Should You Help Your Kids With Their Homework?
Here’s something we can both agree on:
Most kids don’t like doing homework. As a parent, you understand how important it is for education, so you try to change your son’s or daughter’s attitude towards homework. More than that, you help your kids with school assignments, saving them some time and ensuring they do it right.
It stands to reason: you want to help your schooler create positive habits, develop concentration and discipline, and reinforce their academic progress sooner or later.
But there’s always a reverse of the coin.
You may wonder if you do help or just hinder your kid’s progress by constant interference with the process. You don’t want to fallout from a loving mom or dad to a taskmaster, forcing your kid to do homework at all times. And you doubt if you do it right.
So where’s that borderland between a sound help to your schooler and overplaying with it?
What Happens If You Always Do Homework With (or For!) a Kid
You might have been noticed the following:
Recently, the parent involvement with their kids’ homework has increased distinctly. We spend at least an hour every day to get them through all the assignments. Why does it happen? Did our own parents do the same when we were kids?
Hardly.
This is the result of the process set back in the 1990s and aimed at encouraging us to spend more time with kids. Known as the parent-teacher partnership, it leads to the fact that teachers want us to participate in the educational process actively, so they assign more difficult tasks to mentees in hopes that we parents will help kids complete them.
The result?
We don’t know how much help is enough; we believe that academic success is a must for our kids, so we force them to do homework, turning a home into a second classroom; and we ruin warm and close relationships with a son or a daughter in chase of their dreamy better tomorrow.  Some parents go even further, doing homework for their kids. Seeking high grades and teacher’s favor, moms and dads manage every aspect of assignments: design projects, solve equations, edit or even write essays for their kids… In other words, they demonstrate kids how much they value their academic success and how much education will influence their future life.
The result?
A schooler sees parents’ panic about his success, so he wants to satisfy their high expectations. This is life under constant pressure, influencing a kid’s physical/mental health and leading to stresses, anxiety, sleep disorder, headaches, problems with self-esteem, or even depression.  Ready for everything to meet your expectations, schoolers start cheating the educational system. When they find it difficult to do homework or write an essay, your kids often go to custom writing services and ask them to complete their assignments, paying for it. Have doubts? Check your kid’s Google search history to write a paper for me or related queries, and you might be surprised.
 So, How to Help With Homework Right
It’s okay to help your kids with homework. It’s okay you want to know what they learn and if they deal with tasks. As a parent, you may monitor how they complete tasks, answer their questions and support your kids.
What you should never do: their homework for them.
Instead, try this:
- Encourage your kid instead of forcing. Organize a cozy workplace for them to do homework, and don’t interrupt them every five minutes by asking if they’re already done. Allow your son or daughter create a schedule and decide together on their free time to spend without tasks.
- Communicate with teachers, ask for advice if your kid has problems with homework, but never menace calling a teacher every time your schooler can’t finish an essay or solve an equation. May him know you’re on his side and you believe he can deal with it.
- Feel free to re-explain concepts if you see that a kid doesn’t understand something, but also encourage him to search for information in textbooks. Let him develop critical thinking, don’t bring the situation to the point when your kid does nothing but waits for you to come and solve all problems.
- Let your kid know that homework is his responsibility, not yours. Explain why it’s important to study at school and complete teacher’s assignments, but don’t blow up every time he gets a low grade. Just ask why it happened and encourage by saying he’ll do better next time.
Help your kids by open communication with them. Be their motivator, praise their efforts, guide them rather than control, and allow them to make own choices and deal with consequences. Let them know you are here to support and help, not do everything for them.
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