I bought some summer workbooks for DS5 via his school. They suggest working on it 2-3 times a week and 15-20 minutes at a time.

Everytime I tell him to do his "homework," he complains for hours. Once he gets started, he won't stop because he thinks it is fun. He do like the materials, but getting him started is like pulling teeth.

I do the traditional suggestion of sticker reward, etc to no avail. That's one of the major reasons why I won't homeschool myself. If I were to homeschool, I would be spending hours arguing with DS.

Any suggestions?

Start with not telling him to do it. Bring him into the process, negotiate general schedules with the presumption that he wants to work on the material.

Like: "I'm planning on shopping this afternoon, when did you want to work on your fun school challenges so I can fit that into our schedule."

Or have him decide a general schedule: "How many days this week do you want to work on your learning?" and "OK, how long do you want to set aside for it?" and "Did you want me to remind you when it is the time you chose to work on it or manage your own schedule?"

Be the partner and guide rather than the boss; so, that he owns it along with your confidence and trust.

We did just about the same as Zen suggests. Don't call it work. Don't tell him to do it. Frame it so he decides when to do it. We sometimes tied it together with a snack or something fun.

I always tell my child that he can go to his favorite extracurricular activity after he finishes his homework and that always works! For e.g. "we can head out to your swimming practice after you finish your homework and the only thing keeping you home right now is your unfinished homework!" and my child's response usually is to tear through his homework in minutes and get ready to leave.
So, give him something to look forward to "after" finishing the homework. Find out what his currency is and negotiate - for e.g. you can go out with mom after the homework or you can get your screen time after homework or you can play with your favorite toy after you finish your work. Do not negotiate with him on when/if he needs to do his homework - just let him know that he gets to earn some extra privileges which he really wants by doing the expected tasks on schedule.

This doesn't work for all children. When ever I tried that on my son we would be there all afternoon not getting it done. Even at a young age it worked better to make a plan WITH my child. I would go with the not calling it homework and setting up a scheduled "time" during the day. Or bring it as something to do when he would otherwise be bored. Like waiting for food at a restaurant.

I bought some summer workbooks for DS5 via his school. They suggest working on it 2-3 times a week and 15-20 minutes at a time.

I'm going to ask the obvious question here-- what is the intended/stated PURPOSE of this work?

Is it to "review" in order to prevent the skill erosion which is typical of NT students over the summer months?

Skill building for next fall?

Or something else?

Because if it's either of the former, I'm not so sure that I'd be pushing it that often. Maybe ONCE a week is enough for him. Maybe less, depending upon LOG and the type of learner you have.

We do school work over the summer, to keep my old dd (who has LDs) from regressing too much. Right now I have my younger dd doing the 4th grade EM workbook (what she's supposed to start in the fall) in hopes she can skip to 5th grade EM by the fall instead.

I find that giving them 'control' over the work helps. As others mentioned, asking when they'd like to do it. I also let my younger dd pick which pages she wants to do. She seems to like this more and fights less when it comes time to do it.

Fair enough.

DS goes to a play-based camp all day, and a couple days a week has other sports activities after camp. His behaviors deteriorates tremendously after too much free plays. That's my main reason for doing school work during the summer.

What bothers me is that he is indeed interested in the materials but argues and fights about doing it.

I will try giving him more controls about when and what to do.

This is an interesting topic for me. I'm having my DD6 do about 10 minutes of math a day this summer, which is not expected by her school (in addition to reading practice, which is expected). I've thought a lot about the why question.

- I feel that the school is not quite moving her along at the pace she is capable of. This is a chance to get her up to her actual level of challenge. During the school year we just don't have the time to do extra. I don't have to worry about this backfiring because the school will let her work at the level she's at next Fall.

- So far she has a love/hate relationship with math. As near as I can figure it out, she hates having to confront something that doesn't make sense to her yet, but loves the mastery once it occurs. At ten minutes a day, I'm hoping she'll learn that she is not being asked to climb Mt. Everest, that she's being asked to do very manageable chunks, and that comprehension really is the outcome of just focusing for a few minutes.

- As a more general point, I want her to get over this business of throwing a drama-queen death-of-Hamlet scene when she's asked to focus on something. Particularly, when her MOTHER asks her to focus on something. Again, at ten minutes a day, I'm hoping that the cause-effect relationship will start to sink in -- just focus, and we're actually done really quickly.

The ideas of giving the kid some partnership in the scheduling is interesting to me. I will try to work that in.

Is it possible you are misinterpreting his behavior. My DS15 is very introverted and after a full day at school he craves ALONE time. Time to do what he wants without anyone bothering him. In addition he could be hungry, tired and emotional exhausted.

So while doing working on worksheets might be a way to calm him down, how about other quiet activities like letting him read or something else he might like. It might even be a good time for a short video. I don't see anything wrong with working on the workbook if he likes it but if he is complaining about it perhaps it isn't the right activity at the right time.

