Do you dread helping with homework? You are not alone!

Personal opinion – when I was a teacher, I hated giving homework. It’s stressful for everyone involved: teachers, kids and parents. Kids in my class had done their best all day whilst in school. They did enough formal learning each day without piling on extra for them to do at home. Regular reading was my one exception, which I encouraged them to do daily, but what they read, who they read with or if they were read to by someone else was their choice.

Luckily, I worked in schools where I had a decent amount of autonomy, so I set weekly tasks that were open-ended, fun, optional and could be completed in any way that they saw fit.

Persuading kids to sit down and do their homework can be a daily battle. You’ve likely experienced some level of resistance or defiance when trying to encourage them to get tasks done, perhaps they flat-out refuse. That battle is stressful enough, without additional struggles piled on top! 

Here are the five homework issues parents of primary school parents share with me most often…

With work, family, errands and domestic responsibilities, it’s not just kids who are too tired for homework. Between making sure that bills are paid, the house isn’t falling apart and keeping everyone clean, healthy and fed is there any time left for you to dedicate to supporting learning? That’s before taking into consideration the additional time and energy needed to ferry kids to clubs, parties and play-dates!

Children tend to think that as adults we have all the answers. Wouldn’t it be great if we did? But for most of us, it’s been a long time since we left school and even if we do remember what was taught, that knowledge is likely to be rusty. The curriculum has changed so much that it’s barely recognisable to most of us. 

Many parents of children that I tutor tell me that they feel embarrassed or even ashamed if their child asks for help with homework but they don’t know how to.

If what they are being asked to do leaves you scratching your head it’s frustrating and stressful. Googling for help might be a saviour, but the sheer amount of information can also be overwhelming.

Maths is by far the subject that causes the most dread among parents. Even if you are fortunate enough to remember what you were taught at school, methods for working out answers have changed and many parents find these changes baffling! This means that helping with maths homework might mean having to learn current methods yourself first because ‘your methods’ are likely to confuse your child. 

A shocking amount of adults, myself included, didn’t have a positive experience of maths during our school years. Maths anxiety is very common in adults. Parents with it often worry about their fears transferring to their kids so they prefer to avoid getting involved with maths homework altogether.

Finally, let’s face it – communication from schools isn’t always great. 

Homework can get stuffed into bookbags without much in the way of instructions. Not knowing exactly what your child is expected to do or how they should be doing it is incredibly frustrating! 

Let’s take spellings for example – perhaps it’s routine for your child to get a seemingly random list of spellings each week, but what is the best way to support them in learning them? Unless you know a range of strategies for learning spelling rules or are supplied with interesting and varied activities, what exactly do you do with that list?

Not knowing what expectations are can leave you second-guessing yourself – are you doing it right or causing confusion?