Motivation to do homework - Page 2

[JayGee]

At our house we have "homework time" which happens right after a snack. All three kids and I sit together at the kitchen table. DS does his homework (3rd grade), DD1 does homework if she has some, if not she practices writing her letters and numbers or I give her math problems to work on, DD2 has coloring books and workbooks that she does, and I sit and help. If EVERYONE in the house is doing homework and sitting at the table, the inclination to get up and do something else is much less. DS finishes all his work in 30 minutes or so (math, spelling, and geography this past week).

[EFmom]

This thread is so depressing. We struggle with the same thing.

What kills me about it is that there is no credible body of evidence that giving elementary school kids homework has any educational benefit. I think my kids should be out playing, not toiling away on worksheets every night or doing pointless craft projects.

But instead, I have to watch over the endless drudgery and pretend like it matters.

[its_betty]

Just wanted to chime in: my son's math teacher (6th grade) told us that his math homework shouldn't take longer than 30 minutes, and if it is, the kid should write a question that would help him understand it better and then just stop. In lower grades, the teachers let us know to just stop after a certain amount of time (and have the parent write a note).

In addition to the other advice you've gotten to let her do the work herself and let her be responsible for it (and face the consequences if she doesn't do it), maybe you could try this. After 1 hour of homework time (broken up if you want), have your daughter stop and write a note: I worked on my homework for 1 hour but didn't have time to get to these problems because... (could be "because it's hard to write for so long," "because I'm not sure how to do the work," "etc"). She might still have to finish at school the next day, but at least you won't be battling it out for 3 hours, and she will have to think about why she isn't getting the work done.

[meemee]

Originally Posted by EFmom

pretend like it matters.

no you dont have to do that.

i do not pretend. dd knows exactly how i feel about homework and exams. she understands that mostly it is useless work... but no matter what she has learnt when we do something like join a school we have to follow certain rules whether we like it or not. so you gotta do hw.

my attitude has somewhat helped my dd with her attitude towards hw. she has to do it. it has to be done whether we like it or not. the more you complain you waste time.

[MCatLvrMom2A&X]

Thank you all for the suggestions

I like how you put that meemee and I will keep reminding myself and dd that life is like that.

I know it is just going to gt harder as the years pass and I am trying to be OK with that. I do know that for me my kids having time to be kids is so much more important than school. Not saying that school isnt important just that it comes in second in my mind to my kids childhood. I will take it one day at a time and try different things to help make it more pleasant for all of us.

[FedUpMom]

depressing

Wow, what a depressing thread this is. Is this really what we want to teach our kids -- that school is 13 (or more!) years of drudgery, but they have to suck it up?

If you really can't get the school to listen to reason and cut down on the homework, I think you're completely within your rights to fake it. Just do it yourself (if you type it they won't see the handwriting). If you think any of it is useful, have your daughter do that part.

Faking isn't my favorite approach, but it might beat the alternative. I don't think it's such a terrible message for the child, either. She didn't choose this school -- she just got stuck there, and she has no way out (unless you can get her into a different school, which might be worth a try.) The purpose of school should be for her to get an education. If the homework is wrecking her childhood, then it isn't helping her get an education, and you should subvert it.

[eepster]

Originally Posted by FedUpMom

If you really can't get the school to listen to reason and cut down on the homework, I think you're completely within your rights to fake it. Just do it yourself (if you type it they won't see the handwriting). If you think any of it is useful, have your daughter do that part.

If half the parents in the class fake it so their kids can hand in perfectly done assignments, the teacher is being given the impression that the assignments are reasonably easy for the students and the work load is appropriate. When the other half of the class, who actually did the work themselves, hand in sloppy or incomplete work, they get penalized or punished; b/c it seems obvious to the teacher that the work load is perfectly manageable if half the class has no trouble getting through it and consistently hands in perfect homework.

This becomes a viscous cycle where more and more unreasonable amounts of homework get assigned if parents start doing it for their kids.

[claras_mom]

Dd's school (multi-age classrooms; public alternative program) doesn't, as a rule, do homework every night. Instead, every kid from K - 6 does an independent project every week and presents it on Friday. So to get it done, there's work to be done every day. Our strategy, just to get dd (K) into the groove, is to make sure time is made every day, whether before or after dinner, to work a little on it. Eventually, she'll do it all on her own. Now, obviously, she needs a lot of help.

She'll only ever get worksheets or whatever if the teacher sees a specific need to work on a specific skill.

So it's still work at home for the kid and the parent, but after reading some of these other experiences, I'm feeling pretty good about it.

I've got to say that as an educator (albeit undergrad university), I do use assignments to see if my students are getting what I'm trying to teach. It is important to see the true results of the assignments, so I know if I need to find a different approach to a concept.

