Teenager Homework Hell and Grades | Darryl Sollerh

Let's begin by acknowledging the teenagers who take great satisfaction from doing their homework, and who, without any special prompting from mom or dad, come home each day and get to work. Count your infinite blessings if this describes your teen.

Because for most parents, homework is far more likely to be a nightly tug-of-war, continually demanding the exhausting, alternating roles of cop, cheerleader, psychologist, game warden, motivational speaker, super spy or demanding task master—leaving many moms and dads to wonder if sleeping at the office might not be an altogether better plan.

Because even though teaching their teen good work habits ranks high on most parents agenda, the struggle to get their teen actually do his or her homework will likely have already begun by Middle School, and it can quickly become the central and ongoing source of family tension by High School.

So what's a parent to do?

How does a mom or dad come home from a full day's work and effectively deal with their teen's homework-allergic behavior?

How do you keep their nightly assignments from turning into the flash-points that define your home-life?

First, the bad news: there is no one-size-fits-all, quick-fix, miracle cure.

The good news? A new or revised approach to your teenager and their homework, informed by a deeper understanding of what your teen-student may be experiencing in connection with doing his or her homework, can, and often does, work increasing wonders.

First, then, let’s identify the most prominent types of excuses their teenager may be making for not doing their homework, starting with: Denial—characterized by statements such as, "My teacher/school is mistaken," or, "They didn't tell me they wanted me to do that (fill in the blank)."

Another response to homework may be falling apart—sometimes characterized by tears, but more often a pervasive sense of hopelessness and even withdrawal from the demands of their teacher. "I can't/don't know how to do what they want."

Yet another response may be belligerence—often accompanied by anger, demonstrations of frustration, peppered with remarks such as, "Leave me alone”, or "You don't understand!"

And last but not least your teen seems to find endless ways to distract or otherwise postpone starting their homework by, say, watching TV, playing music, diving into that world of diversions just a mouse click away, trading text messages with their friends via phone or online social media sites.

Talk about frustrating!

But before you dial 911, or confiscate their every electronic device, the mode of your teen's resistance may have just provided you with valuable clues as to WHY they are not doing their homework.

What's more, as you zero in on the why, rather than succumbing to your own frustrations and start confiscating everything you can think of, beginning with their phone or computer, considering the reasons for their homework-evasive habits can put you in a far better position to help them address their nightly assignments.

In the case of denial, dealing in specifics is the key. Emailing teachers to get a list of assignments is a good start. If that is not possible, or your teenager's school is not responsive, checking your teen's class syllabus, calling other parents, or visiting their school to get a list of coming assignments may be a place to start.

In short, it's going to take your proactive involvement.

In some cases, that may require you to help them get organized, keep track of their assignments, and create study plans. Some teen’s need and want your elbow-to-elbow assistance. At least for a time.

That said, do not wear out your welcome, either.

Because as their ability to respond to their homework demands can change, being at their elbow may suddenly flip from help into conflicts. So be ready to back off at a moment’s notice when they are ready to take the reins.

But should you need to back off, and yet they are still having difficulties completing their assignments, locating a "homework club" at your school, or in your area, may be the answer. Any after-school program that can provide an environment in which your teen is supported in doing their nightly work—perhaps even organized by a group of concerned parents—may also work, and allow you to function in more of a supportive role than that of a task-master.

Perhaps there is a college student who may be able to spend a few hours a week with them, and provide the impetus that encourages your son or daughter meet their school's requirements at home. Should the means be available, a tutor or mentor may help, too.

If your teen has more of a falling apart or belligerent reaction, and none of the above possible solutions work, it may be time to consider whether behind their seeming inability to complete assignments, or hand them in, may be lurking deep-seated fears of being judged, or worse, being discovered to be incompetent.

Should this be the case, then it is likely your teenager may be far more prepared to endure your wrath, or face his or her teacher’s admonitions, than risk being discovered as incapable. Better to have never tried, they consciously or unconsciously reason, than to have tried and failed.

If you suspect this to be true, then a parent’s best response to ask themselves: what is it my teenager need?

For instance, while some teens can sit for hours in their room alone, others dread the attendant feelings of isolation, and so do everything they can to reconnect with others by employing any and all of those electronic devices around them, whether it be by emailing, texting, tweeting, iChatting, and online social sites, turning up their music, or escaping into a video game—sometimes played online with others. And this is why adults have to be careful when throwing around words like “lazy” or “irresponsible”. Not only do they miss the mark, but they are potentially hurtful, and do not offer any real help. And that’s what every young person needs: help.

