To Help or Not to Help (with Homework)

A recent study in the journal Psychological Science has given us yet another example of how parental help can backfire, and it’s an eye-opener: Apparently, when parents who lack confidence in math try to lend a hand with their first- and second-graders math homework, their children perform worse than if they didn’t get any homework help at all. In fact, the more these math-anxious parents “helped,” the worse off kids were, falling behind as far as a third of a grade level in math.

I feel for these homework meddlers, and given the over-involved ways of our parental generation at large, I suspect I’m not alone. While I’m opposed to the idea of doing kids’ homework with them, I buzz constantly around my oldest son’s workspace in an effort to help “keep him on track.” And yet, the battle over getting homework done, and well, has produced more bickering and tears than pretty much any household issue we’ve faced together in the past year. So much for “helping.”

This year has to be better, not just in terms of the quality of homework turned in, but also the after school rapport between my son and me. So, on the verge of this new year, I turned to teachers I know and respect for guidance. I assembled a short, informal homework survey, and more than two dozen of these teachers and their colleagues kindly participated. The data shows some real trends of thought, which I’ll share here.

Teachers do want us to be around at homework time…
I asked the teachers, “What approach should parents ideally take to homework?” Fully 22 out of 25 teachers agreed that it’s best to “be available—give them space and expectations, and also ensure that one adult is in the vicinity to field questions and provide direction.” A couple supported the idea of a complete “team effort,” but surprisingly, not a single one agreed with the idea that we should “leave kids alone—it’s important that they take initiative and demonstrate their knowledge to teachers independently.”

…But we need to keep our hands off the work. 
The biggest mistake we make at homework time? According to the majority of teachers surveyed, it’s “doing kids’ work for them.” But the second most common teacher peeve is at the opposite end of the involvement spectrum: when we “don’t provide them with enough structure or space to do the work to the best of their ability.” Clearly, the best approach is a middle-of-the-road one, in which we don’t do too much or too little, but set them up for success. One teacher put it this way: “Both hovering and doing their work for them are detrimental. Students need to be able to do their work on their own, but with help when needed. With today’s standards, much of the curriculum is taught in ways that parents didn’t learn, making it hard for them to help their students.” (Cue to the math anxiety study, cited above.) Here’s a humbling thought: our kids might understand the material better than we do.

The kitchen table might be the worst place for your kids to be doing their homework.
When I asked where kids should be doing their homework, I figured most teachers would recommend “at a desk, preferably in their room.” But only a handful of those surveyed agreed with this statement. Even fewer prescribed “the kitchen table or some other central location.” Instead, the majority—65%—thought that kids should do their homework “anywhere they are comfortable,” with many stipulating that it should be in a quiet space, with a parent in summoning distance. Maybe time for a lap desk?

Routine, routine, routine.
Many teachers commented that the most important key to diffusing homework battles is establishing a regular time and place for getting it done. “Do it first thing after school, and have all your kids do it at the same time,” said one teacher. But another voiced why this might be tricky for so many of us: “So many other commitments make it hard to develop a routine.”
Perhaps the answer, for many of us busy families, is making a homework schedule—say, on Sunday evening—that takes into account the different activities happening throughout the week. And then, perhaps posting it somewhere central—and hardest of all, enforcing it. For me, this brings home the idea that in order to get my kids into a homework routine, I have to develop one, too. My habit of announcing, suddenly, that “it’s time to get homework done!”—perhaps in the car, because we happen to be 10 minutes early to soccer practice, and tossing a pencil from my purse backwards in my son’s general vicinity—feels a little like a code blue for everyone. Not really the best milieu for quiet contemplation of concepts learned earlier in the day.

My takeaway from these incredibly helpful teachers is that to best facilitate homework success, we parents need to think of ourselves less as the talent, and more of the advance man. We are here to set a schedule, set the stage, and then step back into the wings. And maybe—just maybe—develop a bit more sensitivity when our children fall to weeping at the idea that there’s a back to sixth spelling worksheet of the night. “Kids tend to take out their negative feelings about homework on their parents as they really can’t do that to their teachers,” said one respondent. “They often feel homework is redundant. Teachers and schools should make a real and ongoing attempt to be sure homework is relevant practice of learned concepts, and not excessive.”

Okay, so routine, space, communication, and compassion: That’s my four-part plan for making homework less dreadful for everyone this fall. What’s yours?