No More Homework Hassles

need to study now, in order to be successful when they grow up, rarely influences them. Even approaching exams do not always motivate children to take homework and revision seriously. Often the future, even the near future, seems to them to be too far away until it is too late.

Children and Homework

We want our children to do their homework, and to do it carefully and thoroughly, so that they revise and master skills learned at school. However, this is not the only reason why homework is set. Homework is also set in order
to teach children to work independently, which includes doing it even when they don’t feel like it.

Our aim is to teach and train our children to do their homework well without help or reminders. If our children have not yet mastered this habit, then it is our responsibility as adults to support them both in completing their homework and in learning to be more independent with it. Gradually, we need to reduce our involvement so that they experience more and more freedom and responsibility. For some children, especially those who have learning difficulties, being completely independent with their homework may take years to achieve.

In this Article

We will explore ways to make it easier for our children to do their homework well, and to make sure they get value out of it. Unfortunately, even if you follow all the recommendations in this article, your children may not love doing their homework. However, they are more likely to be willing to do the tasks without arguing, and perhaps even enjoy it some of the time.

Why Children Don’t Like Homework

Let’s look at some reasons why most children don’t like to do their homework:-

• They would rather do something else which is more fun
• The homework is either too difficult, or the child believes it is too difficult for him to do
• The homework is boring, repetitive or too easy
• They are tired or hungry
• They are not interested in the subject and does not see why it is important to learn it or how it is relevant to him
• They are distracted by siblings, noises, pets, screen

Using the Skills to Overcome Obstacles

We need to use all the skills we have learned in order to get over all the obstacles listed above. Let’s see how we can Prepare for Success, set Rules and Routines and teach our children to be Self-reliant with their homework.

1. Have a set time and place to do homework. Agree about breaks in advance. Make sure your child has some free time before doing his homework, and that he has a healthy meal or snack. If your child has a different schedule on some afternoons, due to after-school activities, you can make a weekly time-table with your children. (This time table will be different every day of the week.) This way, homework time is predictable so there is less temptation to argue about it. Decide in advance when the breaks are so that your child knows for how long he must concentrate. The most natural time for breaks is between subjects, but if your child is very distractible, anxious, fidgety or simply immature, he may need breaks as frequently as every 10-15 minutes.
2. Find a quiet, uncluttered place where your child can do his homework. It is important for children to have a place where they can be left undisturbed for periods of time. It’s best to have a place with very few distractions to make concentration easier. If your child is easily distracted, make sure that his desk is almost empty. All he needs around him are his books and the stationery and equipment required for the subject he is working on right now.
3. Arrange the afternoon routine so that TV and free time come after homework is completed to your satisfaction. As we mentioned before, homework does not need to happen straight after school; in fact, most children need some time to relax or eat after a long school day. It is unrealistic to expect them to sit down and do their homework as soon as they come home. However, it is best for the children to earn watching TV and playing with other electronic games by completing their homework first. It is easier for them to work when they know they have a reward waiting at the end. Children also enjoy their free time more when they are not feeling guilty about work that is yet to be done.
4. Have your child start with his hardest subject, while his mind is the most alert. This has an added bonus: once this subject is completed, the rest will seem relatively easy.
5. If your child is not yet independent in doing his homework, ask him to show you what he has to do for his first subject. If he is at all unsure, rather than explain to him what he needs to do, ask him to explain it to you in detail. This approach will make him think more and will train him to be more independent. If you feel he doesn’t fully understand something, ask him more questions. Get him to take guesses, and give him clues rather than provide answers and explanations. Descriptively Praise after each guess that he takes. Ask him about the things you think he might get wrong. (“What do you need to remember about the beginning of each sentence?”)
6. Once you believe your child knows exactly what he needs to do, leave the room and let him work independently for a few minutes. Overtime, make these intervals of unsupervised work longer and longer. This will teach him to work on his own without constant help. Descriptively Praise him for every step towards becoming more independent with his work.
7. When your child finishes the task, ask him to show you his work. Descriptively Praise whatever he has done right or almost right, or even simply better than before. Ask questions about his work, and descriptively praise his answers to your questions. Pay attention to content, grammar, spelling, accuracy and presentation. Each one of these aspects can give you opportunities to descriptively praise.
8. Get your child to correct some of his mistakes. If there are many mistakes, it is unrealistic to expect him to correct them all. Use Descriptive praise to get him to improve his work. (“You’ve got almost all your spelling right. There are just three spelling mistakes in the whole page. Can you guess where they might be?”)
9. Take a break, and then move on to the next subject. Children do need breaks in order to keep concentrating. When a child is working well, we may sometimes get tempted to skip the breaks, but the result is usually a restless, uncooperative child.