So should their sense of isolation be the real culprit, a possible remedy could be to find them a place to work in a more trafficked area of your home, such as a family room, or an area of the kitchen. Or you could encourage them to touch base with you during their homework time—or you could touch base with them. See what works best. The key is finding the right balance and dance between contact and individual effort.

Another possible cause for a teen’s homework difficulties may come from something going in their lives, or within the family. The loss or absence of a parent, sibling or friend through a divorce, a misunderstanding, a family move or a death, may become all-consuming, defeating their efforts to concentrate on their daily work.

For others, they simply may need to have you close by throughout the entire process, which may include sitting beside them for a time, as often as not to help them organize efforts and work because organizational skills may develop at different times for different students, and be quite challenging at different points.

In contrast, your teen may be suffering from NOT having a place to work. The constant distractions and intrusion of their home-life may make it impossible for them to focus on their work. In their case, identifying both a time and space for them to regularly work in peace may well mean the difference between success and failure. A chaotic or unpredictable home is not a good work environment, as any adult can attest.

Why would we expect a teenager to react any differently?

Last but not least, a teen's struggle to do his or her work may have to do with a host of learning issues, including attention deficit difficulties. If they are left unrecognized, and thus left to fester, a student's experience of school can be extremely frustrating and deeply disheartening, if not debilitating.

Should any one of these mostly hidden frustrations suddenly well up from inside your teen, exploding with a rant, insolence or a well-slammed door, the first and best thing a parent can do is to try to not instantly react, because what usually follows will result in a no-holds-barred, knock-down, drag-out argument that usually escalates into computers being taken away, privileges rescinded, weekends spent in solitary confinement, and mom and dad climbing the proverbial walls.

So what can you do that does help?

First, take a healthy step back from the heat of the moment and the flying fur—as best you can—and take a deep breath.

Having hopefully cleared enough inner space to think, a mom and dad are best served by asking themselves what is underneath their teenager's upset. What do they need? What clues are they providing me about how they are experiencing their assignments and learning to work at home. Is this about their school work, or perhaps part of their need to separate and individuate from you? Statements such as, “It's my life”, or “Leave me alone; it's my problem” may well indicate that your son or daughter is trying to define themselves in the world, however difficult the process.

When you were growing up, what lengths did you go to accomplish the same?

So whether your teenager is using bluster to distract from the fact they have been avoiding their homework, or genuinely expressing their frustrations, which may be only tangentially related to doing their homework, the key for a parent is to not get drawn into the fray, but to do their absolute best to see beyond their son or daughter's belligerence to what's more truly being expressed.

While a parent may need to set some appropriate boundaries as to how each of you communicates with the other, even when upset, the key again will be for you to ask yourself what is their need.

You can also talk to their teachers, school deans or school counselor. They may be able to offer some good ideas specific to your teenager and their school.

Yet it will be only from a place of understanding as to what is truly going on with your teen that you can make helpful judgments about what your response will be, which may include everything from getting them some sort of academic support separate from you, to fashioning wise consequences when they choose to not do their work.

Try taking whichever appropriate steps above. Should you need to remove the temptations around them, such as a phone or computer, do so in a predictable, calm manner for a limited, predetermined time—not as a punishment, but from a position of an adult providing supportive guidance to your son or daughter.

Even when your teen complains, they will sense the difference between an angry, reactionary move on your part, and an earnest effort to assist them in completing their work. You may have to wait a few years to hear their appreciation of how you went about it, but then, good things take time.

If your teen's problems persist, do speak with their teachers to see what they may have observed about your teenager’s work habits or abilities. In public schools, there may an IEP (Individual Education Plan) available that might better suit your child's needs. In independent schools, there will often be support meetings available to evaluate a teen’s challenges in school.

And if that doesn't lead to a remedy, you finally may want to have your son or daughter's learning mode evaluated. Again, start with your local school. If what they offer doesn't feel right, there may be other alternatives.

In Los Angeles, for example, there are university and training programs offering testing on a sliding scale (such as the ones at UCLA, St. John’s and Reiss Davis). At the very least, a better understanding of HOW your teenager learns can clearly indicate a better way to help them learn. Is he or she an auditory learner? A visual learner? Do they have processing issues?

Knowing the difference can make the difference.

