The Homework Tracker Every Parent Needs

The tool that's saved my daily sanity.

Let me start by saying that I absolutely hate homework.

I have three kids with ADHD and keeping track of all the expectations for them stresses me out.

It’s not just the act of helping them do the homework but remembering and tracking who needs to do what on a daily basis.

A huge part of my ongoing strategy for managing my home and family involves me limiting the ongoing mental load of my life so that I have fewer decisions to make.

Also, I’m a morning person and my brain is not great at supporting my kids with complex tasks after school.

I need supporting them in their homework to be easy for me and easy for them.

We both need clear expectations and an ongoing rhythm that doesn’t require much decision making.

I have lots of strong opinions about homework and personally think elementary kids shouldn’t have homework. I also believe that limiting homework may be an appropriate accommodation for many neurodivergent kids if they’re spending excessive time everyday meeting their current expectations. I’m not going to go in that a ton here but know that it’s something you might want to pursue.

I have three kids (14, 10 and 6) and they are all very different.

They are all currently in the public school system and figuring out how to support them each well has taken some time.

My oldest is very much on top of his homework and school work and has never needed much accountability or organizational support in getting his assignments done.

My younger two kids are much, much different.

My ten year old son wants to do his assignments but his working memory is non-existent. He really struggles to remember what needs to get done. He can write the homework down in his planner and still forget. He can walk in and tell us he doesn’t have any homework and then remember an assignment as soon as it’s time to get in bed.

He also gets easily overwhelmed and shuts down with assignments that feel daunting. When he gets a weeks worth of assignments, that’s way too overwhelming and he struggles to make progress.

For example, his school assigns 6 weekly online reading assignments for him to complete over the course of a week. He can complete those in school or at home but they must be completed my Sunday night. Since they are online assignments, they then go away and there is no way to make up these assignments.

These assignments started mid way through fourth grade and for weeks, we had no idea that he had them or that he was neglecting to do them until his grade drastically declined due to incomplete work. He was basically ignoring these assignments in hopes that they would go away.

Let’s be honest, as an adult with ADHD, I’ve done this to many bothersome some tasks over the year and sadly it never worked out well.

After some trial and error, we found a system that has been transformative for him and our whole family.

He has benefited most by me breaking down his teacher's ongoing expectations, celebrating each small step, and then creating predictable rewards.

I started a system last year where I laid out his weekly expectations in to a visual tracker so that he could see his progress and make it easier to take steps towards accomplishing his weekly goals.

We called this system “Fro Yo Fridays” if he gets his weekly tasks done than we go to frozen yogurt on Fridays after school. Some weeks we change the reward if there is something more enticing for him that is a similar cost. He loves going to McDonalds or even to Five Below or the dollar store to pick out a little treasure.

My older son is very motivated by grades and approval and that is enough for him to do his assignments but my Frank is wired differently. He needs help breaking down the components and then having an incentive that’s meaningful to him and within reach.

He also needed an effort based reward and not a results based reward. If the reward is based on his grades at the end of the nine weeks, that is too far off and doesn’t help him do the daily steps of completing his assignments. We focus on praising his effort and not on the grades.

Additionally, we took the pressure off on the grades for these individual assignments. Each reading lesson has a grade but we try to focus on encouraging his effort. In time, his grades for the lessons have gotten much better but a 80 is better than a zero and we know that the more that he reads, the better his comprehension and speed will become in time.

I don’t require that he does these things immediately after school. Many days he breaks it up and does his reading lessons before school. We’re flexible about when and how he does these things but having a clear plan means there are fewer surprises.

This system has also motivated him to get more of his work done at school. If he finishes these reading lessons at school, he has more free time at home. We got him noise blocking ear plugs which have helped him concentrate at school so that is less of a barrier. If you don’t have earplugs for your kids, we love these.

This plan has also helped lower his reliance on screens. We use screens as rewards on a daily basis and that can be an incentive to make his daily progress. He needs to not only do his homework but also get playtime outside as that’s so helpful for his ongoing emotional regulation.

This tracker system is much, much easier for me to use than any kind of points or rewards system. I need it to be easy. Tokens and points are too complicated for me to track and mean that I won’t follow through in implementing them.

This system is also easy for HIM. It’s not my system that I’m enforcing on him but more a tool that I’ve created to help him organize and track his ongoing expectations. He is prone to get stressed and anxious about dropping balls and forgetting things so this tool helps him.

This is what his tracker looks like at the end of the week. He stays on top of tracking the things each day and this week he asked if his reward could be going to Chik-Fil-A.

Kids with ADHD function best with clear expectations and incentives that matter to them. It’s not a one size fits all approach which can be exhausting as a parent.

For Libby (6), her tracker is not as much about getting homework done as it is a tool to create structure and expectations. Our biggest struggles with Libby are getting ready for school on time, getting out the door to her swim lessons, and getting to bed on time. Her tracker is helping us to focus on those areas with her.

Her academic expectations are very light. Setting a visual timer for 10 minutes of flash cards and 15 minutes of her reading to me or my husband helps her. She really needs to feel like she’s in control and a visual timer helps her comply with that. If you don’t have a visual time, we love this one!

I’ve created a Canva template that you can personalize for your family. You’ll need an account on Canva. You can move the boxes around, change the categories, colors and fonts to make it fit the needs of your family.

Here are my main tips as you do so!

1. Create clear, realistic expectations. “Read for 10 minutes” is better than “read a book” for younger kids.

2. Personalize for each child based on where they are not where you think they should be. Focus on progress in the specific areas that are your biggest pain points and ongoing struggles.

3. Limit your categories to no more than 3-4 areas of expectation. If you add too many expectations, it will be harder for them to build momentum.

4. Make it fun. Change the fonts and colors.

5. For a long time, I printed it out every week but laminating them works much better. Here’s the laminator we have.

Paid subscribers and MTM members get a template of this tracker to personalize for your kids. Paid subscribers get access to this and all future tools that I share to help you thrive in motherhood. As a paid subscriber here, you can expect templates such as this one on a regular basis from me.