Encouraging effort and hard work. Math homework is a nightmare. Your child sees the assignment, does a few problems at best, then quits in anger or tears. Her teacher says she’s capable but stops at the first sign of difficulty. Your child says she’s not getting anywhere. To help her not give up:

Emphasize Effort, Not Intelligence
Kids who believe that intelligence can be developed outperform kids who think intelligence is a fixed trait, according to a recent study from Columbia University. What’s more, the students who believe intelligence can be improved by their own hard work and effort work harder, are not as prone to give up and are apt to score better on tests. So don’t tell your child “You’re so smart!” “You’re gifted!” or “The teacher says you’re so intelligent!” Emphasize instead that achievement and improvement are all a matter of effort and hard work. The kind of words we say to our children can stretch their perseverance and get them into the habit of completing what they begin, as well as boost their achievement scores and grades.

Don’t Call It a Mistake
Studies find a common behavior of high-achieving kids: They’re not thrown by errors, so they’re less likely to give up. In fact, they often call mistakes by other names—glitch, bug, a “temporary”—so they won’t discourage themselves while learning. Help your child come up with a word to say inside his head whenever he encounters a mistake. Any word will do; just make sure to help him practice saying it over and over so she’ll remember to use it when he really makes a mistake. One teacher taught her students to call mistakes “opportunities.” The same day of her lesson, I watched a child make a mistake. Instantly the student next to him leaned over and whispered, “Remember, it’s an opportunity!” The smile on the child’s face was all the proof I needed that the teacher’s lesson had worked.

Set a new house rule:
“In this family, we finish what we start.” Because the teacher says your child is capable, enforce a policy of “No television or phone privileges” until homework is finished.

Use an egg timer.
Set one on her desk for ten minutes (or an appropriate length tailored to her attention span). Explain that she must keep working until the timer goes off, then she can take a quick break and reset the timer.

Make a game of it.
Encourage her to tally the number of problems she completes for each time block and make a contest of seeing how many she can get done before the bell goes off, so she sees she’s succeeding. It may take a few nights for her to get into her new homework routine, but by the end of the week, she should be working the whole ten minutes without help. Then you can increase the time.

By working shorter periods of time and realizing she’s succeeding in little chunks, your child won’t feel quite so overwhelmed, and her confidence will grow along with her ability to persevere. Meanwhile, keep encouraging effort and hard work.

Reprinted by permission of the publisher, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., from The Big Book of Parenting Solutions, by Michele Borba. Copyright © 2009 by Michele Borba.