How to Motivate Your Child (continued)

Tip #10: Communicate with the teacher

Homework is a partnership between school and home designed to improve your child’s learning. Do not be afraid to contact your child’s teacher when problems occur. Consider talking with the teacher when any of the following occur.

• When your child has very little homework. Is this because the teacher is not assigning homework, or is your child failing to report assignments to you?
• When your child fails to remember assignments or bring home books or materials. When this happens, you may need to have your child and teacher use a homework journal or card to keep track of assignments (see example below).
• When your child does not know how to do homework assignments. Homework should focus on simple skills and on the integration of skills that the student already possesses. Homework should not be used to teach complex skills. When your child has problems with understanding how to do an assignment, it may be that the assignment requires skills that your child has not yet mastered. It could also indicate that your child is having problems in class, such as problems with paying attention or learning a particular skill.

• When your child is spending too much time with homework. Too much homework can demoralize your child and interfere with other family priorities, such as recreation, social activities, and parent-child relationships. If your child is consistently spending too much time on homework, check and see if he is bringing home work that should be completed during school hours. This may be an indication of a problem with your child’s classroom performance. As a general rule, class work should be completed in class. If your child is consistently not getting his work done in class, the school may need to provide classroom modifications or other services to address the problem. If your child is making good use of his time during homework and is able to successfully complete the work, but it is more time than the teacher expects, ask the teacher to consider reducing the workload.

Tip #11: Use a Goal Setting Strategy

Goal setting is a very useful strategy for improving homework performance and independence. It improves motivation by assisting children in managing their own homework, providing immediate feedback, and rewarding goal accomplishment. Goal setting includes the following steps.

• Divide daily homework assignment into smaller goals. Work together with your child to divide the evening homework assignment into a several smaller, specific goals. The goals should be challenging but attainable, and include the amount to be completed, a time limit for completion, and accuracy rate. For example, 10 problems will be completed in 10 minutes with 80% accuracy.
• Use a timer. Use a kitchen timer to help your child monitor elapsed time. Reset the timer for each goal.
• Limit requests for help. In order to encourage your child to work independently on her homework, before each goal period tell her that she can only ask for help once during that period.
• Record each goal performance on a chart. Have your child evaluate whether she achieved the goal she set and confirm it for her. Record it on a worksheet. Record the percentage of goals achieved on a weekly chart. Incomplete or inaccurate portions of the goal can be incorporated into the next goal.
• Set daily and weekly goals. Daily and weekly goals need to be set at a level that represents improvement toward a desired end goal. It is important to initially set the goal at a level that is achievable by the child. If the goal is set too high, she may perceive it to be unachievable and will, therefore, not put forth the effort. It is important that your child experience the rewards early in the program. The best way of establishing the starting goal is to set it slightly above the level your child was performing before starting the program. Goals can be gradually adjusted upward based on the performance of the previous day or week.

• Praise accomplishment of goals. Always use immediate and powerful praise for each goal met and for the effort she is putting into her work.
• Encourage your child to self-reinforce. Encourage your child to use positive self-statements for progress, such as “I did great job!”
• Create a daily and weekly reward menu. Work with your child to make a menu of daily rewards (for example, small toy, stay up 15 minutes later, special snack, play game with parent, etc.) and weekly rewards (for example, movie, trip to the ice cream store, having a friend spend the night, go to the park, etc.). New rewards should be continually rotated into the reward menus in order to keep the rewards meaningful. What may be rewarding to a child one week may be less so the next week.
• Provide daily and weekly rewards for goals met. Be sure to consistently provide the promised rewards when your child achieves her daily and weekly goals.

Tip #12: Model Learning

Most children and adolescents adopt the values of their parents. Show your children that you value learning by doing educational activities in their presence. Let them see you reading. Have reading materials readily available in the house. Talk with them about current events. Take them with you to the library.