Remember to stay positive about your child’s effort, and about his school and his homework. As you talk to him throughout the day, show him how topics in his homework are relevant to everyday life. Ask him why he needs to learn what he is learning, even if it is not connected directly to his everyday experience. Offer your own ideas as well.

Questions and Answers

1. My son says he doesn’t know how to do his homework. What should I do?

It is possible that the homework set for your son is too difficult for him (look at question 2 for advice on that).

However, it may be that your son gives up on his homework too easily. Many children look at the first question on a page and give up if they don’t understand it immediately. Or they start doing the page and stop as soon as they see something that they think is too hard.

One of the best ways to get over this “learning block” is to ask your child to show you everything he can do on the page. To do this, he will need to scan the whole page to find things he understands. Ask him, for now, to skip all the questions he doesn’t understand. Descriptively praise him for everything he can do before you help him with the areas that are more difficult.

For example, let’s assume that your child is learning to read. You can ask him to show you all the words he can read in a passage, and you lightly underline these words. You then read together: he only needs to read the underlined words, and you read the rest. Soon there will be more and more words he knows how to read so you will need to read fewer and fewer words.

2. What do I do if my daughter’s homework is too difficult for her?

If you feel your daughter’s homework is too difficult, or takes too long to complete, you need to talk to her teacher. All schools have a homework policy. They expect your child to work on his homework for a certain amount of time every day. If your daughter takes much longer to complete her work, even though she is concentrating, her teacher needs to know that. Some children find schoolwork more difficult than others. Unless you let her teacher know, she will continue to have unrealistic expectations of your daughter.

The important thing to remember is that you must not make your daughter feel she is stupid. No one wants to learn from people who make them feel they are not good enough. If the homework is too difficult, the problem is in the setting of the homework, not in the child.

3. What do I do if my son’s homework is too repetitive and easy?

Is the homework really too easy, or are you not requiring him to do his very best? Has your child answered the questions fully and clearly, in complete sentences, using his own words, and presented his work well?

If your child is doinghis very best and you still think the work is too easy, remember that there issomething to be learned even from that situation. It could be just learning to do things when you don’t think you need to do them.

Of course, you don’t want your child to regularly be set homework which is too easy. So if you think your child is not being stretched enough academically, let the teacher know. The school should be able to give him different work which is more suitable for his ability.

4. How do I support my daughter when she has a big project to prepare? She tends to leave everything for the last minute and then rush through it.

Even at primary school, children sometimes get projects that need to be completed over several weeks. However, most children do not have a realistic sense of time. They feel they have plenty of time to complete the work, even when they are very close to the date when they have to hand it in.

It is best to divide big projects into smaller steps and set a separate deadline for each step. Many schools do this already, but children can easily slip behind unless this is supported at home.

Sit with your daughter, help her to divide the project into small, logical steps and set a fixed date for each step. Then stick to the time table you made. It will be a good lesson in organisation.

5. My daughter could complete the homework in the allotted time if she concentrated, but she wastes a lot of time, asking for a drink, going to the toilet, sharpening pencils that are already sharp, rubbing out perfectly good answers, and saying she can’t think of anything to write. How can I teach her to concentrate?

• All the advice in this article should help, but only if parents do it consistently.
• Messing about may be a cover-up for anxiety when the work seems too difficult. Please see the answers to questions 2 and 3.
• Time wasting may be an effective attention-getting ploy. Every child needs frequent, predictable one-to-one quality time alone with each parent. When children get the positive attention that they need and deserve, they soon become less fixated on getting attention for misbehaving.

For further information and advice, Parenting Courses, CDs, DVDs and Books, please contact us: