OcUK Dadsnet thread

Fringe · 1 Oct 2025 at 07:23

so we are having a hard time at the moment trying to get our 5 year old to do his home work (FYI i do not agree with giving little ones home work at this age ) but it seems to be a constant struggle to get him to do his reading , spelling and math home work its not a lot takes maybe 15 - 20 mins but his constantly either running away having a paddy or not trying at all. Now this is not all the time some days he will do it all flawlessly. but more often then not he will not do it.

On another side of it we are trying to get him to do it as a game or with some reward at the end of it. he has had some mini tests in school and got consistently good marks until maybe a month ago when his last 4 have been 0/5.

me and the wife are at the end of out tethers as we don't want him to do bad in school and fall behind but feel bad for pushing him so hard to do it.

any advice would be great

cheers

Maccy · 1 Oct 2025 at 09:39

TommyV said:
Just wait until you first lay your eyes on your little one as they enter the world for the first time, if you’re anything like I was, you’ll be a blubbering mess which I’m not ashamed to admit, experiencing emotions you didn’t know existed

…and then the wild ride begins and doesn’t stop

Ah yes, one of my mate's had their first almost a year ago and there's a video of him in bits at the birth!

bigmike20vt · 1 Oct 2025 at 16:09

Fringe said:
so we are having a hard time at the moment trying to get our 5 year old to do his home work (FYI i do not agree with giving little ones home work at this age ) but it seems to be a constant struggle to get him to do his reading , spelling and math home work its not a lot takes maybe 15 - 20 mins but his constantly either running away having a paddy or not trying at all. Now this is not all the time some days he will do it all flawlessly. but more often then not he will not do it.

On another side of it we are trying to get him to do it as a game or with some reward at the end of it. he has had some mini tests in school and got consistently good marks until maybe a month ago when his last 4 have been 0/5.

me and the wife are at the end of out tethers as we don't want him to do bad in school and fall behind but feel bad for pushing him so hard to do it.

any advice would be great

cheers

Every kid is different and i am far from an expert however our lad like most kids loves screen time. We didnt want to assign punishment for complaining about homework however how we did it, (he only gets homework at the weekend).

we would say he had X amount of screen time on his tablet each saturday / sunday.

however IF he did all his homework without complaining he could earn lets say an extra hr of screen time for that day.

if he did an extra 15 mins of reading he did maybe he could earn another 30 mins of screen time

so it wasnt that we would punish him for not doing his homework, but we would reward him for doing it with a bit of extra of something he wanted.

that being said we were / are fortunate that our lad is not that hard willed and generally after a bit of moaning just gets on with it

on top of that he has to read for 10 mins every morning before school. if he does this for 5 days he earns a star. He can earn stars for various activities, making his bed, not leaving his clothes dumped on the floor, helping me do the weekly shop..... and for every 10 stars he can choose a treat up to a max of £10 (he is 9 now, but when we started - at the age of around 5 it was closer to probably £5)

ci_newman · 1 Oct 2025 at 18:29

Fringe said:
so we are having a hard time at the moment trying to get our 5 year old to do his home work (FYI i do not agree with giving little ones home work at this age ) but it seems to be a constant struggle to get him to do his reading , spelling and math home work its not a lot takes maybe 15 - 20 mins but his constantly either running away having a paddy or not trying at all. Now this is not all the time some days he will do it all flawlessly. but more often then not he will not do it.

On another side of it we are trying to get him to do it as a game or with some reward at the end of it. he has had some mini tests in school and got consistently good marks until maybe a month ago when his last 4 have been 0/5.

me and the wife are at the end of out tethers as we don't want him to do bad in school and fall behind but feel bad for pushing him so hard to do it.

any advice would be great

cheers

Ethics of homework aside, what you absolutely should be trying to do is develop your sons attention span so he can focus on an exercise like this for longer than 30 seconds. Attention span is a massive issue with the current generation of kids due to social media / you tube scrolling and the "instant gratification" nature of it. Rather than focusing on the homework side of things, try and reframe it as working on him being able to focus on a specific task for a period of time. They will find school much easier to manage if they can actually focus on schoolwork, and worry less about what marks he is achieving in his tests.

