JoAnn Crohn, CEO of Whimsicle, said:
At the beginning, my daughter looked at her packet of homework and burst into tears. She insisted that it was too long, too hard and she could never finish it. We broke out the timer. I suggested, “Here, we will set the timer for five minutes. You try to finish as much as you can in five minutes and then take a break. Sound good?” Then, it becomes a competition. How much can she get done before the timer runs out? I just turned homework into a game.
Dr. Fran Walfish, author of The Self-Aware Parent, said:
Use a timer. Designate how long homework time is. If you have a 2nd grader it can be 20 minutes long. Set the timer. If your child finishes in 10 minutes she must sit with her work until the timer goes off. She can proofread or learn to go slower and avoid careless mistakes. Instead of you being The HomeworkCop, let the timer be the target of your child's fury.