Is helping your children with homework a good thing?

Your child comes home after a long day at school with tons of homework. It’s hard to see them struggling to finish all the assignments before it is already bedtime. So you jump in to help lighten their load.

But should you?

Yes and no.

One of the objectives of quality homework assignments is for the pupils to revise the concepts taught in class. More often than not, an assignment will include questions which will challenge pupils understanding of a concept. This in trying to answer such questions, pupils pick up thinking skills and problem solving techniques. But if every time parents rush in to help out by giving answers or worst, looking for the answers for their child, they are doing a disservice to their children.

When parental help becomes a norm, the child will start to expect for every homework assignment. Parents become a mere push-button for model answers to questions that require a little bit of thinking and researching. But does that mean that we should let our children sink or swim in the homework.

So how can parents help take the frustration out of doing homework and yet let their children get the full benefits of completing an assignment?

Here are five tips on how parents can use homework as a way to make their children a better learner.

1. Be available to supervise.
Some children can get easily distracted and may not stay on task. They end up taking a much longer time than required to complete the work. Time spent on homework doesn’t necessarily equate to effort and children need to understand this.

Instead of letting children waste time doing things not related to the task at hand, work out a work-break schedule. If your child is a little restless, give him more breaks but each break of a shorter duration. Make sure he gets back on task on a timely basis.

Schedule the most difficult subject or tasks when your child is rested. It will give him the energy to work through the challenge of completing the assignment.

2. Help your child to clarify the homework assignment.
Maybe the instructions in the homework are a little confusing for them, especially if it is a project work. Read out the instructions and explain the words or sentence structure that confused them. Then have your child restate the explanation in his own words to check if he has understood what is to be done.

3. Don’t criticize the assignment or the teacher in front of your child.
He might just start to question the value of future assignments given by the teacher or even the quality of the teacher.

4. Encourage your child to be resourceful.
It is ok to gather tools and stationery like scissors, paper supplies, etc for him to complete the work. But when it comes to information sourcing, gathering and checking, encourage him to do it himself. Suggest that he should look up the dictionary if he is unsure of the meaning of a word. Let him use calculator to check math problems or spell check on a computer. If he needs more information on say, an insect, explain how he can use the encyclopedia (book or online) to get the information he needs. This is the perfect opportunity for your child to pick up basic research and critical thinking skills.

Give him the message that he is not only responsible for completing an assignment, he is also responsible for making sure they are all done up to scratch and with high quality. It’s all about taking ownership of the work.

6. Don’t be too quick to correct your child’s work.
Every time you jump in and give him the correct answer, you are sending the message that he can’t do it and he needs to rely on someone else to complete a difficult question.

If you spot errors, tell him that there are errors in his answers and let him work out where exactly. It is a little more tedious process but the skill of picking out errors will eventually make your child a lot sharper and sensitive to errors. So by the time he is taking the exam he would be able to do his checks quickly and efficiently.

If you must point out the errors, then don’t give away the correct answers. Explore reasons why he got the answers wrong. Ask relevant questions that will lead him to the correct answer.

Break the process down into simpler steps. Then explain the sequence that your child doesn’t understand. Give a pause between explanations so that your child can catch on to the idea before moving on to the next step.

This will help you identify exactly what he doesn’t understand. For example, your child may understand that for fractions to be added, the denominator must be the same, but he may not understand how to change the denominator to make it the same.

All too often, parents (and teachers) gloss over mistakes and label it as ‘careless mistakes’. But it takes a little bit of effort to zoom in on what makes the mistake careless.

5. Provide praise and encouragement.
When your child is being resourceful and you know he has done his best, then he deserves praise. Maybe he got 4 out of 10 questions correct. But because he has done his best, tell him so. For example,

“I noticed that you have done a lot to get the 4 questions correct. Good job! Now let’s see why you got the other 6 wrong…”

The process is always just as important, if not more, than the outcome. Children must be praised on the effort they have put in coming up with the final product, even if the final product is not up to the passing mark.

In conclusion, it is really not a question of whether you should be helping your child with his homework or not. Rather, it is about how you are going to help your child. Like the famous saying, “Give someone a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him to fish and you’ll feed him for a lifetime.” You don’t want to be in a situation where you end up feeling responsible for your child’s homework. And you most certainly don’t want to hear your child asking, “Mommy, are you done with my homework yet?”