Is homework getting you down?

You dread it as soon as you see your child take his backpack to the kitchen table or maybe even get in the car.

You anticipate the fights, the struggle and sometimes the necessary bribing and manipulation to get the homework done.

Just the other night, your child cried at the kitchen table for 20 minutes because he didn’t want to even try a hard math problem.

You had no idea how to help him. Maybe you tried Youtube, you tried googling, but nothing.

Or perhaps your daughter sat there with the assignment of writing a 5 paragraph essay but refused to actually write something.

She sat.

She stared.

It was painful.

Do your kids whine?

Does the whining make your head hurt? Do you want to dig a tunnel through your kitchen floor and burrow inside until the whining stops?

Me too.

Why do we feel so guilty when our kids say they’re bored?

I’m typing on my computer when my son wanders into the office.

“Mom, I’m bored.”

Immediately, I clench up. My gosh, I shouldn’t be working this much. Why don’t I have something for him to do?

“Five more minutes!” you call into the living room.

Your daughter and son are both engrossed in their tablets. They haven’t left the couch all afternoon.

You feel that you have no control over it either –  take away their devices and they become complaining, moping monsters.

“I’m so stressed. I have so many things to do.”

Nope, that’s not me saying it.

My five-year-old son rolls back and forth on our family room carpet. “MOOOOOMMMMM”.

Oh geez, this has nothing to do with how much he has to do. He’s 5. We don’t live on a dairy farm. His “so much to do” is filling his water bottle and putting his lunch in his backpack.

No, he does not have too much to do. I know what’s really going on. It’s what always happens in the morning.

My son wants my full attention. He doesn’t want me talking to his sister. He doesn’t want me to get ready. He wants my eyes completely on him and focused on his needs.

What do you do when your kid’s nagging gets out of control? They ask a question, you say no and yet they ask the same question five minutes later.

I’ve been there.

It started on Saturday with gummies…

What do we do when our kids refuse to do homework?

They fight us. They act defiantly. We know they need to do it but as convincing as we try to be, they fight even harder.

Carly, mom of a 10-year-old boy knows this well.

Each night she steels herself for the inevitable homework battle. Her son sits at the kitchen table where she tries to motivate him, encourage him… sometimes bribe with dessert.

But every night, he pushes back.

Ever walk in your house and become immediately overwhelmed with the stuff lying around?

Its bad enough when you have a kitchen junk counter stacked with 3 layers deep with kid’s artwork, random books and those gadgets for your door that you don’t want to throw away but you don’t really know how to install.

But then is all the stuff your kids leave laying in the living room or crammed onto the top of the family room game shelf.