Homework?

[KKmama]

Looking for input, suggestions on this...

I have a very bright second-grader who does well in school and likes it. However... it has been a real struggle to get him to do his homework this year. He gets a packet on Monday to be turned in Friday morning, usually about two sides of worksheets per night. It's not that it's necessarily any different from what he does day to day in school (doesn't appear to be), but he's really not interested in doing it. Right after school isn't a great time; he needs some time to wind down (he's a sensitive kid, and it seems like a break from all the stimulation at school benefits him). It's clear to me that after dinner won't work, either; he's too tired. I've tried to get him to do it around 5-6, but he really balks. I get whining and procrastination and if I put my foot down, he bursts into tears.

From my perspective: I don't feel like forcing him to do it, because honestly, it looks like busy work to me. In kindergarten, he was encouraged to draw a picture and write a sentence (or more) about it. That was great. In 1st, they were sent home with a different book (at the appropriate level) each day to read to their parents. That was great. But this isn't. He doesn't need work on math and there's always math (if it were more story problems, I'd be fine with it, but it's not). He needs work on spelling and punctuation, but there's little of that. Frankly, *yes*, it's generally very easy for him, but he doesn't want to do it, and I really don't blame him.

In his parent-teacher conference, I talked about it with his teacher. She was surprised; he is a very pleasant kid, she's enjoying having him in her classrom. She said she'd give him a two week break, talk to him, and give him the option of doing it at school. But then, the next 2nd grade weekly newsletter said something about how too many parents had complained about homework and something to the tune of "get used to it, it's important." : And he *didn't* get a two week break, and he's *not* doing it at school. I sent an email about homework, asking what was up, told her we were still having struggles.

Her reply was that in her 10 yrs of teaching, she hasn't had a kid who has created this drama around the homework and that I should talk to the school social worker. And she cc'ed the social worker.

So I'm pissed. I feel like she upped the ante unnecessarily by including the social worker. I replied to her that I think we'd be better off talking over the phone or in person. Up to this point, yes, I did like the teacher, but I feel a little defensive, like my parenting skills are being judged because of her bringing in the social worker. For the record, education *is* very important to me, and no, I don't want to change teachers or schools or pull him out. What I *would* like is for the work he brings home to be more relevant to his own needs either by the packet everyone gets being changed or by having somewhat individualized homework. I don't see the point in taking a bright, high-achieving kid who likes school and burning him out.

[supervee]

Pshaw. He's not the only kid with that kind of "drama" (is that her word? yuck) around homework.

It worked for DS to do his homework in the morning before school (his choice). I also don't "make" him do it. I'll help (to a certain extent), check if asked, remind if I think he's forgotten, make sure there's a spot for him to do it, make sure he has all the tools and supplies... but I don't accept the job of enforcement. I tried that for a couple weeks, and it was a train wreck. Now that it's his responsibility, he does all of it, and much better.

[annethcz]

What? That seems over the top to me. I would clarify with the teacher regarding the 2-week break from homework.

FWIW, it isn't universal that kids that age have homework. Although my kids do have a similar amount of homework, it isn't strictly required. The homework policy at our school is that homework is highly encouraged, but a happy and sane family life should take prescedence.

[KKmama]

I used the word drama in my email: I said "still too many outbursts and too much drama for my liking." She repeated it back to me and said she hasn't experienced that. (And yeah, it *is* drama: really, one doesn't need to burst into tears about homework, especially when you manage the same material just fine at school!)

I'm not against homework per se; we had no problems in K or 1st. But (1) this seems like busy work with very little redeeming value (especially considering his strengths and weaknesses), and (2) drilling it into him at the age of seven seems silly. He likes school, and he's doing really well. I don't see the point of forcing him to do *this* homework.

(Really just mostly blowing off steam.) Hard to fully explain my child, the teacher, and all the nuances of the situation, but I feel pretty strongly, and I'm pretty upset.

[williamsmommy2002]

Well, I would have to say the reason for the homework is not students like your ds but others who do need more reinforcement on what is being taught. Unfortunately not all teachers are going to be wonderful ones who individualize every child's experience. Since you did say part of the problem was that you can't find quite the right time to do it, maybe I can help with that. My ds gets 20 minutes free time when he gets time and then he does his work. It is consistant and we use a timer. And no we don't have difficulties because he doesn't need the work. We have difficulties because he can use the extra practice and it can be tedious.