Fringe · Thursday at 06:49

bigmike20vt said:
Every kid is different and i am far from an expert however our lad like most kids loves screen time. We didnt want to assign punishment for complaining about homework however how we did it, (he only gets homework at the weekend).

we would say he had X amount of screen time on his tablet each saturday / sunday.

however IF he did all his homework without complaining he could earn lets say an extra hr of screen time for that day.

if he did an extra 15 mins of reading he did maybe he could earn another 30 mins of screen time

so it wasnt that we would punish him for not doing his homework, but we would reward him for doing it with a bit of extra of something he wanted.

that being said we were / are fortunate that our lad is not that hard willed and generally after a bit of moaning just gets on with it

on top of that he has to read for 10 mins every morning before school. if he does this for 5 days he earns a star. He can earn stars for various activities, making his bed, not leaving his clothes dumped on the floor, helping me do the weekly shop..... and for every 10 stars he can choose a treat up to a max of £10 (he is 9 now, but when we started - at the age of around 5 it was closer to probably £5)

He is Very strong willed to the point of saying ITS MY CHOICE. we have tried explaining that he has to do it and there would be rewards for doing his home work but still nothing seems to work

Fringe · Thursday at 06:50

ci_newman said:
Ethics of homework aside, what you absolutely should be trying to do is develop your sons attention span so he can focus on an exercise like this for longer than 30 seconds. Attention span is a massive issue with the current generation of kids due to social media / you tube scrolling and the "instant gratification" nature of it. Rather than focusing on the homework side of things, try and reframe it as working on him being able to focus on a specific task for a period of time. They will find school much easier to manage if they can actually focus on schoolwork, and worry less about what marks he is achieving in his tests.

this is defo something we need to work on. When it comes to building things with his lego , magnetic Blocks he will sit there and concentrate but just cant get the home work to do the same.

DHR · Saturday at 22:32

dirtychinchilla said:
It's a bit mixed for us. I go to bed later and get up earlier, but its always been like that. I do a dream feed at 10:30 PM, then go to bed. If things happen overnight, it really depends how severe/what the frequency is. When she was born (now 7.5 months old) we agreed that my wife would do everything after the dream feed until the morning. In reality, I cope OK with disturbed sleep, so I help out where I can in the night - like I might change baby's nappy while my wife makes milk and then feeds her.

I think shifts is important. It just gets very difficult when your other half is "on call" overnight and then also during the day and can't find time to actually rest.

@dirtychinchilla - With the dream feed, how you working the nappy situation? Before? Or after they've gone sleep etc.

dirtychinchilla · Monday at 08:00

DHR said:
@dirtychinchilla - With the dream feed, how you working the nappy situation? Before? Or after they've gone sleep etc.

If we do change her nappy - we don't necessarily nowadays - we do it before so that the bottle can settle her back down again

shifty_uk · Monday at 11:51

Almost two weeks in now and man, I’m tired

We’ve got a night routine of taking 2-3 hour turns as the little one doesn’t stay settled for long. Proper night owl. Tried both going to bed at the same time but we were worse off.

Also had to introduce formula at night to give the other half a breather. I can see why people give up and resort to bottles so early.

Ayahuasca · Monday at 11:58

19 months in and I'm still chronically tired. Like someone else said, I have no idea how people cope in high-pressure jobs on so little sleep. I suspect genetics play a significant role in this area, or that it only occurs a couple of times a week when sleep is significantly disturbed.

I think it would have been easier if I'd had a kid in my 20s, as you naturally have more energy and just get up and go, but it's difficult at times. I'm basically useless if I get less than 6-7 hours sleep, or if I have to get out of bed during the night for longer than a few mins.

Our little one hasn't slept through the night once and we're now starting to wonder if something developmental is causing the sleep disturbance

RxR · Monday at 12:50

In Oz the community health midwives give infant sleep training help. Maybe you have some service like this where you are?

Fringe · Monday at 12:55

Ayahuasca said:
19 months in and I'm still chronically tired. Like someone else said, I have no idea how people cope in high-pressure jobs on so little sleep. I suspect genetics play a significant role in this area, or that it only occurs a couple of times a week when sleep is significantly disturbed.

I think it would have been easier if I'd had a kid in my 20s, as you naturally have more energy and just get up and go, but it's difficult at times. I'm basically useless if I get less than 6-7 hours sleep, or if I have to get out of bed during the night for longer than a few mins.

Our little one hasn't slept through the night once and we're now starting to wonder if something developmental is causing the sleep disturbance

We had the same issue when our little one was born. we even got a sleep consultant ( waste of money ) hes now 5 and goes through till 2 - 3 in the morning and gets in our bed. Its not easy when your in your 30s as it defo takes its toll on you. I take it your little one is on some solids ? if so try a banana just before bed. potassium levels in it help aid with sleep. it pushed him to sleep longer but still not through the night but it may help you and the other half get some needed sleep

Ayahuasca · Monday at 12:55

RxR said:
In Oz the community health midwives give infant sleep training help. Maybe you have some service like this where you are?

We tried that, but it barely changed anything despite all the things we learned. It made it easier to get him down, but the issue is getting him to stay asleep.

Freefaller · Monday at 13:01

Ayahuasca said:
19 months in and I'm still chronically tired. Like someone else said, I have no idea how people cope in high-pressure jobs on so little sleep. I suspect genetics play a significant role in this area, or that it only occurs a couple of times a week when sleep is significantly disturbed.