I thought HelloBaby was saying more that the behavior deteriorates over the longer term, not that he's tired at the end of any particular day. Also, it seems like giving him more control about when would solve any problem of it being the wrong time of day.

Yep. After a week or two of nothing but free plays/TV/iPad/etc, his behavior deteriorates.

BTW, is it typical?

A lot of children benefit from having some structure to their days. This doesn't mean you have to regiment every minute, but just have some kind of rhythm to the day. Also, it may be a reaction to the very full days a lot of kids have during the school year; sometimes children who are too accustomed to having their days fully planned out for them don't know what to do with themselves when given a lot of latitude.

I would suggest giving him loosely-structured days, where there are a few fixed timepoints, or one or two small tasks to be accomplished (or fun events to be involved in), interspersed with one or two or three hour unstructured times.

With my own, I find that it's not so much free play that does it, as excessive screen time. Reading all day or building forts in the yard (or living room) does not make them cranky, just satisfyingly tired.

I also find that there was a difference when we went from one child to more than one. As much as having multiple children introduces the option of quarreling, they do entertain each other, which -usually- has meant net better behavior.

I cannot comment on the multiple sibling point, but I will concur wholeheartedly with the screen time observation.

DD has NEVER been a child who self-regulates screen time very well, and her behavior is also inversely proportional to the amount of such time spent with electronics.

Physical activity and meeting someone ELSE's schedule points really help her. She also voluntarily does a lot of other things all on her own as long as we limit that screen time. Always has.

You must tell the children that if they are not engaged, in the future will not be able to earn money. This should increase their motivation for classes.

I can't see this having much affect on a primary aged child. Besides I really don't think doing a workbook now is going to have much affect on his future earning potential.

HelloBaby- I'm going to suggest the opposite, probably unpopular view based on similar experiences at my house:)
We try to do some "homework" each day. We typically schedule it at exactly the same time. I lay the homework by DS's plate so he may finish directly after breakfast. It's about ten minutes worth of work, usually math for skill building.
If I tried to keep the homework only several times a week without a specific schedule, DS would find all kinds of reasons, excuses not to comply- we would spend our time together arguing and it may or may not get done. This way, it's simply built into the daily routine.
If we're doing a camp and can't do the "after breakfast homework routine" then I do try to get him to do it (not every day) if I can catch him on a good day. Otherwise, I let it go.
For my DS, routine (same time, same place each day) is important. If something is critical, I don't give him room to argue or to think of why he "shouldn't" do it.

Agreed in terms of academic gains, however in terms of self-discipline it may make a huge difference.

It may seem far off from where you are now, but if a child will take APs in high school, he should be in a bit of summer-work habit. DS15 will take two APs and an honors pre-calc in the fall, and all three have homework he needs to do now. The purpose, they say, is that there is a certain amount of curriculum to cover in the school year, and they need to be ready to jump right in in August.

Because he had a big issue with homework not getting done or not turned in last year, I am strongly encouraging dedication to this task this summer. (And i don't mean worksheets, I mean homework that was central to the course, like essays for a writing class) DS cupped his hand to his ear and said "what's that I hear? Is that a helicopter?" Thanks to Howlerkarma, I brought up the concept of scaffolding. That actually was well-received.

I just love adolescents!

A resounding yes! on the screen time and structure points made above.

Also: is the workbook just too easy? How about going to the bookstore or library and having him pick out a workbook or textbook in a subject that interests him? I tried the summer workbook thing with my kids in mid-elementary school and abandoned it quickly. The work is often really boring and rote. They learned a lot more from Theo Gray's ELEMENTS (another thread discusses this) and from the DK encyclopedias they chose themselves.

We went into pediatrician's office the other day.

The doctor mentioned about her kids complain 2 hours about homework which only takes 5 minutes.

That's how I feel most days.

If the parent with the child will be constantly doing homework (4-5 days a week), the child gradually gets used to the exercises. In the future, the child will learn on their own. But it should be periodically monitored.

"It may seem far off from where you are now, but if a child will take APs in high school, he should be in a bit of summer-work habit."

I truly don't mean to be disrespectful, but I am honestly shocked when I hear this kind of reasoning.

A 5-year-old needs to do summer academic homework because he may need to do summer AP work 10 years from now?

Google Alfie Kohn BGUTI for (overly polemical and harsh) response to such reasoning.

All of raising children is about helping them to grow over time. But the growth curve is not set in stone, and I honestly don't see any growth curve that would require summer homework for a 5-year-old (or an 14-year-old).

This is not necessarily to say that academic work can't be part of a child's summer, if it feels useful in itself (and especially if a child is enjoying it). But that's not the same thing as saying that you'll need to do it some day, so you should do it now.

Laurie (whose 17-year-old did a lot of AP work the summers before 10th and 11th grades, but who had no academic work any summer before 6th grade)

Another one here with kids whose ability to self-entertain disintegrates after too much screen time.