[FedUpMom]

I agree

eepster says:

***
If half the parents in the class fake it so their kids can hand in perfectly done assignments, the teacher is being given the impression that the assignments are reasonably easy for the students and the work load is appropriate.
***

eepster, I agree with you. That's one good reason why faking it would never be my first choice.

However, if the parent has talked to the teacher and the teacher won't budge, and the child will be punished at school for unfinished homework, faking it may be the only option left. I don't know of another way to handle it that allows the child to enjoy her childhood.

[meemee]

Originally Posted by FedUpMom

Wow, what a depressing thread this is. Is this really what we want to teach our kids -- that school is 13 (or more!) years of drudgery, but they have to suck it up?

yes this is what i want to teach my child. that sometimes life doesnt go your way.

why?

because it takes the drudgery out of it.

when you take out the complaining and the 'depressive' behaviour it actually takes the drudgery out of it.

dd no longer complains because its what she has to do. so she tries to hurry and fly through it. not waste time pulling herself down with omg i gotta do this. i dont expect her to do a great job. she can be slightly sloppy.

i do that because i dont have any other options. if i did i would take it.

i really do think dd is getting more and more balanced because of all these 'challenges' she deals with that she has to learn to cope.

she is the one telling all the other kids its not that bad having daddy and mommy living in separate houses. or its not that bad that you have hw. if you hurry and finish you are done in what 30 mins and use the next hour and half playing rather than complaining and bringing yourself down.

i think what really helped dd was to see my viewpoint. that i do understand what she is going through and i agree she shouldnt be doing hw, but there's no way out of it.

its a good life skill to 'teach' our children so that when life gets harder and they have to do things they dont like doing, they wont have such a hard time.

[GuildJenn]

I'm really surprised about the faking it aspect -- that parents see this as a potential solution -- and I appreciate that I'm hearing this before it's an issue for our family. I think my stand from my position of relative ignorance is that I would much rather teach academic integrity at home and deal with the school than do my child's homework.

What I also wanted to add to the thread is that when I was a student I often did my homework in the morning. Now we didn't have really early start times at that time. But I had more energy and commitment in the morning. It did create a natural end time to the homework which sometimes caused issues, but I also learned to gauge my time really well.

[One_Girl]

Originally Posted by FedUpMom

eepster says:

***
If half the parents in the class fake it so their kids can hand in perfectly done assignments, the teacher is being given the impression that the assignments are reasonably easy for the students and the work load is appropriate.
***

eepster, I agree with you. That's one good reason why faking it would never be my first choice.

However, if the parent has talked to the teacher and the teacher won't budge, and the child will be punished at school for unfinished homework, faking it may be the only option left. I don't know of another way to handle it that allows the child to enjoy her childhood.

Teachers aren't going to change a requirement that is not much of a burden to most of the kids unless there is a documented learning disorder that creates a need for the change. Power struggles are no fun, but they aren't considered learning disabilities that deserve IEPs. Why should a child even do schoolwork if they know that their mom will do it for them once they get home if they have to bring it home for homework (which the OP's dd does sometimes) so mom can do it for them because she doesn't agree with homework or taking recess? If you believe that your child shouldn't have to do school work, loose recess, or do homework, and that it is no big deal to just fake it then why send them at all? You probably already went to school and know that stuff so there is no point in you fighting every night then doing the homework that you have already mastered. Homeschooling and unschooling may be a better option at that point for the families sanity.

[MCatLvrMom2A&X]

Doing the work in the morning wouldnt work for my dd at all. School starts at 8 and we dont get up until 7-7:10 so just enough time to dress eat and get to school. Not to mention my dd inherited mine and dh's morning aversion.

I would love to be able to home school but I am not I know my limitations and wouldnt dream of doing that to my kids.

As far as doing some of her work. She already knows how to do what I did for her so my doing it dosnt take away from her learning it. What it does do is allow her and me to be done faster so she can play and do what a child is supposed to do.

My dd knows that I cannot and will not do all the work for her but I do and will continue to do what I can to help her out.

/rant School work at school is a totally different thing than homework. School should stay at school like it used to. I wouldnt mind a day or 2 of light homework but every single stinking night there is no point to it other than taking away precious time that my kids cant get back to just be kids. /end rant

[CarrieMF]

She already knows how to do what I did for her so my doing it dosnt take away from her learning it. What it does do is allow her and me to be done faster so she can play and do what a child is supposed to do.

but you aren't teaching her responsibilty by doing it. Part of being a child in school is homework and the responsibility of doing it. Some schools will have more homework than others. Some will have none at all. My kids rarely bring homework home. If they do it's a project that they've worked on in class & haven't finished yet, or studying for a test. In fact my kids school makes a point of leaving more than enough school time to finish something.