Maybe you can ask if you can tailor some homework for him. Maybe find a subject to study each week and work involving it. Like read a book on it monday, write a story about it tuesday, make an art project wednesday...You get the picture. Make it something interesting but not too much work. Ask for a 2 week trial at that. Tell her if the quality of work isn't there that she can change it. Get your son involved.

Bottom line is that homework withh most likely be in the equation for many years to come and really what they are trying to do is build good work/study habits.

[supervee]

Cool, yes, I understand what you mean by drama--we have drama in droves here. I've just heard things like that said snarkily by teachers in the past about emotional kiddos, so that's how it was echoing in my head.

[LookMommy!]

My second grader rarely has homework, and if she doesn't do it, no major consquences.

If all else fails, my 6th grader does homework every night after dinner at exactly 7:30, together with "dessert". It helps! :

I try to do paperwork at the same time, and encourage my other kids (15, 7) to do some homework (real, or made up, or drawing/coloring) then too.

Does it matter if he does a little bit each night, or all of it on Thursday night?

I also would give him a calculator to check his math - makes it more fun.

[EFmom]

Get your hands on a copy of Alfie Kohn's The Homework Myth and Sara Bennett and Nancy Kalish's The Case Against Homework.

There is no body of research that shows any benefit whatsoever to homework in elementary school. There is, however, a huge opportunity cost in terms of other activities that kids might be doing which are either family or educationally oriented.

The first book does an excellent job of reviewing the studies that have been done on the lack of evidence regarding the efficacy of homework. I buy a copy for each of my kids' teachers, and give them a little gift at our parent teacher conference. I ask them to read at least the chapters detailing the research with an open mind.

I've found that it helps. I point out that one of the district's favorite couple of educational buzzwords are "evidence based practices." Well, in regard to homework, the evidence isn't there, so why are they killing the children's natural love of learning with it?

The second book is good in that it gives some practical strategies parents can take to get the homework load lightened.

[KKmama]

EFmom, great suggestions. I've requested them from the library (dh is a major Alfie Kohn fan). I know that research has shown no correlation between homework and achievement, but it would be helpful to have my facts in line. Sounds like really good food for thought, too. And I pretty much agree with every word you wrote.

LookMommy, *I* think it's better if he paces himself, otherwise, he's a little panicky about it not being done Thurs night (and it doesn't improve things; I've tried explaining that if he does 2 sheets/night it means no heavy load on any night, but he's not totally "getting" that). The calculator is a fun idea, and I'll keep that in mind for the future. (Right now, honestly, he doesn't need to be doing the worksheets b/c he has it down cold.)

Sigh. I *do* think he'll be totally fine with homework as he gets older, has more staying power in the evening, and as the work (hopefully) becomes more challenging/interesting. I just get the sense that he's "done" with all that stuff by the time he gets home, and he'd rather read, play with his friends, draw, etc. (And I don't blame him....)

What's odd about the "drama" thing is that it had really seemed to me that the teacher "got" my son, that he's a sensitive, kind of dreamy little boy that doesn't do particularly well with rigidity. Oh well. Good to have a place to "talk" about it. Thanks for listening.

[ChristaN]

We had this issue with dd#1 in first grade. She was 6 and had the maturity of a 6 y/o and that didn't correlate with a high tolerance for repetition of material she already knew. Homework took forever and culminated in her sobbing. It, too, wasn't doing her any good educationally b/c she knew the material and there didn't seem to be any learning objective. For instance, she'd get 100% on every spelling pre-test, but she still had to write the words ten times, write them into ten sentences... She was reading very well, but she still had to read each book ten times and practice site word flash cards...

I hope that your son has a better teacher than my dd did for first grade, but four years later, I can tell you that dd still bears some scars from the experience. Things just continued to go downhill that year for her. I spoke with the teacher repeatedly. I volunteered in the classroom. I tried to work with her, but dd was getting more and more miserable to the point that it was starting to become very apparent at school and not just at home. It kind of disintegrated to the point that dd was working very slowly at school, missing recess regularly to get work done that she wasn't doing in class, and we finally got the principal involved. She totally supported the teacher and we wound up taking dd out of school to hs the final quarter of the school year.

