Homework Games
Rules for parents
by Penny Loome

As parents, we play a number of homework games with our children.

First, there is homework hide and seek, where we find ourselves looking for our child, chasing him down to come in and get started on homework. He hides, we seek.

Second, there is the homework marathon. Despite starting at a reasonable time, homework seems to go on forever as your child procrastinates, fiddles with her pencil, answers the phone and takes hours to complete even simple assignments.

Finally, there is the homework helicopter game, where you as a parent watch as your child completes homework, occasionally throwing in a helpful comment. “Should that be spelled PH?”… “That number should be seven.” You hover, you feel good and you are helping with homework—or so you think.

Instead of helping, these homework games encourage children to avoid homework and to become dependent on others to complete assignments. They encourage your children to learn helplessness. Homework, when managed correctly, should encourage resourcefulness, responsibility, autonomy, time management, initiative, self-reliance and perseverance.

The question is: how do we help children take responsibility for their homework?

Consider the ABCs of Homework Management.

Think of yourself as a manager and your children as newly hired employees. As the manager, you don’t just show new employees to a desk and abandon them. Nor do you follow them around all day doing their job for them. Instead, you provide guidance, you set parameters within which to work and you manage them. When it comes to homework, you can do the same for your children.

A – All By Myself. Each child should have consistent, personal space in which to do homework. The goal is to define the homework as the child’s responsibility and though you may want to, you must stifle the urge to hover. Remember the homework is assigned as independent practice for a skill taught at school, or as completion of class work. Your child is responsible to his teacher and if he can’t complete the work unassisted, isn’t it better for the teacher to find out early on? If your child falls apart at test time because you are not there to write the test for him, you will only be setting him up for failure. You want your child to take initiative, to persevere and be self-reliant. To do so, children must learn to complete homework independently.

B – Back Off. Only get involved in homework if your child asks you to. Limit your involvement to: clarifying or reinterpreting directions, demonstrating or giving examples of a particular procedure, and reviewing or checking work for accuracy. You are trying to help your child learn resourcefulness and autonomy. Help should be brief and encouraging. Parent involvement should rarely last longer than 15 minutes, the norm being closer to five. If it looks like 15 minutes isn’t going to do it, then as a parent, you should consider referring the problem back to your child’s teacher, even if it means that your child will not be able to hand his work in completed on time.

C – Call It Quits at a Reasonable Hour. Set an upper limit on homework time. In most instances your child should be responsible for deciding when to begin, fostering development of initiative. Parents should decide when to call “time.” By setting an upper limit, you are helping your child develop good time management skills. Your child will have to learn to plan ahead, set priorities and estimate how long it will take to complete homework. Most adults work to a deadline and this procedure will help create a sense of homework urgency.

Provincial guidelines for homework are provided, but it is recommended that you talk to your child’s classroom teacher at the beginning of each year to find out what the requirements and standards of the class are. Remember that when it comes to homework, you are the manager and you set the rules. It is far easier to teach a child in Grade 1 the ABCs than a child in Grade 9. Help your child stop playing homework games and start doing homework.

Penny Loome is a teacher with 16 years of experience working with children and parents. She currently runs the Sylvan Learning Centre in Victoria and can be contacted at sylvanvictoria@shaw.ca.