Agree on a Homework Contract with Your Child

Last year did not go well for my son, who was in sixth grade in a middle school. He was very lax in turning assignments in on time and did not do his homework until the last minute. We were frequently at odds during the school year. Frankly, I don't look forward to him starting school again. Is there any way that we can we make this year go more smoothly?- Optimist
Answer: Sometimes sixth graders are not quite ready to handle the increased workload that comes at this grade level. Plus, in middle school they don't receive as much direction from their teachers as they had in elementary school. It is possible that your son has become more mature during the summer and is more ready to handle the responsibilities that middle school brings.
Now is definitely the time to set the stage for the coming school year. Ideally, his school will not have started yet, so you can talk over plans unemotionally about how to make this year go more smoothly.
It should not be too difficult to come to an agreement on the homework issue. Your son should be studying an hour a night, four or five nights a week. To ensure that this happens, the two of you need to agree on a homework contract stating when and where he will do homework. It might be necessary to have rewards and/or penalties built into the contract. The key element of the contract is that he will study every day for a set amount of time. When he doesn't have assignments, he is to read ahead or review work for one of his classes or simply spend this time reading. You might want to have him do his work where you can observe him. Also, he will find it much easier to do homework if everyone else is reading or working at a task rather than watching television.
As far as his organization skills go, he should be using an organizer at school. And before he begins his homework, you should look over his assignments together and help him develop a plan for getting them done.