Earning great grades in high school will help your teen unlock doors to college acceptances, thousands of dollars in scholarships, and countless other opportunities that will benefit them in the future.
Because grades hold so much weight in determining your teen’s post-high school success, it is only natural for you to feel frustrated when your teen doesn’t do their homework. As their missing assignments pile up, their grades aren’t the only thing that will start to go down. Their chances of getting into a top college or earning a scholarship will decrease as well.
To prevent this from happening, many parents urge their teen’s therapists to focus on helping teens learn to complete their homework. After all, getting good grades is important for their teen’s future wellbeing, so it should be the main focus of therapy sessions, right?
Not exactly.
While it might be disappointing and disheartening when your teen stops doing their homework, it does not mean that homework completion should be the main goal your teen works on during therapy.
Oftentimes there are other mental health barriers in place that inhibit effective completion of homework. For instance, if your teen is wrestling with depression and a lack of motivation, they may struggle to work on assignments for class. If your teen has anxiety around perfectionism, they might have a hard time starting on classwork out of the fear of making a mistake or completing the assignment incorrectly. If your teen has social anxiety, they might not feel capable of talking to their teacher and asking for help when they have a question about homework assignments.
It might seem like a waste of time for a therapist to focus on something other than homework completion and responsibility when your teen is getting poor grades or failing all of their classes. However, when your teen’s therapist works on these “unrelated” issues, it will not only help your teen grow as an individual, but it will also help them become better equipped to complete their homework.
For example, when your teen is able to learn that it’s okay to make mistakes, they will be able to try their best on their homework without being paralyzed by perfectionism. When your teen is able to manage the symptoms and fears behind their social anxiety, they will be more likely to reach out to their teacher for help and understand how to do their homework.
Allowing your teen’s therapist to focus on the issues that they feel are having the strongest impact on your teen will ultimately yield better results in every area of your teen’s life- including their ability to complete their homework!
Additionally, it’s also important for you to focus less on being the “homework police” at home, and find ways to support your teen in other ways. Here are a few tips to help:
Find the root cause of the problem
As the poet Walt Whitman first said and the television character Ted Lasso helped popularize, “Be curious, not judgmental.”
Instead of immediately judging your teen as lazy or defiant when they get behind on their homework, ask questions and see if you can find the root cause of the problem.
Maybe, they aren’t defiant, but they are struggling to understand what the homework asks of them, and they need a tutor. Maybe they are battling depression or crippling anxiety that completely robs them of motivation.
Figuring out the real reason why they aren’t doing their homework will empower you to be able to help your teen and find successful solutions.
Provide positive feedback
When the only thing your teen ever hears from you are comments about how upset you are that they aren’t doing their schoolwork, it can cause them to feel anger or shame, and it can damage the relationship between the two of you.
Make sure that you show your teen unconditional positive regard and that you celebrate them and provide positive feedback about different areas of their life. Maybe they aren’t doing their homework, but they are going out of their way to help out around the house or to create positive interactions with their siblings.
Acknowledging these positive behaviors will help your teen recognize that they have value beyond their homework and will allow them to be more receptive to any comments you make in the future.