I think it would have been easier if I'd had a kid in my 20s, as you naturally have more energy and just get up and go, but it's difficult at times. I'm basically useless if I get less than 6-7 hours sleep, or if I have to get out of bed during the night for longer than a few mins.

Our little one hasn't slept through the night once and we're now starting to wonder if something developmental is causing the sleep disturbance

I have no tips to offer as I don't know your situation but neither am I an expert. Kids in your 40s isn't fun for energy levels!

I personally would think it worth speaking to an expert on this, someone with whom you can be totally transparent and honest about the situation and won't get judged. It could be all sorts of reasons from the room, to you, to a genuine issue your little one has OR it could be just one of those ****** tough luck things that happens with kids. Or it could be none of the above and nothing to be worried about. However what is obvious is that it's clearly causing you issues and you're worried.

Fringe · Monday at 13:02

Ayahuasca said:
We tried that, but it barely changed anything despite all the things we learned. It made it easier to get him down, but the issue is getting him to stay asleep.

that sucks bud , sorry about that , we eventually got him in to our bed just so he would go through downside to that is they need it all the time then , but on the one side you do get more sleep . we just couldnt take the sitting there all the time. so please dont judge me lol

jaybee · Monday at 14:09

Ayahuasca said:
19 months in and I'm still chronically tired. Like someone else said, I have no idea how people cope in high-pressure jobs on so little sleep. I suspect genetics play a significant role in this area, or that it only occurs a couple of times a week when sleep is significantly disturbed.

I think it would have been easier if I'd had a kid in my 20s, as you naturally have more energy and just get up and go, but it's difficult at times. I'm basically useless if I get less than 6-7 hours sleep, or if I have to get out of bed during the night for longer than a few mins.

Our little one hasn't slept through the night once and we're now starting to wonder if something developmental is causing the sleep disturbance

Ours were all terrible sleepers. They were all breast fed which I heard can be to do with it. I had kids early. Very early. I agree, looking back this was probably a good thing and I was able to cope with the tiredness. Wife used to fall asleep with them in the bed next to me and I had to stay awake, wind them, put them back down a lot. It is knackering. They will get better in time. Ours didn't go through the night reliably the first couple of years. It can be frustrating to hear of people that are like "yeah we put ours down at 7pm and have to wake them up at 7am". **** off!

I believe this is why to this day I generally get by with only 6 hours most nights. My wife usually gets 8-9 most nights. Sometimes she even naps in the day as well!

EDIT: Also all my kids are grown up and nothing is wrong with them just to put your mind at ease. One is even at Uni.

dirtychinchilla · Monday at 14:34

We still haven't nailed sleep training, but it has been sort of better and then had ups and downs. We paid about £50 for a sleep training course that we did online. It set out some rules which have honestly been pretty helpful. Unfortunately, we still haven't got to the stage where we can put her down and leave the room as she's been ill a couple of times recently and she just wants her mum, but I think it was worth doing the course.

alchal · Monday at 15:28

Honestly I'm not looking forward to the day where my little one doesn't want to fall asleep to me reading books by her side.

It's good for me and the child.

Precious times.

She usually sleeps through apart from an odd wee then is all chatty but falls asleep rather quickly with a cuddle.

Tough part is getting the child into the bed, like a bloody raptor

Maccy · Monday at 21:33

My 5 year old niece has been terrible for sleep, it’s only in the last few months has she started to settle properly.

Parents have had to try sleep coach/therapy which did nothing, have her sleep in their bed with them which ruins their sleep - in the end they went to the GP and got melatonin prescribed and that did the trick.
She was previously a terror though, few times we looked after her and put her to bed, it was exhausting. Mrs managed to calm her down with lavender spray on a tissue and on her pillow, so that’s worth exploring too?

regulus · 2025-10-08T00:16:05+0100

ChrisD. said:
We're planning to go to Australia with our boy, he's 3 and a half. Guess I'm kind of musing here but we're debating between the long 16h flight direct to Perth, stopover for a few days then on to Sydney. Vs stopping in either Dubai or Singapore to break it up. I'm kinda favouring the direct flight to get it over and done with, but there's tier advantages in doing the shorter flights, and it might be a little easier with him.

Our 5-year-old did her first trip from NZ to UK earlier this year when she was 4. We basically traveled for 32 hours (including stopovers) straight, and she did far better than my wife and me.

We're heading to Europe again next year but this time we're breaking it up with a couple of days in Asia, purely for myself and the wife.

We bought all these games and had a plan ready to go to entertain her all the way there, including when we alternate sleeping, etc. Turns out she's happy to watch a movie or two, have something to eat, sleep, watch another movie, play on the Switch handheld, or flip through a book.