Why does my son lie about his homework?

Answer:

People commit sins because they determine that momentary pleasure exceeds the consequences. The Bible mentions: "By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward" (Hebrews 11:24-26). Moses took the longer-term view, but most people focus on the short term.

Your son lies about having homework to do because he gains something from it. He either gets to avoid doing it at all or he gains a delay that allows him to do more enjoyable things now. Therefore, as a parent you must address the problem from two angles: 1) he doesn't avoid doing the work, and 2) he doesn't gain benefits from not doing homework.

Knowing what your child has been assigned is difficult in our current arrangement. Teachers give assignments at school, but parents have no idea what has been assigned. Some schools try to address the problem with assignment books, but it is easy for a child to "forget" to bring the assignment book home or "forget" to write a particular assignment down in his book. Some schools will post assignments on the Internet, which helps, but it is not often available.

The best solution is to give consequences to "forgetting." If your son comes home without his assignment book, he goes straight to his room for the rest of the evening (his room doesn't have entertainment items available) and bedtime is an hour earlier. Also, make it a requirement that all subjects must have the assignment written. Even when there is no assignment, they must write "No assignment given." This won't stop a determined child from writing there was no assignment, when one did exist, but it does provide a record that he willfully lied. When these occasions are discovered, you make the consequence especially miserable -- an extended grounding, loss of television privileges, loss of video game privileges, or a spanking.

Next, designate a homework time each day. Make sure it is early enough in the afternoon or evening that there would be things that your son would want to do if he had time. Homework must be done and then reviewed by a parent before the child is free to do other things. The review is essential to keep the boy from pretending to work just to get out faster. If he has a reading assignment, pick a spot in the story and ask a question or two to make sure it was read and comprehended -- nothing elaborate, just enough to know he actually did the reading. Make sure all the problems have answers on worksheets. If you can, spot check one or two problems to make sure they were done right (many textbooks assigns to the even or odd problems in the back). Read a paragraph of his writing assignments to make sure it isn't just gibberish. Any indication that work wasn't done means he continues doing his assignment. Add fifteen minutes of wait time each time he attempts to pass off incomplete work as being done. In other words, when he finally is done, he will have to wait in his room (with no entertainment) for additional time before he is free to do the things he wants to do.

Make sure the place he does homework doesn't have distractions available, such as TV, radio, phone, or computers. The only "entertainment" available is getting homework problems completed.

It should be obvious that this involves a bit of work on your part, both in the monitoring and in the enforcement. But if it is not done, it will progressively become worse. Eventually, habits will form and you won't feel like you are watching his every move. But until those habits are formed, you will have to watch closely.

Consistency is key. Allowing your son opportunities to get away with lying about his homework will cause him to take risks of not getting caught. It is only when he is resigned to the fact that homework must be done that he will settle down.