Homework

When your child does homework, to what degree is he or she comfortable, focused and relaxed? Is doing homework a battle and a struggle every night? Have you tried using tutors? Speaking to his or her teachers? Have you tried gentle pep talks? Harsh reprimands?

If you still have not found a solution, rest assured that there is one. The struggle with homework can be eased. I call the approach I use "Inner Tutoring."

Here is the gist of it: Stop discussing doing homework with your child, and instead discuss how he or she is approaching homework. Guide your child to step back and really explore the way they are approaching their studies. Ask your child questions: Are you worried what teachers or other kids will think? Do you believe you are not smart? Do you like struggling with homework, or do you truly want to end this struggle?

If their answer is yes, promise to help them find the solution.

Gently show them that if they resist homework, it turns into work. But when your child feels a sense of will and determination beneath any aversion to homework, on the other hand, a strong sense of peace will pervade the homework experience.

Use your own language of course, but the idea is to help your child see that they are the ones making homework a struggle with their attitude about it. Change that attitude, in a legitimate way, and a larger motivational current takes over, and you end up working more light-heartedly and creatively, and having little sense of work pressure.

Inner Tutoring should be done while your child is doing homework, but not when there is a lot of time pressure. You should be able to stop and start the studying many times. Try doing it for 45 minutes on a Saturday, for instance. It should be a Focused time for your child to recognize their own resistance to homework, drop their shields, and find the undercurrent of joy that will heal their relationship with homework.

Be aware that at first "getting work done" is not the main focus of your time using this approach. There will be many purposeful stops and starts, as you explore emotional discovery. Let your child express his or her feelings. Hear them. You might have to let your child be over-dramatic about the whole homework scene for a while.  Expose all the limiting beliefs and feelings. Bring them into the light, so to speak.  Help them see them for what they are: attempts to control life or make themselves feel better.

When your child sees that their attitude is in the culprit, they might stop fighting homework so much and become more accepting of it.

The beneficial attitudes accessed during this approach to tutoring build up, and then break down resistances, healing your child's relationship with homework over a period of time.