It is not uncommon for families to come in concerned because their child's homework is taking what seems like forever to get through. Homework struggles can stem from multiple causes. It can be hard, it can be boring, or, it could be a sign of an underlying struggle for your child.

The rule we advise families to stick with is 10 minutes per grade level per night. That means if you have a second grader, he or she should be doing 20 minutes of homework each night. 

If you are fighting over homework every night - it's time to figure out what is going on. Often well meaning parents and teachers attribute a student's difficulty finishing or completing work to laziness, but the reality is that is just rarely ever the case. It's important that parents don't lose out on a more positive relationship with their child and get to the bottom of the homework struggle as quickly as possible. Often this struggle is caused by an unidentified learning disability - by identifying the core cause of the difficulties and outlining a plan you could change the future for your child.

Have you ever sat down to work, and realized it took you a while to get started?  Or, have you ever asked your child to do something and came back 30 minutes later and nothing you had asked for has been done?  These are instances that have happened to all of us in one form or another and refer to the Executive Functioning skill, Task Initiation.

Our top five homework strategies to decrease that nightly homework battle, especially if your child is struggling with a specific learning disability like dyslexia.