When your child does homework, you do homework

Show your kids that the skills they are learning are related to things you do as an adult. If your child is reading, you read too. If your child is doing math, balance your checkbook.

Answer “Why?”

Giving someone a reason to do something is a vital secret to success. Not only in dealing with your child's education but also in your own life.

Robert Cialdini, Ph.D. in his book “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” talks about an experiment by a psychologist from Harvard, who concluded people like to have a reasons for what they do. This experiment consisted of people waiting in line to use the copy machine and having someone ask to get
ahead in line. The first excuse used was “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I'm in a rush?” This request-plus-reason was
successful 94% of the time.

However when the experimenter made a request nly: “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine?” This request was only granted 60% of the time.

Okay now for the shocker. It might seem the difference between those two requests was the additional information of “because I'm in a rush.” But that's not the case. The only word that triggers a magic response is “because”.

Here's the clincher: In a third experiment the experimenter asks “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I have to make some
copies?” There's no reason mentioned just the words “because”.

This time 93% of the people said yes simply due to the word ‘BECAUSE'!

So, what can you say to your child the next time they complain about doing homework? Give them a reason why…

Your teacher and I want you to do your homework because:

Teaching and learning research shows that students who spend more time on homework do better in school. (logical reasoning)

We want to be sure you understand the lesson. (a challenge)

So you can learn how to find and use more information on the subject (exploration)

We want you to be successful, so we need to make sure you are doing your best in school and at home (involvement)

These are of course just a few examples you can use. Anything could potentially work well as long as you follow a few simple rules.

1. Make school a team effort. (your teacher and I)

2. Give an adult reason (no because I said so's)

3. No negotiating! I cover homework rewards and punishments on the free bonus CD that comes in the Homework Motivator package.

10 minutes per grade level

It's as simple as that. To effectively improve student's grades and understanding
of their schoolwork, 10 minutes of homework per day for each grade level is most effective…e.g. 1st grade 10 min, 3rd grade 30, 10th grade 100, etc.

In grades 1-6 follow this guideline to the letter. No more time, no less. It has been proven that younger children begin to develop negative associations toward
homework and school when this homework time allotment is exceeded. In other words don't force your 2nd grader to do homework for more than 20 minutes!

If homework is taking longer than the corresponding time period, talk to your child's teacher immediately. I can't stress this enough- 10 minutes per grade level only! If the teacher gives you problems, go to the principal. Again negative
associations are formed early on in school. Don't let one “pain in the butt”, teacher ruin school forever for your child.

Junior and High school students can obviously handle more work than younger students can. Most older students also have homework projects, such as
research papers and oral reports, that may have deadlines weeks away.

Use the10-minute homework guideline to help them organize and plan work times within their “time”.

It is always a good idea to ask your principal if your school has a homework policy. If it does, make sure that your children understand that policy. (go back to my Ask “Why?” tip)

Dangers of Learning Centers and Tutoring for Math

Learning Centers and private tutors are a double edged sword when it comes to school, and with math especially.

While your child may be getting extra practice, often tutors will teach methods different than the classroom teachers.

Most teachers are required to remain after school for a period of time. Request that your child’s teacher schedule after-school math tutoring sessions if your child really needs help.

For more information on the Learning Center/Tutor "scam", check out the learning center category.

How to make reading a part of every day

Making reading an everyday part of your family’s life is a lot easier than you may think...

• Share conversations with your child over meal times and other times you are together. Children learn words more easily when they hear them spoken often. Introduce new and interesting words at every opportunity.

• Read together every day. Spend time talking about stories, pictures, and words.

• Be your child’s best advocate. Keep informed about your child’s progress in reading and ask the teacher about ways you can help.

• Be a reader and a writer. Children learn habits from the people around them.

• Visit the library often. Story times, computers, homework help, and other exciting activities await the entire family.

The magic comeback…

But Mom…I already finished my homework. I don't have any homework this weekend Dad….See ya later!

Remember my 10 minutes per grade level tip? You must make studying, not just homework, a daily habit.

Students can always review lessons, read a book, or work on practice exercises during homework time, even if they don't have homework.

Ask younger children to show you their homework so that you can check it, sign it, and date it. Teachers like to see that adults have checked their kid's
homework. If your child's school has a homework hotline or website, check for daily assignments.

Don't ask your children if they have homework each night, assume that they always have homework or studying to do.

Ok, the magic comeback…

You come home from work, or wherever during the established homework time. Suddenly you hear machine gun fire and laser beams in the living room followed
by a cheer and laughter. When you walk in the living room and give the “what do you think your doing mister” line to your son, he gleefully replies, “I don't have any homework tonight” and turns back to his video game.

What do you do? WHAT DO YOU DO?!!

