Michael Thompson, Ph.D.

Beth from Summit, New Jersey, asks:

I had the pleasure of attending a recent lecture on "The Pressured Child" which you gave near my home. One of the many wonderful points you made was that "at any given moment, every child is doing their best," given their current mindset, environment, distractions, etc., meaning, I believe, that no one tries to do poorly. I have a very bright 8-year old son who is in third grade; he is not particularly motivated to do his best or put forth full effort in school or in athletics. While I think I understand the point you were making, my son is clearly able to write neatly but often rushes and "chooses" not to. He is able to skate well and be a contributing member of his hockey team, but typically only does so for about half of a game. He is able to do math but often makes careless mistakes and refuses to check his work. What can we do to encourage him to give his all to whatever he is doing, to do his best and reach his potential?

You tell me that your son is bright, and that makes me happy for him. Intelligence gives a boy an edge in life; however, as you clearly know, being bright and being persevering are two entirely different things. Intelligence is a gift of nature; the capacity for sustained work is an ability that has to be developed over time. Not many eight-year-old boys have a "natural" capacity for sustained effort and attention, nor do they care enough about homework or the score in a hockey game.

Indeed, very intelligent boys often think that they have been given a gift-thank you, God-so that they can do their homework real fast and get it over with. Gifted boy athletes often think that they only need to get out on the field or the rink and show their stuff and then they can pay attention to something else. It is through practice and more practice, and seeing the positive results from all that work, that a boy’s capacity to knuckle down and do a thorough job increases.

I have two suggestions. Try sitting next to your son when he is doing his homework every night. Turn off the television, create a study hall atmosphere, get a book, sit down with him and say, "I’m going to sit with you because I know it is hard for most boys to pay attention to homework. I’m here if you have any questions." Just use your presence to let him know that you and he are going to sit together for a prescribed amount of time, say twenty minutes. I guarantee that your presence and attention while he works will slow him down.

If you have time for an experiment one evening, do the following. Photocopy his homework assignment (if it is a one-of-a-kind worksheet) and set the copy to the side. Tell him you are going to give him a speed test. Ask him how long it usually takes him to do one problem. If he doesn’t know, time him with a watch while he does a very easy problem. Then challenge him to finish all the problems in his homework in the shortest time possible (easy problem times X-the number of problems in the homework). Encourage him to do it at top speed. Once he has finished, set the homework aside, without looking at it. However, notice if he struggles with a problem. If he did, ask him to do that one problem slowly and thoroughly; once again, time with your watch. Then, present him with the second clean worksheet. Encourage him to do that worksheet at his "slowest" time (hard problem time x number of problems in the homework). When he has finished, put the two papers side by side and ask him to compare them. Make the task fun. See if you can engage him intellectually in the task. (If he discovers the scientific flaw in the experiment as I have proposed it, get him to propose a better design for the experiment)

What I am suggesting is that you can teach your son to take the time he needs to do a good job. He doesn’t have the ability at eight years old for the simple reason that he is….eight years old. He’s still impulsive and he’s not very motivated to play an entire hockey game. He will be in time, when he’s bigger, stronger, more focused and when he has developed the wisdom to know that thee is a very strong connection between effort and outcome.

Ann from Massachusetts, asks:

My 11-year-old son, whom I adore, continues to rush through his homework, class work, and tests. We have been after him since third grade to slow down and double check his work because he makes careless errors. Both my husband and I have tried speaking with him calmly, as well as getting angry with him. Nothing works. How can we inspire our son to slow down and do the best job?

One of the most common complaints that parents have about their sons is that they rush through their homework and are careless about their school work I get a lot of questions about this tendency. Since this problem is seen so frequently in boys, you need to know that your son is perfectly normal. However, in order to know how to help a boy persevere in an unpleasant task, we have to try to understand it from a boy point of view.

While there are boys who are conscientious about homework right from the start, many, many boys regard homework as something illegitimate, burdensome and pointless. They feel that they have sat in school all day listening to adults talk; they have done their best to sit still and follow school rules. It has been hard for them because the average boy tends to be more physically restless and impulsive than girls. So, the idea that they have to come home and sit down to do work again is simply unacceptable, even unbearable to them. Boys talk among themselves and support each other in their resistance to homework. They will say, "Homework is stupid!" and, "I hate homework!"

When your son comes home to a house filled with fun things to do, like television or video games or playing inflatable football soccer dart with friends in the neighborhood, his approach to homework is almost certainly to get it over with as soon as possible so that he can turn to something more fun. He believes he is doing heroics just to do his homework in the first place. You are asking him to CARE ABOUT IT, and that’s something he’s unwilling to do. You may never be able to persuade him that homework is important and necessary, but you can create a structure in the household that will help him to do get it done right. You do that by paying more attention to him when he is doing his homework.

I suggest that you create a “study hall” atmosphere in the house for about forty-five minutes to an hour each night. That means no television (not for mom, not for dad), no video games, no music. After dinner, for example, you need to clear the table and sit down with him and his younger brother or sister, if he has siblings. Tell them that this is homework time and you are there to be of help, if they need you. Ask some organizing questions, “What’s been assigned?” or “How long do you think this will take?” Just be a steady, calming presence. You should have something for you to read or otherwise occupy you-perhaps a newspaper, or paying the bills. Do not, however, talk on the phone or clean the kitchen. You should be doing the same thing he is doing: reading or writing Occasionally, just look up and watch his work rate and ask, “Do you have any questions?” or “How is it going?” or “Try to do your best work.”

