I have just seen the results of an on-line survey about homework and how it effects family life. Admittedly it was not a scientific survey, and most of the parents that responded had children who were struggling to learn, but the results shocked me.
Let’s start with the good news. Of the parents that responded to the survey (no participation numbers were given) -
10% said they had no problem getting their child to do their homework.
18% said they had to push their child to do homework.
A whopping 48% said that homework is a daily family battle!
16% reported that homework often caused a meltdown!
8% said that their child hated school because of the homework they were given.
These are not good numbers. Only one in ten parents reported that homework caused no trouble and their child was reasonably happy to complete it. That means that 90% of the parents in this survey found that their child’s homework had a negative effect on their lives, in over 50% of homes it actually causes major disruption.
Now, even assuming that the parents whose family life was disrupted were more ready to add their comments to this survey than those parents who did not have problems, the results are startling.
I know that homework is a contentious issue. All the parents in my research groups mentioned homework as something that, for a variety of reasons, made them anxious but I hadn’t realized just how bad it can be.
In my workshops one of the questions I always seem to get from parents is “How much homework should my child be doing?” and I always answer that it depends on two things – the child’s age and ability. The rule of thumb is that a child should be doing ten minutes homework for every grade level. For a child in Grade 1 that means 10 minutes a night is enough. For a child in Grade 10 that can increase to 100 minutes a night.
But bright children who find learning easy (remember that not all bright children find learning easy!) often finish their work in school time and have very little work to do at home, or they spend extra time on project work that interests them. Children who find it difficult to learn often need to spend much longer doing their homework if they want to finish it. So the ‘ten minute per grade’ guideline may not work in every case – it is just a guideline and is open to adaptation depending on the child’s needs. That is why I have told groups of parents that, while the ten minute rule is useful, it is not to be imposed without considering their child’s needs.
But, from the results of the survey above it is obvious that I need to take a different perspective when giving parents advice about how much homework their child should be doing. It seems that I have been concentrating too much on the effect of homework on the child and I should also be considering the effect on parents. So here are my thoughts, and would welcome comments from parents who feel pressured by the homework their child gets.
First, and I cannot stress this enough, homework should never, NEVER, cause issues with your relationship with your child. Your relationship with your child is far too precious to be threatened by you trying to help your child do his or her homework. I have worked with families where mothers (it is usually mothers) have been at their wits end trying to find ways to get their children to do homework. The anger and frustration this has caused spills out into all aspects of family life and causes all kinds of problems. I have seen parents threaten children with loss of privileges and to stop paying allowances in an effort to get their child to do their homework. I have had mothers in tears on the phone and know of mothers who do their child’s work for them rather than having to face the frustration and anger of getting their child to do the work!
I repeat, this should never happen.
So, my third piece of advice about homework is directed at parents. It is this-
The amount of benefit your child gets from finishing a homework assignment NEVER outweighs the cost to your relationship with your child when you try to make him or her do homework. In effect, the amount of time you spend cajoling and coercing your child to do their work is counterproductive. There is no way that homework should create tension in a family, and definitely not a meltdown as the survey results indicate.
But that does not answer the question – “What can I do if my child doesn’t want to do homework?”. Unfortunately that answer is not straightforward as it depends on the reasons WHY your child does not want, or cannot do, the homework and this article is already too long. In later articles I will address this issue in more detail but for now I suggest that the one thing you can do is to let your child’s teacher know about the problems you and your child are having. Do not wait until the next parent/teacher conference, it might be too late to fix the problem by then. Either drop a note into the teachers box in the office (this is a North American thing – other countries have different ways of contacting teachers) or call and make an appointment to talk to your child’s teacher. Be assured, teachers want to know if your child is struggling with work they have set, and only you can tell them, your child is unlikely to admit he or she has problems.
Now I know that, for many of you, this will take courage. I have been amazed by the number of parents I have worked with – some of them holding down top level jobs in management- who are terrified of saying anything vaguely negative to their child’s teacher. When parents tell me that they do not want to ‘disturb’ their child’s teacher is this – Who would you rather ‘disturb”? Someone who gets paid to get it right or your child?
Stop letting your child’s homework cause family problems, it is just not worth it. Let me and other parents know what you are doing to prevent the ‘homework hassle’ from effecting family life by commenting on this blog.
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