[BCSweetie]

My 9yo son does a half job of all his work, if he does it at all. He will spend all day sitting at his desk, but not doing his work. His 7yo sister will sit down and be done all her work in about 2 hours max, though it is usually closer to half hour. She will be done all her schoolyear soon (we started late due to moving, and then ordering), but he is not near done. He is continually falling further behind, and I know it is not that he doesn't understand it. He just doesn't want to do the work.

I went to mark work he told me was done last week. I sat down and instead of diagramming sentences, by the numbers he just wrote Yes and No...which had nothing to do with what he was supposed to do. I went onto the next sections to just mark what I could, and have him re-do the other stuff later, but the next section he wrote a word by Number 1 and 6 (the tops of the columns) and left the rest of the answers blank...again nothing to do with what should have been written there. Then when I get him to re-do it he frowns, mopes, sometimes cries...it is really hard to be cheerful in the face of that.

Does anyone else have a difficult child like this, who refuses to work? And what did you do to get your child to do the schoolwork?

As it is right now, he will be lucky to get his Gr. 4 stuff done before next year starts...I never had siblings or anything that were quite like this, and so I don't know how to relate to this. School was just something we did. I try to really sit near him and keep an eye on him, but I do have 5, pregnant with #6, and they all need time too. Would love some advice, encouragement...