Robert: What is the worst part about raising school age children? Is it the homework? It’s the homework, isn’t it? Yep. I knew it was the homework. So let’s discuss all things homework today in just seven steps. 

Intro: Welcome to the Just Seven Steps podcast with Robert Schramm, a board-certified behavior analyst, educator, author and developer of the Seven Steps to Successful Parenting. For more than 20 years, Robert has been teaching parents and professionals how to support children and developing the values and priorities necessary to live a successful life. In this podcast, you’ll hear from some of the biggest experts in the fields of education, parenting and behavior analysis. So buckle in and get ready for a wild ride where you’ll learn to be your best in just seven steps. 

Robert: Hi, I’m Robert Schramm, a behavior analyst, education specialist, author and dad. And I’m also the developer of the Seven Steps to Instructional Motivation. Each week, I provide you with helpful information based on that just seven steps approach. So if you haven’t already subscribe to my YouTube channel, take a second. Do it now. I promise you’ll be glad you did. In today’s episode we will be talking about homework. Man, I personally do not like homework. I’m against it in general. I mean, if our kids are going to spend up to what it’s like 30 hours a week at school, how is it okay that we’re asking them to do work outside of that already? Pretty substantial amount of time. I know we have antilabor laws in this country that don’t allow our kids to have to work. But isn’t it isn’t going to school just a form of work? And isn’t 6 hours a day enough for them to do all they need to do? Well, apparently it’s not because just like you, my kids are finding themselves inundated with homework, studying, and projects that take up what little free time they have left. To be honest, I’m a little surprised that more kids don’t just start refusing to do their homework. There are quite a few, though, that do fight homework, and parents are left having to somehow battle their way through making their kids work for one or sometimes 2 hours or more after they’ve already completed a full day of school. So today on the Just Seven Steps podcast, I’m going to take some time to talk about all of the tips and hints that become inherent for folks who understand and use the Seven Steps to Instructional Motivation with their children, and how you can use these concepts to stop having to battle your kids on a daily basis and to find ways to motivate and reinforce better homework habits and behavior. Now, homework is a bit of a large topic because depending on the age of your child, you might be dealing with having to do worksheets and basic skills. Or it could be working on advanced skills that you may not even know how to do yourself. Additionally, how does studying for tests fit into all of this? But luckily, the things that work to motivate and reinforce behavior work across the board for all types of behavior, including all types of homework. You just need to take in some of these concepts and figure out how to apply them to your child’s current situation. 

Robert: The first concept I want to talk about is offering positive reinforcement for behavior that you want to see more of. This is the easiest way to make effort on homework worth it to your child. And let’s be real. We understand why your child should want to do their homework and get good grades. We understand what their future holds and what will help them to have a better life. But we still have to find a way to consistently, day after day, convince them that it’s in their long term best interest to give up free time, game time or friend time doing homework. So if we can just find a motivator that is strong enough and occurs often enough to give them a reason to want to complete their assigned homework, that’s by far the easiest path to progress. So what are some meaningful, strong motivators that your child might find worth the effort it would take to do their homework on a day by day basis? And how do we make that reinforcer available often enough to maintain that motivation throughout the week? Well, some of my class clients there, we’ve always looked for these sort of super reinforcers that can offer a pull on a child’s behavior from day to day. And we’ve come up with some examples that I think I can share with you that’ll be helpful. Now, I’ve had kids who’ve been willing to start doing homework daily without complaining or stalling based on their desire to earn a Lego builder set such as Star Wars or Marvel or minions, airplane or spaceship models, the ability to join a club or a sports team, special vacation opportunities like a weekend trip to a water park or amusement park, favorite special meals or restaurant trips on Friday nights. The ability to go to the movies or have a sleepover on the weekend and in some cases, money to buy the items that are important to your child, such as clothing or shoes or toys or even candy. If it is important for your child to have access to these items that are not normally available to them, but that they now realize are becoming available only due to their willingness to complete homework tasks. You should see them put more effort into daily homework. And as these items are novel and not normally expected, when they would work as a motivator, your child will carry a positive attitude with them as well as they see these as worthwhile bonuses instead of just having to pay for things that they used to get for free. And this is true as long as you set it up correctly. So what do we have to do with this strong, meaningful, out of the ordinary reinforcer once we find it? Well, we need to consider how we will allow the child to work towards earning it in such a way that you can get maximum motivation out of it. This is especially important if there are prohibitive costs involved. I know some of those larger Lego sets can get pretty darn expensive. And I’ve had kids who work for a pair of Michael Jordan shoes, which can cost in the hundreds. 