If your dd had so much homework that it was legitmatly taking her 2+ hours to do it I'd understand, but that is not the case here. It is taking her so long because she hasn't had to do it & is holding out knowing you'll do it for her.

While right now it may seem pointless for her to do it you should be teaching her the skills to get it done for when she's in middle & high school when the homework means alot more than it does in elementary school. It is much harder to teach those skills when they're 16.

[EFmom]

Originally Posted by One_Girl

. Why should a child even do schoolwork if they know that their mom will do it for them once they get home if they have to bring it home for homework (which the OP's dd does sometimes) so mom can do it for them because she doesn't agree with homework or taking recess? If you believe that your child shouldn't have to do school work, loose recess, or do homework, and that it is no big deal to just fake it then why send them at all?

I do force my kids to do homework. I think school is valuable. What I don't think is valuable is homework in the elementary grades. There is no credible body of research showing benefit to nightly homework for elementary school aged children. If homework is so wonderful that we have to saddle children with a nightly burden, one would think that that there would be reams of studies documenting huge academic gains from inflicting it on kids.

Practically every newsletter that gets sent home from school is liberally sprinked with phrases like "evidence based practices," yet the schools plug their ears and hum loudly when asked to produce evidence for their practices.

The point is not that school does not have value, it is that homework does not.

My husband teaches high school. He used to be a great believer in homework. I introduced him to Alfie Kohn, and dug up all the original research that Kohn cites. Kohn is absolutely correct. Dh did a little experiment, drastically slashing the homework he assigned. There was no difference at all in his students' performance. But they were more engaged in class.

[EFmom]

Originally Posted by meemee

its a good life skill to 'teach' our children so that when life gets harder and they have to do things they dont like doing, they wont have such a hard time.

I guess I'm not sure that it's a lesson that should take or is worth many hundreds of hours out of a child's life by the time they make it out of elementary school.

It seems to me that's a lesson that could be taught without such a huge price.

[FedUpMom]

stop the juggernaut

***
My kids rarely bring homework home.
***

Wow! What kind of school do your kids go to?

Where I live, it is almost impossible to find a school that doesn't give daily homework. Believe me, I've looked. I'm currently negotiating with younger dd's first grade teacher, who plans to send home work every day (math sheet plus a book from school with reading log.) FIRST grade! It's infuriating. And I've seen with older dd the toll that homework takes on family life, and on dd's interest in learning and attitude toward school. It's a disaster.

[meemee]

Originally Posted by EFmom

I guess I'm not sure that it's a lesson that should take or is worth many hundreds of hours out of a child's life by the time they make it out of elementary school.

It seems to me that's a lesson that could be taught without such a huge price.

oh i totally agree with you. i wish things were different. i tell my dd that too. i wish she didnt have hw. i wish we could have the option of doing what she wanted.

yeah i do wish it wouldnt come with such a huge price.

but unfortunately it does. THAT is the reality. you keep trying to find another option, but until you find one you keep plugging away.

[meemee]

Originally Posted by MCatLvrMom2A&X

As far as doing some of her work. She already knows how to do what I did for her so my doing it dosnt take away from her learning it. What it does do is allow her and me to be done faster so she can play and do what a child is supposed to do.

/rant School work at school is a totally different thing than homework. School should stay at school like it used to. I wouldnt mind a day or 2 of light homework but every single stinking night there is no point to it other than taking away precious time that my kids cant get back to just be kids. /end rant

i totally hear you on this. i sooo agree.

we were lucky in first grade. i spoke to the teacher how i had to pull teeth to get dd to do homework because she knows it like the back of her hand. so the teacher gave us some challenging hw. which my dd didnt mind.

in second grade for spring break dd got 25 pages of hw. not simple work but long hard work (it was a split class and she was doing mostly 3rd grade work and this was 3rd grade work). after spring break i spoke to the teacher and told him that as much as he cared that kids really learnt their stuff i wanted dd to have her vacation too. so we were the only family that turned in her work two weeks late.

dd had a great report card but she got unsatisfactory in doing hw on time.

[GuildJenn]

Originally Posted by FedUpMom

***
My kids rarely bring homework home.
***

Wow! What kind of school do your kids go to?

Where I live, it is almost impossible to find a school that doesn't give daily homework. Believe me, I've looked. I'm currently negotiating with younger dd's first grade teacher, who plans to send home work every day (math sheet plus a book from school with reading log.) FIRST grade! It's infuriating. And I've seen with older dd the toll that homework takes on family life, and on dd's interest in learning and attitude toward school. It's a disaster.

In Toronto there is supposed to be a policy on elementary homework (none in kindergarten, very little written in the early grades):

http://www.tdsb.on.ca/about_us/media...led&self=11565

As with any large board, it's implemented differently in different schools.