didn't turn something in. He is not trying to get out of doing the work, just not paying enough attention when the homework is assigned. So out solution for him is that when he comes home with that note that says he didn't turn in his homework, he has to go to bed a 1/2 hr early that night.

Of course, the ideal would be to get them to do it and actually realize that there is a purpose behind what they are doing. Unfortunately, that happens all too rarely in our house.

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