every parent would want this problem, but...

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... my son won't stop doing his homework.

He'll work on it for hours, completely wearing himself out. We've explained to him that it's okay not to finish, that we've made arrangements with the teacher, but he insists on continuing.

I'm afraid he's going to start really hating it and hating school. He's already resentful about not having enough free time, yet he can't seem to accept that he can leave something unfinished.

Maybe you can tell your son that it's okay to take a break from his homework and relax from time to time.

Everyone needs to learn work/life balance! I'd schedule "homework time" and "free time" and have him try it out!

Why dont you try schedules? Help him prepare a schedule with working time and spare time.

It's funny. Your son dont want to stop and my daughter did not even want to start, and I still need to keep an eye on her or she will leave the work unfinished to go play.

If you have already made arrangements with the teacher so he doesn't have to do all of his homework, could you make some sort of arrangement so that he gets less of it? You probably know by now how long it will take him to do such and such number of problems... so just tell her to give him blank amount of homework.

Good suggestions, thanks!

I'd suggest having some kind of timer and getting him to have a ten minute break every hour or so and then decide if he's going to do more or not... when he's away from the actual work. Working that long probably isn't good for him or for his eyes.

By high school, I was doing up to 12 hours of homework a night. Some nights, I'd run out of time and have to stay home from school the next day to finish. I was in honors/AP classes/gifted program... and I truthfully don't know what took me so long- the abstraction of it, maybe? But yeah, I know how it goes.

I've heard of parents getting it written into the IEP that the child will spend x amount of time on homework, and then the parent will sign that he did that and the homework is considered done. They say 20 minutes per grade is appropriate.

I agree with SuperTrouper, except the problem may be completion anxiety, in which case you may be facing a meltdown when the time is up, yes?

We don't have this all the time, DS hates homework enough that it only happens when it's something he's successful at, but I understand the issue. I think you need to talk to the school about how much homework he can reasonably do in 20-minutes-per-grade-level, and see to it that they assign his homework accordingly.

There is so little help out there for rigidity issues (of which, I think this is one.) The answer always seems to be "teach your child to be more flexible," which is easier said than done. DS is considerably less rigid now that he's less anxious, but it's still there and we still have to fight with it. Hugs.

A quick question / clarification.
Super Trouper wrote:

Could you change the definition of finished from "completed everything" to something else? Maybe "when you get x amount done you are finished. Anything more than that is extra and cool but not necessary." Decide what a reasonable amount of time is for him to work on his homework, figure out about how much he can get done in that time, and declare that the amount that constitutes finished.

Is it taking him so long because it just too hard? Is this recently only? Is it a certain subject? is someone helping him? Maybe it's not a general issue but just a homework one.

Doing all his homework even though he's allowed not to? More self control and determination than I have.