If you see him speeding through an assignment, you might ask, “May I see that?” or “Are you doing your best work?” That is, catch him in the act of rushing and gently slow him down in the moment. That will be far more effective than waiting until he has finished his work and trying to get him to go back. He’ll resent that (“But it’s completely done, Mom!”)

Don’t pin him down for hours and hours. Forty-five minutes should be plenty, and he should know from the start that it is going to last for a finite period of time. If he expresses anger or frustration, you can say, “Only twenty-seven minutes to go; you can do it.” Some parents use a kitchen timer to give children both a sense of limits and a sense of hope.

I would be up front with your son by telling him that you are trying to teach him good work habits that will help him not only with homework, but with his future work as a man. “Homework,” you can say to him, “Is sometimes dumb, and I understand that, but good work habits are important for life. You will need them when you are a man.” It might help for you or his father to say that the one thing that employers require is an employee who knows how to do a good job.” That is, make the stakes about his future, his life, his work as a man, not about homework, because if the truth be told. a lot of homework is really dumb (Whoops! That’s the boy in me coming out!)

If you have never worked this way with him before, it may be tough to change the evening routine, but you should try. If he fights you, you can make his allowance depend on it, or make his ability to play video games conditional on working seriously during the “study hall.” What I don’t want you to do, however, is become his teacher. Think of yourself as his “homework aide” but don’t get totally detail-oriented, don’t go over everything, don’t check it until it is perfect. It is his homework, not yours. Teach work habits; don’t take responsibility for teaching the subject itself. Only give him help with the content when he asks.

Over time, he may find that he appreciates the structure you have put into place. He may find he likes being better prepared in class, or he likes getting better grades.

Jaye from Madison, New Jersey, asks:

Our nine-year-old son is constantly forgetting things at home. His homework, over which he willingly toils, inadvertently slips from his folder onto the floor, or his lunch is left behind next to where he sat to put on his shoes, or he forgets to wear his cleats to lacrosse practice. He has a hard time socializing (although I’m not sure how cognizant of this he is or how much it affects him) so I want him to bring his lunch in order to maximize his ability to get a good seat at lunch.

I feel badly about his homework since he takes great pride in his academics, and this seems to be a big part of his identity, due to the lack of the social component. My husband says I should just let him suffer the consequences of his absent-mindedness (although my husband also believes that I should suffer the consequences for his own forgetfulness, as I am often scrambling to locate/retrieve forgotten items on HIS behalf, as well). I don’t want to be making extra trips to the school (sometimes once or twice a week!) but how old do you think my child has to be for me to really just let him "suffer"?

Thank you for the email question about your disorganized nine-year-old. It made me smile to hear that the boy was so very much like his father. I suspect that you are not the first woman who has managed both a disorganized son and a disorganized husband. As I frame my reply to you, I will keep in mind that you do not have genetics on your side in this matter. I won’t be able to reassure you by saying, "Oh, he’ll outgrow it" because you won’t believe me. Your son appears to have inherited his father’s brain.

Most boys rely on their parents, usually their mothers, to keep them organized until their brains develop enough to be able to manage all of the tasks they are required to do for schools. The typical boy is likely to be forgetting things up until the age of fourteen or fifteen, though he is likely to know where every card in his baseball card collection is or where his video game discs are. Boys are more organized when it comes to personal items that they really value. Around sixth or seventh grade, moms get tired of doing all of the organizational work for their sons and they tend to let their middle-school sons "face the music" with their teachers. That normal developmental model suggests that it is too soon to let your son "suffer the consequences."

However, your situation is not quite typical. Driving to school to take him his homework once or twice a week is too much. If you are too willing to bail out your son every time he forgets something, he has no motivation to even try to get organized. I think you should start telling him that you are no longer willing to make special trips to school and then help him get organized before he heads in the morning.

If he takes the bus, you should have a checklist by the door where he departs. Before he opens the door you and he should go down the checklist: lunch ("check!"), lacrosse cleats ("check!") homework for math ("check!"), homework for language arts ("check!"). Make him show you that he really has every item before he leaves. This is hard work, and it will take organization on your part, but I believe in the long run it will help him internalize the organizational habits he is going to need in the future. The emotionally difficult part for you will be if he manages somehow to forget something even though you have gone through the checklist with him. You will need to tell your upset son.

If you drive him to school, ask him again when he gets in the car, "Do you have everything?" Make him show you his lacross shoes and his homework, and remind him that you are not going to be driving the rescue route today because you have other things you need to do. When he answers yes, sit quietly for a second and ask again, "Are you sure? I’m not coming back." That’s fair warning.

The emotionally difficult part for you will be if he manages somehow to forget something even though you have gone through the checklist with him. You will have to tell your upset son that you aren’t driving over to school with his homework. That will feel like a betrayal to him the first time, but once he survives that day, he will have indoor hupfburg learned that forgetting something is, perhaps, distressing but not devastating. That’s an important lesson to learn.

It sounds as if your son is bright and devoted to his school work. That’s great. If, as he gets older, his organizational problems don’t improve, I would get a psycho-educational evaluation for him. He might have some significant problems with "executive functioning," which is a form of non-verbal learning disability. If that turns out to be the case, he might be entitled to get additional organizational support at school.