A New Incentive Program for Our Unmotivated Homeschooler

Earlier this evening I sat down to look at the kids' work from this week, and I was quite dismayed when I saw the majority of Jaden's work. His handwriting was atrocious (even for a boy), his spelling was horrific (even with words that he already knows how to spell), and his effort was at about 25%.

And Jaden knew it.

So, we're going to embark on a temporary "incentive program," similar to ones we've run in the past.

As many of you know, Jaden is an absolute Lego-Maniac (just visit his blog to see what I mean), and plays with his Legos just about every waking moment. So of course, this is where we have the most leverage.

The "incentive program" is this. For this next week, Jaden will not be allowed to play with his Legos each day until after the following requirements are successfully met:

1. He must complete all of his work for the day.
2. I must check each assignment on his task list and look over every one of his papers for neatness and completeness (and if his handwriting is not neat, and I can tell it was due to lack of effort, he'll redo the entire paper.)

And when those two things are done, he's welcome to play with his Legos for the rest of the day.

Of course, when we informed him of the new policy for the upcoming week, he broke down and threw a fit—albeit a minor one. He kept repeating, "You took away my Legos! You took away my Legos!" and we had to remind him that, "No, we didn't take away your Legos. You're just going to have to concentrate as much on school each day as you do on Legos before you play with them."

Fortunately, Jaden understands why we're doing this (and his culpability in the matter), so he really didn't have a hard time accepting the terms; he just didn't like it. Like every other preteen, he wants all the privileges without all the responsibility.

But if it's like it has been in the past when we've used similar "incentive programs" with him, Jaden will likely take the bull by the horns and run with it admirably, finishing his work in record time each day—and doing it well—so he can get to those Legos! Then we'll let up for a while and see how well he can maintain his improved work ethic.

This should be an interesting week!