How do i help my 16 year old?

How about meditation? It helps me a lot to relax and reflect when I’m about to do an assignment. In addition it clears your mind of everything else as you just focus on the task before you. Another thing that might help your son is more sleep if he isn’t getting more then 8 hours. I find when I do things late into the night, it hinders me during the day as I haven’t had enough time to recharge. If thats not the case then maybe your son needs to re-evaluate what he wants out of school. He should know that school is hard and that if you really want to succeed you need to put in effort even if it causes some stress.

I think that you need more information on what is happening with your son before deciding on a course of action. Is he having performance anxiety? Ask him to explain to you what happens when he thinks about doing an assignment.

Has be been tested for learning disabilities and ADD?

Did he successfully do his assignments in past years?

If you determine that it is a mater of will and not any type of problem, then I would suggest letting him know that his homework is not optional, but a requirement. Socializing with his friends or playing video games or watching TV depend on first getting that work done.

Use the reward coin he values most. Also, use what he values most to motivate him.

Well.. are the assignments taken in for marks?

Because i know a lot of ppl who don’t do their assignments but just understand it and can do the tests and quizzes well. In high school, usually teachers don’t do homework checks anymore, and the tests should prove enough if we did our homework or not. So if the assignments aren’t taken in for marks, then he shouldn’t go through the stress of doing them.

One thing that has taken me a long time to learn is how to break tasks down into manageable pieces. If I know I have homework to do tonight, I tend to dread it and put it off because it seems like such a huge, boring task. Instead, I break it down into a list of little things. For instance, tonight I have to:
1. Write a syllabus for the class I’m TAing
2. Update the class website
3. Register for classes

These are concrete, discrete tasks, which are easier to take on. Framing homework like this might be less stressful to your son and hopefully prevent him from shutting down. Good luck to both of you.

You can talk to him sometimes when you can see he will be receptive, he cant seem to verbalise what he is feeling. I am teacher by trade and we sit in his room with the assignments and i set out steps with him but unfortunately it is mostly my assignment. if i go tough love and give him structure, walk away, keep checking on his progress he does nothing. the teachers have been fantastic. they email me keep me informed and help beyond what they should do. if he doesn’t hand in assignments he gets and incomplete for the subject and this impacts on senoir certificate. he knows that but still this makes no impact on him.

Counseling can work wonders. Get a referral from a friend you trust.

Sometimes my response to my own procrastination is to panic, which makes me procrastinate more because I stop believing that I can ever catch up. It’s a great way to completely freeze yourself in place, academically. If that’s what’s troubling him, I’ve found it works well to say to myself, Forget abut everything up until now – I have now, and I can do some small amount of work now, and that’s all that matters. Doing as much as you reasonably can in the time you have, without stressing yourself over how much you haven’t gotten done or how late the assignment is, is a good way to get moving again.

This was me. I still hate doing “assigments,” because truth be told if your kid is smart, understands the material and does well on tests and in class, then, well, the assignments are completely pointless. I know that they’re necessary to “do well” in school, and I bet your kid understands that. I would suggest talking to him and asking him his point of view; be sure not to be skeptical and make it clear you want to know why he won’t do this work. Let him know you’re open to his opinion.

Homework, especially when the student finds it pointless, is EXTREMELY stressful. Kids are in school for eight hours a day and for some reason schools think it’s necessary for them to take even more work home with them. Sometimes the amount assigned is perverse.

Lastly, I should say that I almost never did my homework in high school, but I ended up doing fine and ultimately got accepted to NYU.

I’d go with the counselor idea. Whatever is at the root of the problem might cause problems later in life as well. Best to get some answers and help now.

You might see if there is something like Sylvan or an independent tutor who can teach him techniques for getting through homework. I don’t have any good suggestions because I did all my homework during passing periods and lunch, so I only had the big projects to do at home.

I had a seriously ADD friend who always broke her work into discrete 15-minute tasks. She would then do them in random order, checking them off as she went, until all were done. She was the most prolific person I have ever known. Perhaps your son could learn to break his work down into fun parts and not-so-fun parts, and could trick himself by alternating between the two kinds of tasks.

Then this article may have some helpful ideas.

Also, make sure that where he does his homework is the right place for him, with the correct ambient noise (or silence if that is better for him), good lighting, a comfortable chair and desk set-up, and so on.

Finally, you might take him to a counselor so the two of you can get ideas of why he doesn’t do it (my son, for example, is both ADHD and a self-sabotager.)

Good luck!

Hey sounds like me when I was a kid. Looks like I found a friend. Anyways something useful. Do you know what his interests are? For me I like playing computer games. So what I did was play some game then while I was distracted I did my homework while my brain was still in its “Fun time” mode. Its kinda like flying in life, the universe and everything. Even now at work when I cant concentrate I stick in my portable DS emulator and play bomberman. I learned this technique from reading a Stephen king book. The dead zone to be exact.

@Darwin Thanks for linking that article. I just emailed it to my two high-schoolers!