7 Ways to Respond When Your Student Refuses to Engage
At the start of each session, we recommend that you ask your buddy which emoji represents his or her mood.
Sometimes, your student may be feeling upset, nervous, or annoyed about something that happened before the tutoring session began. Make time to listen to them, validating their feelings in a non-judgemental way. Offer to star the session by playing some virtual games.
If work refusal/ disengage is a recurring theme in your sessions, utilize the below seven strategies to motivate them in a gentle and encouraging way!
Strategy 1. Avoid a power struggle
Even if you are frustrated with their behavior, appear calm, do not raise your voice, and show you are in charge.
Strategy 2. Have an open dialogue and establish consequences
Ask your student questions that demonstrate the implications of work refusal:
“If you don’t do your homework with me now, you have to do it later when I'm not there to help you. Would you like to do this now together or later by yourself?”
Make it clear you are going to be doing something academic for the session you have scheduled either way.
“I know this is frustrating for you, and that is okay because difficult topics are frustrating. But what will happen if we give up whenever we find something frustrating?”
It is crucial to be positive and concise when establishing consequences.
Strategy 3. Temporarily bring in an incentive for the student to complete the work.
Incentives can be a valuable tool to persuade someone to do something. An incentive can be the promise of an activity (ex: ELA games) or a physical reward (ex: reward they can obtain through SBC, chip, sticker) to help bring the child to work.
Use incentives sparingly, so that the student will not become dependent on a prize to finish the work. Please communicate with your student that the reward system is not permanent and that we are working towards building self-confidence and intrinsic motivation, and that occasional tokens and rewards can help us get there!
Strategy 4. Reduce the workload
When the student refuses to participate in an activity, it may be because the work is too hard. We know that the ultimate goal is to get the student to complete all the work at the desired difficulty level - but if they are disengaged, they should complete something easy rather than nothing at all.
Allow the student to choose (from a range that you set) which problem/activity they want to work on. Maintain the open dialogue and consider asking the following:
“Do you want to level up, or do you want to stay at this level for a little bit longer?”
If they level up, ensure they understand it will be challenging and it's okay to come back down.
“Do you find this book interesting? Should we look for other texts, or do you want to stay with this one? I don't want us to change directions in the middle, so let's choose carefully!”
“Do you find this too challenging or too easy? Do you want to look at other texts so we can see what feels difficult but not overwhelming?”
“Is there anything you'd enjoy doing during our sessions?”
“What do you want to focus on doing today?”
Strategy 5. Introduce structured break times
Children, like adults, find it more difficult to stay engaged when we don’t know when something will be over! Tell your student what your plan for the day is. After you spend the first couple of minutes catching up, establish that you are transitioning into “teaching time” now. An ideal conversation may go like this:
TUTOR: “Today, we will continue reviewing fractions and also do some ELA comprehension questions. We will take a break in the middle to play Hangman. What do you want to start with?“
STUDENT: “Hmm... I think ELA.“
TUTOR: “Ok, great, the ELA portion should last about twenty minutes. We will then take a 5-minute break. After that, we will spend the rest of the time on math.”
This conversation lets students know what to expect from the class and what is expected of them. It also allows you to deflect any potential distractions. For example, if your student wants to start talking about some tangentially related fun fact, you can say, “That’s awesome, and I want to talk about this. Can you tell me during our break?”
Strategy 6. Ignore the small behaviors and keep teaching.
Ignore the small behaviors! The important thing is that they are trying to do the main task, and if they don’t do everything you asked them, that’s ok.
Strategy 7. Give students some cool-off time.
For exceptionally distracting behaviors, initiate "cool-off time." Cool-off time is advantageous when you've told the student to stop engaging in a distracting activity a couple of times already; starting the cool-off time can avoid falling into the trap of a power struggle.
Wait silently for approximately 30 seconds to 1 minute (or longer, depending on how long it takes for the student to notice) while the child continues to distract from the task.
Are none of these tips clicking? Do you suspect a deeper emotional reason for work refusal?
If you find your student is hesitant to work and does not seem focused, consider the following reasons:
Academic trauma
Changes at home
Lack of interest in the topic
Make time to have a supportive talk with the child. When you meet with your student, be open-minded and nonjudgmental about whatever the student shares. We have more information about assessing a student’s needs and listening non-judgmentally in our article “Responding to Emotionally Distressing Situations with our Youth."