Robert: In most cases, you want to identify how often you would be able to afford or willing to give access to this newly determined reinforcer. Is it every couple of days, once a week, once a month, or once every few months? The more often you can make the reinforcer available, the better, because immediacy is such an important aspect in the effectiveness of reinforcement. So here’s an example. Would you rather I give you $50 today or $60 a month? Depending on a lot of factors. You might choose the lower amount of money based on the fact that it’s a more immediate payoff. Again, our kids are the same. The further you push out access to reinforcement, the less value it’ll be making it less likely to affect their behavior now. So keep that in mind. But if you identify that the reinforcer will be available weekly or even every few days, you can assume it will have more pull than that same reinforcer would if it was only available, say, monthly. Scarcity in this instance is not our friend. And once you know what reinforcers you’re going to use and how often you’re able to give that reinforcer, you have to set up a way for you to track your child’s progress that keeps their eyes on the prize, so to speak. As you go from one day to the next, some form of token system or chart that tracks progress towards the larger goal is going to be helpful for both you and your child. So for each successful day of homework, will your child be earning a star on their star chart? A number of points based on how much they did or how well they completed it might be able to earn one or two or even three X’s on a chart, depending on the effort of the day. Can you offer them more access on days that they do homework without you needing to remind them or without complaining? I mean, technically we can set up to reinforce the behavior we want in the form we want to see it. I mean, what is most important to you? Is it independence? We can incentivize doing homework without bothering others. If it’s the quality of the work, we can incentivize how many they get correct on our checking it. If it’s the amount of work or the amount of time they put in, we can incentivize that as well. Once we know what the reinforcer is and we know how many tokens or stars or x’s they can earn per day, and we know about how long it will have to go before we can make it available to them, meaning weekly or monthly or longer. We can then determine how many tokens it would take to earn the item. Maybe we set it up that the child can earn between zero and five points per day based on their homework behavior. And if we know, we can only afford to be able to give them the item as a reinforcer monthly, then we’re looking at somewhere around 100 points to earn that item. This assumes four weeks in a month, five days in a week, and five possible points per day. You can then explain to your child what they can earn in just one month’s time if they’re able to earn five points per day. But it might take longer if they’re not able to get the full five points. 

