Last week I gave you some ideas for those families in crisis mode with dealing with homework meltdowns. The number one takeaway from last week is to be proactive, manage crisis situations and get your child's emotions down and under control.
Your child most likely will not be able to tell why they cannot do their homework and asking them, "Why can't you do this if you just learned it today in school?" will just make your child more anxious and feeling less than successful. If your child's emotions start to get out of control use the "I" statements.
As a parent, when you want to confront the situation (make it go away, right?) try working with a statement that acknowledges your child's feelings. Try using "I know doing homework that is difficult for you must not be fun. Take a 15 minute break and then we will try it again." That type of statement will bring your child's emotions down and avoid the homework meltdown. More importantly, it will let your child know that you support them.
You are saying and offering a break statement if the homework meltdown is about ready to explode and happen in real time because your child's emotions are at the tipping point. However, while your child is taking that 15 minute break, you as the parent are preparing for the homework session when your child returns.
Now you can begin to observe your child's learning preferences – styles that lead to successful learning. Doing so will lead to the phasing out of breaks because your approach to homework will not include meltdowns.
Remember, as a parent, your goal is to get your child to complete the homework. By helping your child "experience" that they can in fact do the work they are becoming more confident, stronger and as a family you are beginning to realize the power within yourselves to breakthrough (anything, really).
You will help your child experience success by completing homework using an approach that keeps their attention, for now. Remember, I am a brain trainer (a.k.a. Cognitive Rehabilitation Therapist) so I will do my best to have you help your child strengthen all cognitive skills so they can learn in a variety of ways.
Just recall how many times you "told" your child that it is okay, you can do it. Nothing proves how strong and powerful we are than when we "experience" this firsthand.
Your goal, with my help, is to discover which learning style is your child's preference for learning. Then, you will help your child "experience" just how capable of a learner they really are without much help from you.
When your child's learning style preference is discovered, then use of this style for homework along with strategies, is what your basic learning center asks thousands of dollars for from you to help your child. You can do the same thing with your children if you know how to do it.
The difference with working with me, in-person or online, is that I help "you" help your child strengthen all skills for learning and processing along with creating new pathways. Your child can learn with any style whether it be visual, auditory, etc. Your child will have the edge over other children, yes, but your child will experience a transformation.
This whole process, my passion for doing what I do, isn't about helping a child learn to learn. I do what I do because it is about helping each child and family that I work with realize that they can live their dream with a bit of hard work, support from family/friends, faith and hope.
When I take families through my process and the child comes through the other side, the child has transformed academically but more importantly an internal journey has happened. Your child will have had a breakthrough in their belief system.
That is the first step of any lifelong change. The child and family will always look back on their time with me and realize they did it, not me.
The child and family did this successful transformation. They will realize that from their heart, comes their belief and feelings which then drive their thoughts and actions in their life.
Here is something I want you to work on for those children that do not like (start to shut down and get frustrated) working with worksheets/workbooks. When your child takes out their worksheet or opens their workbook to a page for homework, let your child take a break while you "convert" this homework into their preferred learning style. Remember, this extra work goes away after brain training with me. 
For children that prefer to get involved using a whiteboard, per se, this is your time to get a whiteboard for yourself and your child along with an eraser / markers. Your job is to first write out an equation from the worksheet and then request your child to complete the equation on the extra whiteboard.
You can also complete this using a computer, too. Visit http://www.imaginationcubed.com/ for a FREE online whiteboard you can use with your child via the internet.
If your child appears, through your observations, to have difficulty with recognizing operational signs, use a different colored marker for each part of your equation. Perhaps, Blue and Green for each of the addends (if addition) and red for the operational symbol "+".
The above example will work nicely for children who understand the concept being worked but may be in overwhelm and unable to work on a worksheet request. Additionally, this approach works when there are too many equations on the worksheet for your child to focus and gets overwhelmed easily.
Have fun with this and let your child be the teacher and you be the student! Let me know how this works out for you and your child!
Remember, you still have time to strengthen your child's cognitive skills. But first, find out which skills need to be strengthened. My summer sale with BrainWare Safari is still active for only a few more weeks!
