In general parents need to take a step-by-step approach in helping their children. Here are a few suggestions to help you along the way:
- Encourage your child to use an agenda.
Some children are religious about using their agenda, while others finish the year off without ever opening theirs up. In elementary school teachers usually make a point of checking students’ agendas, but when kids enter high school it’s up to the students to keep their own agenda. Nowadays teachers have websites where they post their homework, and may even have class notes on. Plus most children have phones which they can also use as an agenda.
- Make sure Julie knows what she has to do.
I know this sounds like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised how often kids get instructions mixed up. The best technique is to sit down with her and ask her to read the instructions out loud. Maybe ask Julie how she plans on going about doing the assignment. If she’s off on the wrong track, resist telling Julie her ideas are wrong. Let Julie figure it out on her own by you repeating the question and asking her to explain how her method will answer the question.
- Brainstorming
I’m also a firm believer in brain storming. You can even turn it into a game: see how many ideas you come up within a minute. Volunteer to write everything down, so you know all the ideas find their way to the paper. Then talk about the options the two of you have drummed up, and let your child decide on the best method. You need to do this right off the bat, before children invest any of their own time into the process. Once children put in time they will be less likely to change their game plan. In general kids are looking for an easy out and will gravitate toward the path of least resistance, which isn’t usually the one you want.
- Set time limits for your child’s homework.
Most kids have a hard time concentrating past 30 minutes. Aaron might be sitting in a chair, looking intently at his paper, but his mind is off in the wild blue yonder. I got fooled a few times by my son telling me he was working overtime, and therefore earned more time off; only to find out later he had nothing to show for it.
Also, as children get older, it becomes harder and harder for you to implement time limits, because some nights there just is too much work to do. The optimal approach is to reassure children they will have plenty of time for fun, so long they try their best during the work periods. We usually mixed 15 minutes of fun with 30 minutes of homework. As they get older, kids like getting bigger chunks of time; which they can have, so long they do longer periods of work as well. It’s important to be fair with your child. No kid wants to come home from a full day of school, thinking they have a full night of homework ahead of them, and nothing else. Also accept the fact they may not get through it all, and remember this Chinese proverb, “Of all the stratagems, to know when to quit is the best.”
- Make a schedule.
Our son used to enjoy making his own schedule. He’d break the night into half-hour, sometimes fifteen-minute blocks, organizing how he planned on getting all his work done. I have to admit, he didn’t always keep to his schedule: one assignment would take longer than he thought, so the other one would get delayed to the next day. That’s all okay, so long the work gets done on time to a reasonable standard. It’s better for your children to be flexible and make changes then rigidly stick to a schedule they can’t keep.
- Set up a quiet spot
Set up a quiet spot for your children to work in, without too much clutter surrounding them. In the end our son had so much stuff on his desk, you couldn’t see it anymore. That’s when he migrated over to his bed for studying, which admittedly is far from ideal. The bottom line for me, however was, as parents we need to pick and choose your battles, and this was one I didn’t enter the ring for. Also keep in mind you can’t always get your own way, because your kids need to come out on top sometimes too.
- Check their work.
When our son was younger he didn’t mind us looking over his work, and giving room-for-improvement advice. But that didn’t last forever; as he got older he realized this process was just amounting to more work for him. Eventually, when he was in high school, we got factored out of the equation all together, because, as he put it, correcting was between him and his teacher.
This brings up another point about how involved parents should get in their children’s homework. I‘ll be the first to admit, I was in too deep. It was hard standing by and doing nothing, as we watched our son struggle. I remember him being in grade three and having a project assigned of building a boat they’d learned about in Canadian history. I tried to help my son and his friend build a canoe out of balsa wood. It turned out pretty amateurish; the slats started cracking before they even got around to painting it. As it turned out his friend’s Mom thought our canoe looked too good, and suggested they make their canoe out of play doh, which they did.
A couple of weeks later all the parents were invited to a special viewing of the boats. One of the boats was literally a pirate ship equipped with masts and even a skull and cross bones flag on the top. Others were varying degrees of workmanship with my son and his friend’s being the simplest of all. It seemed more than one parent got on board with the project. I don’t have a problem with parents helping their children do projects, as long as the child is actively involved; not the Mom or Dad disappearing into the garage for the weekend and surprising their child with a super-de-duper project the child never lifted a finger to help make. Working together on a project is an excellent way for families to spend time together.
- Rewards.
This step is completely optional. When we had our first child I followed behavior modification to the tee. We had a time-out chair in the corner of our living room, which my oldest son regularly frequented. When it came round to our third child we more or less grew out of it. What I found was the rewards confused the process. You might say to Ellen, “if you finish your arithmetic you can have a treat.” Fifteen minutes later she comes to you with her arithmetic page finished, but really messy or half the questions are wrong. Then you start arguing over whether she should get the treat or not.
What you’ll also find is that as kids get older, it becomes harder and harder to reward them. They don’t care about getting a prize anymore. Ideally you want your kids to do things for their own satisfaction, not to get a prize or even necessarily make you happy. I do however, think rewards have a time and a place, especially when kids are younger and need a little push to get them started.