Robert: Now, if this example were to end up being part of a plan, we’re going to have to determine if the child will find that getting that reinforcer monthly is going to be strong enough to push them to get the full effort at getting their five points each day. If we think there’s a chance that it’s not. There is, however, more that we can do. For example, in addition to adding the points earned each day to the grand total for the larger reinforcer, we can also offer reinforcement each evening depending on the number of points earned that day. So not only will the child receive five points towards the giant Lego set they want, but they can also get a TV show and popcorn with mom on days that they got a five. Or a TV show. On days that they get a four or nothing additional. On days that they get it three or less. Another additional motivator that can be added is a negative reduction consequence. For days that the child were to get two or less. For example, not only will the child not get their points towards the big prize or popcorn and a show on the days that they get three or less, we could also add the removal of access to something for days that they get a two or less. Maybe their iPhone is taken away for an hour. Or if they get a two or four the whole night for a one and four a day on the weekend if they get a zero. You see, there’s no limit to the ways we can start to differentiate and incentivize better and better homework behavior. Maybe it might make sense to offer an allowance based on the homework done. In this case, maybe you have a chart for the larger long term reinforcer and the child needs to earn, say, 50 X’s to gain access to that special reward. And you can add an allowance to that. Or maybe you can just do the allowance without the larger long term reinforcement. But either way, each day they can get a half an X, a full x, 1.5 or two axes depending on their homework behavior as defined by whatever aspects you want to incentivize. Then you can award a quarter per half x of allowance earned each day. That way, if your child gives their full two axes, that’s possible. They’re going to get close to their 50 for the larger reinforcer and or they’re going to earn a dollar a day towards money that they can spend on the weekends. But I don’t want you to worry. There’s no reason anything that we do here has to cost any money at all. All that has to happen is that you have to creatively find something meaningful that is important enough for your child to want to work for it. Attention kids might go out of their minds for a board game or a card game with mom and dad in the evenings. Escape kids might do everything possible during the week to not have to participate in a family activity on the weekend. Sensory kids might find the right fight through their homework blues for a chance to go to the park or the beach or somewhere that has a trampoline for them to jump on over the weekend. And there’s always the old standby, the one my mom finally figured out that began my behavior change as a young adult, which eventually led me to better grades and a college degree. She started to make my access to the family car dependent on my behavior around the house, including grades, homework, coming home on time, etc.. I discussed this time in my life in an earlier episode about developing respect in a parenting relationship. Check that episode out. It’s certainly going to be one of our most popular. 

Robert: Maybe your kid doesn’t need to have such a strong novel motivator in place for us to be successful. Perhaps you have a child who is enthralled with playing video games. Might it be possible to set up some rules about when those games can be played? What will motivate them to get their homework done in a timely fashion without the need for reminders and nagging on your part? For instance, what if your child was told that they could get all that they could only play their video games from after school until, say, 530, and then at 530, the Internet’s going to be turned off for dinner. Then you announced that homework has to be acceptably completed before they can turn the video games on. Then they know that each day they will have up to 2.5 hours of video game play, but only if they don’t have homework to finish first. And as they have homework, it will be in their best interest to get to it right away without you needing to prompt them or beg them or pester them. They know that each passing minute they’re not finished is a minute less that they’re going to be able to play Minecraft or Roblox or Fortnite. If it takes your child one hour to do their homework, they’re going to get 1.5 hours of computer time. But if they stall and delay and it doesn’t get done, they might not get any computer time. You can also add extra motivators like special desserts or after dinner activities that become available depending on how well or quickly they get their homework done. Of course, with this kind of plan, there is an inherent motivation to go quickly through the homework and do it sloppily without any concern for correctness. But you would need to be in charge of signing off on the quality of the work done before they can get to their video games. This sort of program has been has even been enough for me to see kids who start getting their homework done in school just to make sure they have as much free gaming time as possible when they get home. Now, you may not want your kid to get a full 2.5 hours of gaming time per day. But if they’re successful, getting their homework done every day and their grades are going up and you’re fighting less, it might be worth it. Besides, once you have a motivator that is working, you can start to adjust it a bit over time and find ways to limit their gaming time as well. Again, this is another way to motivate and reinforce homework that doesn’t cost any additional money to implement. 

