Tag Archives: homework

As this school year it’s entering it final months, parents are thinking about how to help their kids finish up with a flourish. Here’s 12 ways to encourage school motivation.

Parents typically and unintentionally teach their children that their school performance is for the parent and the teacher—not for themselves.

Parents place so much value on grades and performance that the message to the child is, I care more about how you do than what you do. For too many children, school is a prison sentence to endure, and if they don’t do well, they are a huge disappointment to the most important people in their lives. We need to hand over education to our children and let them know they have our support in doing the best they can but not our disapproval if they don’t.

Jacquelynne Eccles, professor of psychology and research scientist at the University of Michigan, has said, “… motivation and engagement in school on average drops as they move from the elementary school into the secondary school system. You see it in attendance, in Read more…

My Homework Challenge: Being Your Child’s Best Advocate

Let me guess what your biggest worries/concerns/battles are about when it comes to your child and school. Homework, right?

What do you most want for your child? Is it to be happy, respectful, kind, responsible, confident, independent, and successful? Or would you rather your child bring home a great report card, a 3.5 GPA, and high SAT scores? Often we get mired down in the minutia of day-to-day struggles and fears and fail to see the big picture of our children’s lives.

Do you set expectations for your children’s school year that are unrealistic for your child? Do you spend time worrying about your child failing or at least not meeting up to the students who do the best? Do you harp on homework and end up in battles?

Certainly a good education is important to gaining happiness and confidence. The question is, does a good education require hours of homework each night. Or is a better education achieved when a child loves to learn?

A child who loves to learn has spent the better part of his early childhood Read more…

5 Things Never to Ask Your Child Right After School

You want to interact and make connection when your kids get home from school. Your kids do too but not in the way you might think.

You’ve missed them, you want to know what they did all day, how they got along, if they had any problems. But questions can feel like an interrogation.

How was school today?
What do you have for homework?
When are you going to do your homework?
What did you get on the test?
What did you learn today?

They have just spent a long hard day meeting (or not) expectations, doing things they might not want to do, following orders, coping for hours, and hopefully working hard and learning. Probably the last they want to do is go over their day with you. They need a break. They need to know here is the place where I can be myself. They need to chill.

Each of these 5 questions is filled with an expectation.

1. How was school?

What if school was terrible? Your child may or may not want to tell Read more…

The Perils of Replacing Play with Homework

When are we going to get it that young children need free and unstructured play in order to learn at their best? More and more kindergartners and even preschoolers are getting academic work and even some to take home.

I just returned from London where I ran a number of parent workshops. In one, I was asked by a frustrated mother if I could help her convince her five year old to do his homework. I told her that I couldn’t do that because I am so opposed to young children having any academic work and that homework was the last thing her son should be doing. The whole group supported this mother in resisting the school’s assignments, but she became very worried about what it would mean for her child’s chances to move ahead into the proper schools.

Strangely, I hear that most schools are pressured by the parents to give homework at younger and younger ages. I entreat parents to come together to defeat this trend and to stand firm on allowing young children to be just Read more…