I am on my 2nd yr homeschooling. My son is in 4th grade and still struggles with getting his work done and tries to cut corners every chance he can. This is not only in some subjects it seems like he has a bad case of being lazy despite me trying to encourage him and offer insensitive etc… I need advice to break this bad habit he has adopted lately.
I think that’s pretty common for this age. They still need a lot of interaction and oversight. If you’re expecting him to work independently, he’s showing that he’s just not ready for that level of responsibility yet. Encourage him a lot on the things he does well, and send him back to complete incomplete assignments. I used workboxes to help my kids stay on task but I checked everything daily. If they weren’t getting things done, then they had to check in with me before they had any screen time (and if you haven’t had time to check yet, oh well, he’ll have to wait until you do, and do something else instead.) But at this age, mine definitely needed me either working with them or at least in the room for school time. For subjects that were hard for them to focus and stay on track like math, I used to make it a competition. “Who can finish first–you with your math, or me folding this laundry. Ready? Go!” I made it so they could win if they tried. Then I checked it, and they redid anything that they got wrong, or if they were confused we did it together. I didn’t offer a lot of incentives, just “here’s what you need to do,” and encouragement. “Oops, you missed these problems, go back and finish.” etc… Not a big deal. The workboxes were nice because then it’s like the “boxes” tell them instead of mom, LOL!
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Hi!
My son was like that last year and i’m not sure this will help but here goes.
I realized the curriculum I was using for him wasnt working. So its because of Erica’s wonderful review videos that I realized this.
My daughter now in college was great with Abeka and a few others but my son is different and 100% visual learner.
So we started talking and he hated Abeka. He was doing AOP Lifepacs and liked them but he’wasnt still excited as I knew he could be. So soon we started checking out other curriculum and ended up with a mixture and now he looks forward to school and actually reminds me.
We give him rewards for doing well on quizzes and tests with tickets. Then we have a treasure box where he can redeem his tickets.
The curriculum that he loves the most is…
Math U See
Spelling U See
Fix it Grammar
IEP Intensive Writing
others he loves now…
BJU English
BJU Science
BJU History
English from the Roots Up (latin/greek)
Analogies
Learning the Recorder
We went from having yelling matches, very bad days, struggling to keep his attention…to him looking forward to what we’re learning next, trying to get an A, its just so amazing.
I would have never thought that what we were dealing with last year was related to the curriculum but that’s why we are so thankful for all Erica has done for us.
Hope this helps in some way! You’re not alone! Hugs
Jen
My son, in third grade, sounds similar to yours at times. We just recently started a hands-on study and that has gotten him excited and doing his school work quickly and early so that we can get to the unit study. I found with him he just wasn’t interested and there was no real reason or motivation that would make him want to do school work before, but now he has at least one! Made all the difference. Same thing for doing chores. He is motivated by a reward of some sort. I hope you figure it out soon ; )
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