Robert: Okay. So I’m going to switch gears here just a little bit and talk about some things that you can do for younger kids or kids who just don’t have the stamina to handle the amount of homework you’re currently having to ask them to do. To some degree, this conversation will be similar to some of what was talked about in my episode. On Getting Your Kids to Keep Their Room Clean. Another great episode. You should go back and watch if you can. If you haven’t seen or heard of that one yet, I’d recommend it. I could be wrong. I think it’s episode number two. But anyway, if this is the first of these episodes that you’re checking out, definitely go back to your podcast streamer and look up all of my episodes that are out there. They each run between 20 and 30 minutes and I cover so many great topics you won’t want to miss one. Anyway, back to the topic for today. For younger kids, there may be a struggle with endurance. Maybe they can do their homework, but the amount of time and effort it takes is just too much for them to handle all at one time. One thing you can do is break down their homework each day into manageable chunks. For example, take a math math worksheet and breaking into chunks containing only five problems each then. And instead of expecting them to do the full 30 minute as a hallmark to earn some reinforcement, you can just ask them to do five or ten minute chunks, depending on what you think they can handle, and then reinforce each chunk individually with some game time or computer time or a snack. Then when that reinforcement time is up, quickly return to an expectation for the next jump and repeat until the homework is finished for the day with lots of back and forth, fun and reinforcement throughout the process. As your child becomes more comfortable completing these chunks at their current size, you can begin to increase the size of the chunks a bit each week until they can average ten or 15 minutes per chunk before needing a reinforcement break. If you start this early enough, you can begin to train your child to handle more and more homework the way a runner trains to run longer and longer distances. Studying is kind of its own animal because studying really is harder to assess. How do you know if your child is not studying, studying poorly or just not able to learn the material being required? You can certainly incentivize time study, but that doesn’t help you to identify if your child even really knows how to study correctly, and you can motivate them to engage in lessons about study techniques. But even when a child is studying hard and studying correctly, they may for one reason or another, or for one subject or another, just not be able to retain the information necessary to get the good grades you’re hoping for. To some degree, we need to acknowledge our differences and the chance that your child either has a learning disability or at very least just isn’t going to be good at a specific subject. My daughter Zoe has found algebra to be particularly challenging for her to understand. I’m still motivating and incentivizing effort on her part, for her part and participation. I’m even offering reasons why she would want to ask me for help. But even with all of this, I’ve realized that I need to have a different level of expectation for her from math than her other subjects. And that’s okay. We all have strengths and weaknesses, and the last thing we want to do is to humiliate or pressure a child to do something they’re already giving their full effort into and are just not able to find success. Then you can pay for tutoring. You can motivate extra practice but the bottom line, whatever our goals are for our kids, we want them to be their goals as well. And if they show you a strong desire or strength in one area or the other, it behooves us as parents to let them take that lead at times and show us the things they can truly be excellent at. Now, nothing I talked about today is going to be easy to do if you aren’t able to know what your child is supposed to be doing. I mean, if you’re not privy to their expectations, it’s going to be hard for you to set up a plan that motivates them correctly. So finding a way to get that information from your child’s teacher will probably end up being pretty important. 

Robert: So let’s recap the tips from today. First, it’s always easiest if you can find a way to make doing homework worth it to your child. The best way to do that is to identify a strong novel reinforcer that you can add to their life. If they do well on their homework. You can also add daily reinforcers to help add additional pull on behavior. There’s a lot of free options as well, including taking the time your children are already playing important games or activities and letting that time be limited by how much time it takes them to do their homework. And finally, we discussed breaking homework down into shorter or smaller, more manageable chunks so that your child can build up a tolerance to doing more and more work at a time while still getting plenty of reinforcement throughout that process. Everything I’ve talked about here today is certainly doable, and with a few days determining what should work for you and organizing the plan, it will actually take you less time per day. Once they have motivation in place, then you’re currently spending, arguing and fighting with them. Not only will it take less effort and energy on your part, but you’ll see. You’ll see more success in your kids as well. So if you would like to learn more about how all of this works, come check out my free workshop entitled How to Get Your Kids to Listen Without Raising Your Voice or Nagging. It’s available at absolutely no cost to you and you can find it on our website at WWW dot just seven steps dot com backslash workshop. Hope to see you there. Thank you for taking the time to join me today on the Just Seven Steps podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please take just a moment to leave me a comment. Give a thumbs up. Share the video with others and subscribe to our YouTube channel so that you won’t miss out on any of our Just Seven Steps videos designed to help parents of children with challenges. Find your family’s path to progress. See you right here next week.