We also came to realize that what was going on was a combination of a very rigid teacher who had one way of teaching everyone regardless of the child's need, and a gifted child. It is very common for young gifted kids to have a very limited frustration tolerance and a very limited tolerance for repetition. I never placed the term gifted with dd until late in that school year when someone suggested it to me. When I started researching it though, it was like someone had sat down to describe dd.

She turned 10 here about two months ago, skipped 5th grade this year, and is a 6th grader currently. When we had IQ testing done with her to seek accommodations for her learning style at school (in 2nd grade), her processing speed was the one area where she wasn't well above avg and she shut down when they asked her to work quickly. I'm honestly not sure that she is inherently that slow, but she is neurotic about anyone pressing her to work quickly and a residual fall out of that year, which she can't seem to let go of, is that she still thinks that she is a slow person. It is a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Dd's teachers, too, rarely know when there is a problem b/c she bottles it up until she gets home and falls apart on me.

I hate to admit this, but we did reach the point w/ dd in 1st grade before we took her out where I learned to write like her and did some of the busy work for her. I wrote her sentences for her spelling words, for instance. As a 6th grader with the work being appropriate for her, I would never do that now. When she is frustrated now she is better able to handle it, though, b/c she is older and has more life experience. She is also not often frustrated due to repetition at this point, either, b/c the school is really working with us to make the work appropriate.

I am sorry for the book. I would certainly give the teacher the benefit of the doubt and see if you can come up with a learning plan that will work better for your son. Perhaps they would be willing to subject accelerate him for math if that is one of his strong areas and you have the achievement test scores from school to back it up. I find that math is one area where schools are more amenable to subject acceleration and I bet that the work would be less misery making for him (and possibly less repetitive) if it was coming from the next grade level up.

[Mizelenius]

RE: what the teacher said . . .

I don't think getting used to busywork is important. If your son holds a job that he loves someday and it has a certain amount of busywork (or let's just say work that he doesn't prefer) and he is a responsible person, he'll do it . . .he'll see the point. If there is no point he might question it, and that's OK. Maybe he'll make things more effective at work. What's the point now? What is the point of doing work that is truly meaningless just because someone told you to do it? Is the point to just do what the boss says no matter what?

I'd do this:
(1) skip homework here and there
(2) if there is something to improve on during the homework, focus on that
(example: DD doesn't need to practice spelling when she writes out her spelling words, but her penmanship needs work, so THAT is the focus . . .though usually we just tell her to get it over with!)
(3) YOU and your DS find something to do together as "homework" and submit it to the teacher. Make up a few word problems, have him solve them, write them out, and call it a night.

I found this article helpful: http://giftedkids.about.com/od/schoo...a/homework.htm

Remember, even though your DS is part of the system for a few hours a day, the SYSTEM does not get to decide his life.

[supervee]

I like that point of view.

#3 I'd be leery of, just because IME if you suggest to the teacher that you might know more appropriate curriculum than he/she does, in however helpful way you can imagine, it will offend him/her.

[Mizelenius]

Originally Posted by supervee

I like that point of view.

#3 I'd be leery of, just because IME if you suggest to the teacher that you might know more appropriate curriculum than he/she does, in however helpful way you can imagine, it will offend him/her.

The teacher's feelings or sense esteem never comes before my child's education. I would never suggest that a parent write, "You don't know what you're doing so we are doing X" but if a parent has tried to do what they can to work with the teacher and things are not improving, one must firmly but politely take matters into one's own hands.

[EFmom]

I've found that the homework conversation goes in a pretty predictable pattern.

When the teacher raises the idea that a child needs to get used to doing busywork because they'll have to do it as a adults, here's my response:

If we are to look at the analogy of what the child will need to do as an adult, I see it this way. I work full time out of the home. I try very hard to get my work done at work. If I were to bring home boatloads of work every night, to the point where it destroyed my family life, made me unhappy and unable to accomplish other activities that are important to me, we'd all have a term for that. I'd be a workaholic, and we'd all think it was unhealthy and distructive.

