How Do You Get Them to Do Their Work?

I was talking to a lady at church today who always has a lot of questions about homeschooling.  She is never rude about it, just very curious, and every time she I get into a conversation with her, I know it's going to turn into a Q & A.  I didn't have a lot of time so the only one I got today was, "How do you get them to do their work?"  I was kind of surprised by this question.  My answer simply was, "Schoolwork is not optional, they have to do their work."  Well this did not really satisfy her and she wanted to know how I make them do their work.  This was my answer:

"It would never even occur to my children that there was an option to not do their work.  Schoolwork is just another part of our family life.  We do quite a bit of our work together in the morning, then they have individual work that has to be completed in the afternoon and get to work one on one with me.  Our school day ends at 2:00, and then the children have their "media time" (video games, computer, or TV.)  If work is not completed on time, they do not get to have their free time, they have to continue with their work.  If one of the children is not finished by 2, but they are having a hard time with something or have to wait on me then I will work with them to help them get finished and then they have free time.  If they are wasting time and procrastinating on completing their work there would be no "media time " that day.  But, honestly that has never happened.  They complete their work every day and on time.

Chelsea has had a hard time with deadlines.  She can be a procrastinator and will wait until the last minute to get her work done.  In those cases when I assign her to finish something by a certain date and she doesn't, then she will work in the evenings or week-end until that assignment is completed.  She had to work 2 weeks longer than the boys last year to finish up her school work for the year, but as far as the day to day doing of schoolwork it is not an option to not do it.