Student Refuses to Do Homework

I am having a very difficult time trying to motivate my fourth-grade son. He whines and cries for about three hours every evening refusing to do his homework and saying he doesn't want to do it or doesn't understand it. If he does complete it after all the tantrums, he will not turn it in to the teacher. I have had him counseled, tutored and even tested. His IQ is 149. Can you help or give me a suggestion or two? - At My Wit's End
Answer: What is happening in the classroom? Is your son doing his work there and handing it in? If so, homework might have become a power issue between the two of you, and you should back away entirely from your involvement with his homework. Simply set up a penalty if he fails to turn homework in. This will require a daily or weekly communication system with his teacher.
We suspect that this problem extends to your son's work at school since you have tried counseling, tutoring and testing. If you have done all of this privately, you should talk to your child's teacher and find out what can be done through school counseling, testing and classroom observation to turn things around. It could be very helpful to get a coordinated point of view that comes from a team approach.
You son is bright, but, sadly, not all bright children succeed in school. Your son might be one of those who has become accustomed to giving up when things are difficult. Psychiatrists call this "learned helplessness." It can happen in the early grades because of emotional immaturity, low frustration level or over-dependency on adults. Or it might happen when children start fourth or sixth grade, because these are points when learning requires more effort, and even some bright children have no strategies for handling difficult assignments.
If this is your son's problem, he needs help learning not to give up. You and his teachers need to model how to approach problems so he will learn how to analyze them and talk himself through the problem-solving process. This will take time and should involve solving simple problems at first to help him gain confidence in his abilities. A high-school student could be a good mentor for him. Hopefully, if you do not give up and continue to look for answers to his problems, your son will learn how to tackle difficult tasks successfully.