Over the years, we have often marveled at how children who were supposed to be “less capable” positively thrived when the right pieces and strategies were put in place to their support efforts. But some of them were not “discovered”, if you will, until after an experience such as this:

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A 10th grade student assured his concerned parents that he had done all his work, and that he fully expected to get very good grades in all his classes. But when the grade reports came out, he was actually failing all but one of his classes. When his mom and dad confronted him, thinking their son had misled them, the 10th grader didn’t know how to explain it. From his perspective, he thought he was doing well. He was not aware of the assignments he had missed, nor a grasp of the course materials, as he had imagined. So what looked initially as if he was lying was, in truth, a measure of just how lost he was in school, and how unaware he had been of all the signs and signals that he was NOT doing well.

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This is not an uncommon occurrence, in our experience, if the only mistake parents make is to too readily assume their child was trying to mislead them. Indeed, their teenager may well have thought, from their perspective, all was well, only to be shocked by what their teachers reported.

In such cases, additional academic help is likely called for, as well as some parent/student/teacher meetings to help separate facts from a student’s wishful fiction. The other dimension to all this that a teenager may be preoccupied with issues of his or her own, in which case they may repeatedly miss the signals from their environment about how they’re doing—or NOT doing, as the case may be. So it behooves a mom or dad to consider first what might else be going on in their teenager’s life before rushing to judgment when a disappointing report card arrives.

We have also seen many parents who, in their frustration, regularly express their upset over their teen's lower grades, yet never offer the reward of their praise for their teen’s better efforts or improvements.

So don't forget to praise when appropriate and where possible.

In all cases, let them know what you expect, but check to make sure your expectations are realistic, appropriate and driven by an understanding of who they are, rather than by who you want them to be. In doing so, they may surprise you, and by giving them the support they need, they may well surprise themselves.

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TEST-TAKING ANXIETY

While many teens take their various deadlines, quizzes and tests in stride, for others the experience of facing any of these can feel like a painful, paralyzing nightmare, leading to an inevitable failure.

For teenagers with test anxiety, even a minor challenge can induce such high levels of stress that they virtually shut down, losing their ability to think or even recall what they know.

In our work we have found that test anxiety is an often overlooked or misidentified factor in a student's sometimes surprising under-performance on tests, or at meeting deadlines. Yet the diagnosis these High School students all too often receive is that they aren't paying enough attention in class, or that they aren't studying or working hard enough.

Such labeling only raises their anxiety levels, making them feel even more isolated, affecting their self-esteem, their sense of well-being as well as their relationships. Which is why many children go to school each day feeling as if it’s only a matter of time before they are discovered to be incapable or incompetent.

So how can a parent help?

First, it is important to recognize signs of test anxiety, which can include a deep need to be perfect, or an intractable lethargy about doing their school work, or an undermining belief he or she is not good enough—all leading to a withdrawal from either doing their class work or handing in it, especially as deadlines and tests approach.

You may also notice your teen having difficulty concentrating, paying attention, or an increasing forgetfulness. Restlessness, frequent headaches or trouble sleeping may also be signs of a rising tide of fear.

Second, mom and dad's efforts to be patient, consistent, realistic and flexible can greatly ease a teenager's tension. By making a teen’s effort more important than their results-of-the-moment, parents can greatly help to reduce their son’s or daughter’s anxieties. In praising what's good about them, and not being overly critical of disappointing results, a mom and dad can also teach their teen how to make a new start.

Conversely, a parent must also become aware of how they may be contributing to their teenager's concerns about doing well. While most moms and dads want the absolute best for their son or daughter, grownup worries about which school they will be able to get into, what college they will attend, or what degree they will graduate with, may all be adding to a teen's apprehensions, making every test, every deadline, feel like another critical turning point in their lives, when in fact many are simply not.

So it is incumbent that we ask ourselves as parents: are our worries about their future unintentionally triggering and worsening theirs?

As with all matters parenting, rearing children continually invites us to reexamine ourselves to see if we may be passing along our own anxieties and fears, even as we hope we are acting to quell theirs. A calm, step by step approach, taking life a day at a time, may well be the key to deescalating their fears and yours, helping to restore a sense of positive possibilities.

On a practical level, should you suspect your teenager may be experiencing overwhelming anxiety around their school work, it is useful to check with their teachers, counselors and deans. Should your son or daughter be demonstrating a reasonable grasp of their classes in all ways except on tests or in meeting deadlines, test anxiety may well be the hidden reason. Our doulas provide emotional, physical, and informational support during pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period. Let us help you navigate this transformative time with confidence and ease.

~ Darryl Sollerh with Leslie King, LCSW