Here's what…

Say casually “Ok, just do me a favor and pause the game a second, (or mute the TV, or come inside, or whatever it takes to have your child look at you), I
want to ask you something. ( My "Why?" tip)

Then, when you have their undivided attention, let them see you look at your watch and say, “ Your teacher didn't give the class any homework? I'll be sure to call your principal tomorrow and tell him/her that your teacher is not following the schools homework rule of 10 minutes per grade level per night. Boy is she/he in trouble!” Then walk out of the room.

Maybe not immediately, but in less than an hour I will bet you a truckload of money, that your kid will have turned off the game (or stopped whatever they
were doing) and is now doing some sort of school work…and making sure you see that they are doing some school work.

Pretty funny, right? I have been teaching parents this comeback ever since I saw an Olympic Judo Team captain say something similar to get her team to
have an extra practice. It's funny how much school and athletics have in common. But that's a topic for another time.

Try the magic comeback the next time your kid pulls the “I don't have any homework” line and see how it works for you. I would love to hear from you. I
have a collection of over 5000 emails from parents who have used this technique with successful results. After you use it, email me at chris@nobletraining.com with your story.

Just be warned…sometimes you may actually have to call the teacher. (never call the principal. Most just yes you to death and don't do squat about it) If you have followed my other tips, then you and your child's teacher already are a world championship tag-team.

Explain that jr. has been telling you that there has not been any or much homework; can we challenge him//her some more?

Introduction to Learning Styles

Your learning style is the way you prefer to learn. It doesn’t have anything to do with how intelligent you are or what skills you have learned. It has to do with how your brain works most efficiently to learn new information. Your learning style has been with you since you were born.

There’s no such thing as a "good" learning style or a "bad" learning style. Success comes with many different learning styles. There is no "right" approach to learning. We all have our own particular way of learning new information. The important thing is to be aware of the nature of your learning style. If you are aware of how your brain best learns, you have a better chance of studying in a way that will pay off when it’s time to take that dreaded exam.

Getting Started

As mentioned above, it is usually best to have the child begin with a task that they consider "easy." Some children may want to start with the hardest task first to get it over with, and this is acceptable unless the child has a very difficult time getting started and will dawdle or avoid the difficult assignment even though it was his/her choice to start with it.

For many youngsters, just getting started on homework seems like an insurmountable obstacle. We have several suggestions for handling this problem:

Have the child specify exactly when she will begin her homework and then reward her for getting to work within five minutes of the time she has specified.
Sit with your child for the first five minutes to make sure he gets off to a good start.
Talk with your child about her assignments before beginning. This is particularly important for written language assignments or more open-ended tasks. Children often need to be "primed" or activated for their best efforts to come out. This is particularly true for youngsters who may have difficulties with verbal fluency or word retrieval.
Orient your child to his assignment; walk him through the first one or two problems or items to make sure he understands what he is supposed to do.
Build in a short break relatively quickly, if getting started is a problem.

Learning Center Loan?!

How old is your child?
10

Please describe your experience with a learning center.

We looked into this service, but chose another option.

If you are or were dissatisfied with this service, or if you chose another option, please explain why:

After paying $150 for testing, we were told that our son needed about $5000 worth of tutoring and they told us we could take out a loan!!!

Do you have any other comments or suggestions for parents who are considering using this resource?

We are looking at other options. Learning centers are way too expensive and we were shocked to be told that they would set up a loan for us. Our son’s teacher told us not to bother, that she would stay after and help him, thank God.

Provide Guidance, not answers

When your child asks for help, provide guidance, not answers. Giving answers means your child will not learn the material. Too much help teaches your child that when the going gets rouch, someone will do the work for him.

Challenge! - What to do if your child finds homework intolerably boring…

Who doesn't? If you can honestly tell me that you liked homework when you where a kid call me, I know a good Psychiatrist. Here's the secret. Bored being the key work.

There is a big difference between dislike and boring. Life is filled with things we dislike. As adults we know that sometimes “you gotta do what ya gotta do”, to achieve a higher goal. Homework is no different.

It is extremely important to monitor your kid's actual homework assignments, as well as how they tackle them. If they find the assignments monotonous but difficult, or challenging you are ok.

But when you notice, or your child consistently complains that homework is easy, or “I know this already”, or they just go through the motions every
night…watch out, trouble is coming. Boredom will set in, and a new dangerous association will begin to form… learning is boring. And it's all down hill from there.

It's normal for students not to want to do their homework. But if your child always seems bored or unhappy, you need to try to find out the reason by talking with your child. Then talk to the teacher to come up with a solution.

