How to Beat the Homework Blues
Welcome to Time Out, the place parents go for witty insight, tongue-in-cheek advice, and calming reassurance from a seasoned parenting veteran who believes laughing together beats sobbing alone when it comes to crayons in the dryer and other hazards of childhood.
Dear Time Out,
What can I do to make homework time for my daughter more pleasant and educational and less: "I-don't-get-this-why-are-you-so-mean-I-hate-you-and-I'll-never-use-multiplication-anyway-stomp-stomp-stomp-door slam-sob"?
Signed,
Subtraction-less in Seattle
Dear SiS,
Oh, I feel your pain, Subtraction-less. There's nothing quite like the weary, frustrated rantings of kid gone off the homework rails.
First, try to isolate exactly what IS the underlying problem. Depending on the child, this could be easy or it could require years of therapy. When my youngest freaked out doing homework, in less than four minutes I learned he was being teased at school. On the flip side, I've been working on it for seven years and still can't pinpoint what it is that keeps his older brother from turning in homework on time.
Second, look for a fun way to help explain or reinforce the subject matter covered in the homework.
- School House Rock covers the basics on nearly every subject (and is how I learned how the electoral college worked, having been too busy in high school staring at boys to understand it at that time) and is available on DVD.
- Review quizzes and spelling words using a game show format complete with buzzer noise for incorrect answers.
- Change song lyrics to fit the material that need to be learned.
- Using scatological humor to your advantage. Oh sure, I could have had my seven year old stare at flash cards to memorize his sight words, but holding them up as I made up a story about a dog befouling a rug (HOW is it possible this dog manage to pee on the rug again? WERE you in the room when THIS happened? ALL I wanted was a puppy, not A LOT of puddles on my rug! WHAT are we going to do about THIS? WHO is going to clean up this mess?! It's LIKE the dog waits until no one is looking WHEN he unloads!) made the process a lot easier and more giggle-filled for everyone involved.
Finally, take a break. Between trying not to draw unwanted attention to themselves, scoping out the opposite sex, keeping abreast of current friendship conditions, learning to say no to drugs, yes to the six pillars of character, reading, writing, arithmetic, science, social studies, music, gym, art, and the emotion landmine known as the lunchroom, it's no wonder kids tend to fall apart when back in the safety of their home. Take a well-deserved chocolate chip cookie and hot chocolate snack break before hitting the books and try again.
If all else fails, enlist/hire/kidnap a tutor. Sometimes the best way to help your child with math (or other subjects) is to simply remove yourself from the equation and that's totally okay. It takes a village and you taught them how to walk, talk and use the potty for crying out loud!
Good luck!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Amy - prettybabies.blogspot.com 1-01-2009 @ 12:00PM
I think the parents' responsibility when it comes to homework is to set up good habits from an early age, and then BACK OFF. Give them the time (maybe right after school, maybe after a snack and a rest, depending on the temperament of the kid), the space (kitchen table, desk in the room), and the materials (pens, pencils, tape, etc.) to do it, and then let **the kids** do it. It's not Mom's homework.
Then, when the kid completes his daily homework and turns it in, the accomplishment is HIS, not his parents'. He will feel proud of himself, and it will reinforce the behavior. He'll be more likely to do it himself, without fighting, in the future.
Conversely, if the parents sit him down and MAKE him do it, then he turns it in (if he bothers to), the accomplishment will be his parents' (who, presumably, already passed their primary grades). He won't feel pride, turning it in won't be reinforcing, and it'll be the same battle in the future.
My parents were never invested in my daily homework (nor were my husband's - I just asked. And he's a rocket scientist with a masters degree, so it worked). If I did it, or didn't do it, the consequences were mine. You cheapen the accomplishment of doing his homework by doing it for him, or by making him do it. He's learning less. And you're taking the satisfaction of a job well done away from him.
Give him time, space, and materials. Help him sparingly, when he really needs it - not when he wants attention or wants you to do it for him. Back off for the rest of the semester. If he doesn't do it, and he gets bad grades, take away his Wii or his TV or his iPod or all of the above for the summer, and make him earn them back with good grades in the fall (after all, don't we, as adults, get to purchase our toys through our own hard work - we maintain our jobs, we continue to make money, we accumulate extra money, we buy toys...). You'll teach him FAR more in the long run than you will if you sit down and hold his hand every night.
A friend of mine is a professor and has had students' mothers come in to dispute their grades - in COLLEGE. It's a later symptom of the same problem.
I will concede that you might want to inform the child's teachers that you're about to go "old school," so that they can tell you if they believe the child needs a tutor, etc. But if it's willful defiance (as described by the mother of the girl in the question), well, I think it's time to back off.
Amy @ http://prettybabies.blogspot.com
(Disclaimer - my kids are still young - 3 and 1. However, I went to school to be a teacher, worked with kids for years, and I think I know what I'm talking about.)
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Angela Norton Tyler 1-01-2009 @ 5:01PM
The comment that stated that parents should BACK OFF is right on, but it is not as easy as one would think. Yes, our parents weren't overly involved in our homework, but, then again, they weren't asked to be. Parents are now expected to micromanage their child's education, and it takes a very strong parent to swim against the tide. Raising independent learners is much more difficult than sitting there with your children prodding, prompting and promising the world if only they'd focus and do their homework! Here is a way to deal with homework meltdowns:
http://www.family-homework-answers.com/homework-meltdown.html
I really recommend taking The Homework Personality Quiz to figure out what works best for each individual child.
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Uly 1-01-2009 @ 7:38PM
Is it possible the child has too much homework? Quite aside from the question of whether *any* homework is beneficial to a child in the lower grades (the evidence seems to suggest that it's not), homework is provably detrimental if it takes too long.
A third grader shouldn't be assigned more than half an hour to 45 minutes of homework a night. 10 - 15 minutes per grade, that's the rule as suggested by both the National PTA and the NEA. But a lot of people don't realize this, and quite a few children get more homework than is good for them.
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