Yet why is it that we do this same thing to children day in and day out? You have them for over seven hours a day. There is no good reason why the school cannot get done in seven hours what needs to be done.

The teacher then responds by saying how much things have changed, how much they need to cover, how test-driven the whole process is, etc.

Here's where I suggest that maybe the school should manage its time better by cutting out all the non-essential time wasting stuff, like the daily pledge of indoctrination, 15 minute morning announcements (filled with all sorts of drivel), the DARE program. I tell the teacher that the day the school decided to spend educational time to hold pep rallies designed to spin the kids up to sell fundraisers was the day that the "we don't have time to cover everything, so we need to assign massive amounts of homework" excuse ceased to hold water for me.

At this point the teacher gets that deer in the headlights look.

[sunnmama]

EFmom, you are my hero.

We don't have homework issues yet (dd enjoys doing all 4 pages of weekly homework on Mon night, lol). I am, however, philosophically opposed to homework in the elementary years. If/when it become an issue for our family, I hope I can communicate my pov as clearly and effectively as EFmom!

[cosmos]

My 3rd grader started getting homework this year. She is in a 3-5 grade classroom. The teacher started out "teaching homework" in class, even kids who had homework the last 2 years, just to get them back in the groove of it. The work is pretty minimal, but the focus is on the responsibility part, not the actual work although it is reinforcing what they learned, but that isn't the point, KWIM? She also sent home info on how to help your child with the homework if they needed it, and it basically said if they didn't do it- it should not be your problem. The point is for the kid to learn how to manage their time and be responsible about it, and have the parent support when needed. My dd did not do her homework one time, and she sat in for part of an extra recess that day to finish it. That natural consequence was enough for her to not forget again.

The way the homework is given to your ds seems to reek of procrastination for anyone who is prone to it (my dd would do the exact same thing, thinking she had all the time in the world).

Bottom line- the homework should not be setting you up for a bad relationship with your son in your home If it were me I would make sure something changed or would seriously consider taking my child out of that school. That is ridiculous!

[EFmom]

Originally Posted by sunnmama

EFmom, you are my hero.

:

Awww, shucks! Thank you!

Dh and I are both educators, so we know how a lot of this stuff goes.

[KKmama]

Ditto--EFMom, you're my hero, too.

I *am* willing to do the legwork in coming up with alternate/more appropriate homework, and if it comes to that, I think I can propose it in a way that doesn't rub the teacher the wrong way. Something along the lines of "I'm a partner in his education, too, and I don't want to create extra work for you."

Yeah, when he finally stops whining about the homework and quits squirreling around or surruptitiously reading, it takes *no* time for him to do the work.

And the thing is, I *do* very much like the school, and I think his teacher has been a good fit otherwise. I liked her up until she dragged the social worker into things; now, I just feel defensive.

I'm just trying to keep in mind that I think we probably want the same thing, just have different ideas about how to get there.

[mommy68]

Originally Posted by supervee

It worked for DS to do his homework in the morning before school (his choice). I also don't "make" him do it.

This is what my middle child did in 2nd gr. I remember many times sitting in the car outside school before the bell rang finishing up his reading homework. He had to read a few pages in his book and answer questions on a sheet. He already knew it all anyway and I knew he knew it so I didn't care what time of day or where he did his homework.

[Heavenly]

YOU chose to send him to school so you do IMHO have to bend to school rules in some circumstances. If this is too much of an issue for your son maybe you need to look into homeschooling. Otherwise you need to teach your son that sometimes we have to do things we don't like to do. Homework at this age is teaching good habits for the later grades when it will get harder and more extensive. My kids have to read every night and practice/write their spelling words. Some nights there is extra work as well. If I let them whine and complain and say they didn't want to do it, guess what? They wouldn't. From day one I just dealt with it matter of factly, "This is your homework, it needs to get done, so get to it." If they have a time of day they prefer to do it we work with that but not doing is not optional. You are setting the example, he is seeing you fighting and fighting to have him NOT have to do homework. All that is teaching him is that he doesn't have to do what the teacher said because Mom will get him out of it. That is a bad precedent to set unless, like I said, you would rather look into homeschooling. I personally think your energies would be better spent working with your son to help him get used to doing his homework and making it fun for him. JMHO.