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If you threaten your child with punishments or use power to get him to comply, he will simply become more aggressive and more defensive as he digs in his heels—and resists even more.
Homework becomes a power struggle as soon as you try to force your child to do his work and he pushes back. Often, when kids start resisting, parents try to use power to get them to do their homework, but for many kids, that will only make matters worse. In fact, you may find that if you threaten your child with punishments or use power to get him to comply, he will simply become more aggressive and more defensive as he digs in his heels—and resists even more.

Practical ideas you can use if you’re trapped in a power struggle with your child over homework.

1. Keep a Close Watch
For a lot of kids, sending them to their rooms to do their homework is a mistake. Many children need your presence while they work. We call that technique “proximity”. Some kids simply need to do their homework at the kitchen table. Your supervision and presence actually will keep them from being distracted.

2. Get Your Child off the Starting Block
Some kids have a hard time sitting down and starting assignments. If you have a child who has a hard time getting started, spend the first five minutes with them. This doesn’t mean you are doing their homework for them—this is simply extra help over the first hurdle that will get them going.

3. Challenge Your Child
Another way to get your child to do homework is to make a game out of it. Challenge them by saying, “Let's see how long it takes you to get your homework done tonight. And for every minute that you get it done earlier than X, you get to stay up an extra minute.” Then you get your child to try to beat his score from last night. Now, eventually you're going to reach a plateau, and that’s fine—let’s say its one hour. When that occurs, you say “every time you match one hour, you get extra minutes.” So your child is competing with himself and you’re making a kind of game out of it with a reward.
The Mid-Evening Slump
Many kids get tired halfway through homework time, and that’s when they start acting up. First of all, I think that if your child is doing an hour of homework, you should have him take a five minute break after every half hour. So if he's got two hours of homework, every half hour he can come downstairs, have a snack, and stretch his legs.

4. “The Weekend Starts When Overdue Assignments Are Done.”
This is a great technique for older kids and teens. If your child has homework that is overdue, their weekend shouldn't start until those assignments are done. Your child needs to bring the books home and finish the homework from the past week, and then his or her weekend starts.

5. Homework on Weekends
A word about homework on weekends: the way that I structure the weekend is that Sunday night is a school night, not Friday. So if your child has homework for the weekend—and as long as he’s done all his work for the past week—he gets Friday and Saturday night off. Sunday night is a school night, but Friday and Saturday night should be free as long as the work is done.

6. After School Activities vs. Homework
Kids are involved in a lot of after school activities these days, and I understand that. Personally, my priority has always been “Homework comes first.” In my opinion, if the homework isn't done on Monday, then your child shouldn’t go to football on Tuesday. It’s fine if he misses a practice or two. You can say, “Here’s the deal: we're not going to football today. You need to get your work done first.” If your child says, “Well, if I miss a practice I'm going to get thrown off the team,” You can say, “Well then make sure your work is done, because I'm not going to take you to a practice if you're not doing your schoolwork. That's all there is to it

If You Think Your Child Might Have a Learning Disability
If you have a child whom you feel is really struggling and frustrated with schoolwork, realize that it might not be because they’re bored or don't want to do the work; it could be a sign to have them checked for a learning disability. You should be talking to their teacher about their level of distractibility and their level of output in the classroom. If your child has a learning disability, they should get an Individualized Educational Plan, or IEP, that you set up with the school. And remember, try to see your child’s teachers as your allies in raising him. They are not the enemy. In my experience, most teachers are dedicated and caring, but I realize that this isn’t always the case. So as hard as it can be at times to bridge the communication gap, you have to find a way to work with teachers for your child’s sake.

All the advice I’m giving here is easier said than done, and I understand that. But ideally, we're trying to raise our kids to be responsible and accountable for their schoolwork, and we’re trying to avoid fighting with them over it every night.