Homework Blues

Having trouble getting your child to do their homework?

It seems that no matter what country you live in, or how much you pay for your child’s education, if they are one of those that doesn’t like homework it will always seem like an uphill battle for you to get them to sit down and do it.

While many schools today are of the belief that your child doesn’t need to do homework every night, they still expect a certain amount; be it projects they have a set time allowed to finish, school work that wasn’t completed during the day or just learning for a test, at some point they are going to have to come home and do their homework.

Unfortunately it seems that there is a growing tendency for children to ‘slip through the cracks’ nowadays. They are able to bluff their way through Primary School and often scrape through by doing the minimum amount of work possible. The problem arises when they either hit a higher level of education eg. High School or suddenly come across a teacher or new school where their tricks of the past just won’t work. And this is where it starts to get hard. I’m sure there are a lot of parents out there who get to the point where they’ve tried everything: they’ve yelled, cajoled and bribed but each and every night when it comes time for homework you just know it’s not going to be easy.

If, like me, you have a child with a learning disability: dyslexia, ADD etc. this constant struggle will more often than not end in tears of frustration as your child becomes increasingly more distressed over not knowing what they are supposed to do or not being able to understand what the teacher was telling them. Many children either forget to bring their work home, bring the wrong book or often tell their parents they finished it at school and then hope they can come up with a good excuse for the teacher.

If any of this sounds like the nightly rituals in your home, perhaps some of these little things I’ve been trying with my child will help with yours.

Reading: If your child struggles with reading, just doesn’t like to read or has problems processing what they’ve read so they can write about it etc. try either reading to them yourself and then after each chapter (set amount of pages etc) get them to relate what they think has happened so far verbally to you before you progress any further. Books on tape are also another good avenue, particularly if you are able to match the book on tape with the suggested material of the class. Your child can listen and where possible read along with the story, get them to stop the tape and write notes if they think something was interesting or confusing. While they may never learn to love reading, being able to at least enjoy it and have the ability to process what they have read/learnt will go a long way toward helping with all other avenues of education.

You could also get them to pick one character in the story and write about them, what they think the character would do in certain situations. You could interview your child as the character, ask them certain questions and get them to respond with what they think the character would do or say etc.

When it comes to things like maths and science, where possible I’ve found the hands on approach seems to give me the best results. Often you can teach your child maths without even knowing it. Things like playing scrabble (also helps with reading) get them to keep track of the scores. Let them help you with the cooking: simple little things like I have five cups of sugar here but I only need three how many should I put away? Take it a step further and find out what happens when you mix two of your cooking substances together. Next time you go shopping get them to help keep track of your bill or how much you need of a certain product. The more you look around the more you’ll realise just how often you use maths and science in your day to day life.

Take notes: One of the biggest problems I’ve come across as my child reaches a higher level of education is that often by the time they’ve come home from school they’ve forgotten what they learnt in the first lesson, or what it is they needed to bring home to study (this stems from dyslexia – short term memory problems are a factor). Get your child to take notes, even if it’s just a scribble of what they need to bring home that night to ensure they can complete the assignment. Where possible get into the habit of checking they have all they need before you leave the school grounds, though more importantly get your child into the habit of checking their written notes to make sure they have packed all they need.

If your child has a set assignment/project that they have to complete within a certain amount of time, help them to lay out each step they need to do and then get them to set time aside each night (or every other night) to do a little of it. Once you can convince your child that it really is easier to do five minutes now rather than three hours the night before it’s due you’ll go along way toward showing your child that they do have the ability to keep up with the others in their class, and the joy on their face when they hand in a completed project on time – if not early, will not only make your day complete, it’ll also help to show them that with just a little time and effort school and homework really isn’t that bad.

And don’t forget to talk to your child’s teacher(s) tell them if your child is struggling with certain things. More often than not the teacher will be happy to assist you in anyway possible, be it modifying assignments, suggesting other ideas or being able to point you in other directions to get the help your child needs.

Always praise your child for achieving rather than punishing for failing. Each positive step they take as they make their way through school will not only help improve their attitude to doing homework, it will also bring a little more joy and peace into your home every night when homework time arrives.

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