Do You Dread Your Kid’s Return to School More Than They Do? – Sounds Like You May Need a Homework Solution!

Hi. Grampa Starling here. If you're new to my blog, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Please feel free to leave a comment on any articles you view and thanks for stopping by!

The long hot (sic) summer is over, the kids are back at school and sanity returns to the home. Or does it? If your kid is having trouble with homework and you don’t want a rerun of previous year’s shouting matches, you may need a homework solution!

One thing most parents need to take on board is: there needs to be a clear line between teaching and parenting. Far too many parents think they have to take on the role of being their kid’s teacher outside of school.

But nothing could be further from the truth.

When it comes to the, all too frequently stressful, topic of homework a parent’s role should to complement their kid’s teaching and not necessarily to supplement it.

When your child comes to you in frustration and says about their homework, “I don’t know how to do it!”, your inclination as a parent is to respond by saying something like: “Never mind, I’ll help you with it.”

Perfectly natural; no parent wants to see their kid struggle with something they can’t do.

Unfortunately, this approach can all too often lead many parents to cross the invisible line between parenting and teaching, leaving their child in no man’s land. Instead of feeling helped by your efforts, it can leave your child feeling alone and intimidated, or worse, humiliated.

When a child has been taught how to do something but hasn’t grasped it, what it needs to learn is how to tackle the problem (and possible fear) of seeking help. What the child doesn’t need is you coming along with your (in all probability outdated) method of doing it which could be completely different to how the teacher has taught it and which will just confuse the child even further.

You see, when you learnt how to do the particular task it was probably years ago. You’ve had years of practice at doing it and almost certainly developed your own unique ways of solving it. Of course, it’s easy to you. But it won’t be easy to your child. By slipping in to the role of teacher you cease to be your child’s friend, comforter and counsellor and become (in their eyes) their intimidator.

In her article on this subject, “Clear line between teaching, parenting” in the Pocono Record, Dr. Yvonne Fournier says,

“The parents’ job is teaching responsibility, not teaching schoolwork.

“When your child asks for help, sit down in a quiet spot away from the homework area and ask for a brief explanation of the problem. If you believe your child is ready for learning but just lacks a little bit to get started, try to fill the missing gap. This gentle nudge toward learning should not take more than 10 to 15 minutes.

“If your child does not understand the concepts, additional teaching should be done by a teacher and not by a parent. Help your child understand what pieces of information are missing, and then phrase it in a specific question for the teacher. Many children will be afraid of taking questions to the teacher, but learning how to ask for information is an important part of the education process and demonstrates responsibility to learn on a child’s part.”

Dr. Fournier goes on to say,

“…don’t confuse your roles. Just as we parents must refrain from being at-home teachers, we also must refrain from asking teachers to be substitute parents. When each job is fulfilled in the student-educator-parent learning partnership, the job of learning how to learn becomes easier.

And we parents can enjoy just being parents.

Amen to that.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Related posts:

1. A Simple Solution for Kids Who Hate Vegetables There aren’t many parents who can honestly say their...
2. Obese by School Age, Obese for Life Fears! In the following video we meet eight-year-old Thomas Broomhall, who...
3. Snippets – Monday, 27th July 2009 Parenting: Single parenting resources for mothers, fathers and grandparents...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.