Teachers want students to learn from homework. Tell the teacher if your child thinks the homework is to easy or too hard. This will help the teacher match
homework with student ability and maturity levels. Teachers want bright students who enjoy a challenge. Any teacher worth their salt will gladly give enhanced
assignments to motivated students. Why? Won't this give the teacher more work? Not necessarily. Students who rise to the challenge give the teachers someone to show off and brag about to parents, peers, and administrators.

In essence when your child looks good, the teacher looks good as well.

OVERALL TEST TACTICS: 1

Learn the section directions now. Use the time saved during the test to work on questions.
Answer easy questions first. Mark skipped questions in your exam book so you can quickly return to them later.
Guess...if you can eliminate at least one choice.
You can write in the test book: cross out wrong answers; do scratch work.
Take care when filling in the answer grid for the student-produced response questions.
Avoid stray marks on the answer sheet. A machine scores your test and can’t distinguish between a correct answer and a careless doodle.
Easy questions usually precede hard ones.
Mark only one answer per question.
Skip any question if you haven’t the faintest idea about the answer. You don’t lose points.
Understand the scoring! You get a point for a right answer. You lose a fractional point for a wrong answer. There is no deduction for omitted answers, or for wrong answers in the math section’s student-produced response questions.

Turn it off! - How to deal with TV, Video Games, and Instant Messenger…

Here's the big secret…Turn It Off!!

Children nowadays, on average spend far more time watching TV, playing video games, or instant messaging their friends, than they do doing
homework, studying, reading, or even playing sports!

This is bad news people. Although it's worth noting that all these things can be awesome learning tools, it is a must to lay down the law to your kids.

No TV, and No computer during homework time (unless something needs to be typed or researched of course). If they do need to use the computer give them a strict time deadline that will fit within their 10 minute per grade rule (See my other tips).

Some students can work with a radio or stereo on, while others must work in silence. This is one of the reasons our Homework Motivator program is only 10 minutes long.

If the student likes to work in silence, the short 10-minute program will get them going, then let them work in peace. If you have more than one child be sure
that they are all respectful of each other's tolerance for noise. (Headphones are great, and required for the Homework Motivator)

Again, set the house rules. Tell them why you have these rules (see Answer "Why?" tip), and make it clear to your children what you expect concerning time spent (see 10 minute rule tip), and usage of entertainment media (this tip!).

Again, I cover rewards and punishments on the bonus Tele-seminar CD that accompanies the Homework Motivator, but video games, TV, and computer
privileges should be exactly that…a privilege, not a right.

10 minutes per grade level

It's as simple as that. To effectively improve student's grades and understanding
of their schoolwork, 10 minutes of homework per day for each grade level is most effective…e.g. 1st grade 10 min, 3rd grade 30, 10th grade 100, etc.

In grades 1-6 follow this guideline to the letter. No more time, no less. It has been proven that younger children begin to develop negative associations toward
homework and school when this homework time allotment is exceeded. In other words don't force your 2nd grader to do homework for more than 20 minutes!

If homework is taking longer than the corresponding time period, talk to your child's teacher immediately. I can't stress this enough- 10 minutes per grade level only! If the teacher gives you problems, go to the principal. Again negative
associations are formed early on in school. Don't let one “pain in the butt”, teacher ruin school forever for your child.

Junior and High school students can obviously handle more work than younger students can. Most older students also have homework projects, such as
research papers and oral reports, that may have deadlines weeks away.

Use the10-minute homework guideline to help them organize and plan work times within their “time”.

It is always a good idea to ask your principal if your school has a homework policy. If it does, make sure that your children understand that policy. (go back to my Ask “Why?” tip)

Be a cheerleader!

Parents don't have to be professors to help their children succeed in school.Today's students may have subjects that you never had or that you didn't like
when you were in school.

You can still help your children by praising their progress, getting help from teachers, or researching additional resources like the Homework Motivator and
Noble Learning Systems' other do better in school products…I know, shameless plug ;)

All kidding aside, never feel that you have to be an expert in a subject to help with homework. One of the best ways is to have your kids actually teach you!
Sounds crazy? Listen to this.

In most teacher training classes, they show what is called an inverted learning triangle. It lists methods of teaching and learning from the least to the most effective.

At the top (least effective) is lecturing! Next was only reading material (not very effective).

Then reading and listening together (so-so), then discussion (pretty good), then learn by doing (pretty darn good).

Finally at the bottom, lay the most effective, super duper, unbeatable way to learn material effectively…teaching others!

On a side note; when I became a teacher I actually mailed my old, boring lecture teachers a copy of this triangle…they were quite insulted. Ha, Ha!!

Most teachers really do want children to learn and want parents and families to be involved in their children's education. Stay in touch with your child's teacher, and they will also help and offer their own homework tips and ideas on how you
can help.

So don't be intimidated by AP Calculus, Honors Biology, or plain ole' English composition. Use the chance to bond with your kids, and have them show you
the ropes.