The school year is well underway and with it comes the ritual of homework. For many Elementary School parents, homework provides an essential link between school and home. It is a way to be present in your child’s school day, to show appreciation and support for what your child is learning, and to model the value of school. When everything goes well, your child will not need help with homework. But sometimes homework can be a source of stress and conflict at home.
For this reason, a committee of teachers and administrators from the Lycée gathered a few years ago to discuss Rethinking Homework, written by Cathy Vatterott, also known as the “priestess” of homework, The Homework Lady. Our mission was to harmonize the way our teachers assigned homework in the Elementary School, and most important, to help parents identify and understand what constitutes a reasonable amount of homework at night, depending on a child’s age and developmental stage.
The result of our work was a Homework Charter for the Elementary School, an agreement that details the purpose and expectations of homework. The charter was approved by one of the Lycée’s governing groups, which includes parents, teachers and students. Today the Elementary School Homework Charter is displayed in classrooms and must be co-signed by teachers, students and parents. By providing clear benchmarks, the agreement hopes to make the experience of homework more positive, productive, and enjoyable.
However, if your child’s evening work is still a source of despair, I recommend the following tips to help transform this nightly chore into a peaceful ritual.
Instill rituals
Children respond well to the introduction of non-negotiable rituals. The framework of structured and organized time reassures them, and allows them to anticipate and plan. In addition, rituals will simplify your home life by setting a regular schedule for homework that reduces angst and frustration.
We advise that children do their homework every day at the same time, for the amount of time defined in our charter (about 40 minutes in Elementary). In Elementary School this work is done without a laptop, and an internet connection, with one-or-two days a week of break.
Create an atmosphere conducive to work
Create a designated location for homework that will allow your child to enter a new state of mind and leave any bad mood or fatigue behind. You can make this moment fun! For example, construct an improvised tent by stretching a sheet between two pieces of furniture, giving your child a space without temptations (toys, TV, computer, tablet).
You might also propose that your child dress up as a superhero, even with a simple piece of fabric. It’s a simple idea that suggests your child incorporate the qualities of a favorite character who, of course, can accomplish anything they set their minds to do!
Help your child get down to work
Sometimes parents create unintentional stress in how to present homework to children. Instead of announcing, “Go do your homework,” which can sound unappealing if made in an authoritarian or annoyed tone, think about making homework time a game. Experts recommend inventing a signal with your child (the cry of an animal, joy, anger, combat) and shout it together. The shout lets your child release emotions and breathe.
You might invent a kick-off ritual in the manner of the All Black Haka, the rallying cry for the New Zealand rugby team, which can lift your child’s energy and instill a champion’s mentality. These ideas may seem silly for some of you, but they really do work!
Be understanding
Here’s a fun tension reliever. Sit back-to-back and talk to your child about their day. Offer help, or listen to them recite poetry or prose they may be learning in class. In this position, you can also codify the pressure of the back to keep contact without the need to speak. Pressure on the left means yes, pressure on the right means no.
Resist the urge to correct
School life is crucial for helping children to build their individuality and autonomy. It can be tempting for parents, but most of all, be mindful not to encroach too much on your child’s life at school.
Encouraging your children to talk about what they are learning is a wonderful thing to do, and we highly recommend it! It’s a balancing act though. Children need space, trust and encouragement. Parents should, of course, be curious, but also mindful not to want to check and correct, or hover over children as they do homework. When children doubt themselves, they may find it harder to perform the tasks that are in front of them. If the homework is too difficult, talk to your child’s teacher. The teacher is the person who can analyze and understand the reasons for the difficulties.
Parent participation in learning should be playful and connected to everyday life. Try activities like cooking, visiting a science or art exhibit, giving little challenges in mental arithmetic, or playing with words. Teachers are and should remain children’s main resource for what they are learning in school.
Calibrate time and effort
Just as adults manage time in the workplace, it’s helpful for children to think about how much homework they have, and the amount of time it will take them to do it, depending on the level of difficulty. Do they prefer to start with the most difficult tasks, or keep them for the end?
Here’s a fun way to help children evaluate the amount, difficulty, and time required for his homework using legos. They can assign three yellow legos for a lesson they adore and five red legos for solving a math problem they perhaps like less. Each time they perform a task, they will assemble the corresponding legos. This visual representation of the task at hand allows children to value and quantify their work, and also to plan and develop strategies for completing it.
Before your children starts their homework, let them know the amount of time they will spend doing it. In Elementary School, depending on your child’s age, this will be 20, 30, 45 or 60 minutes, but not more.
Empower your child
If it gets to the point where homework is so emotional that tears are brimming, try resolving tensions with empowerment. For example, you can let your children know that schooling and academic achievements belong to them. You might even propose that you will not ask about homework anymore because it creates too much conflict between you.
Try offering choices:
- Not to do homework
- Do homework independently
- Make sure your child knows you are available as a resource to help. However, limit your help in time by proposing a schedule when you are available (for example, from 6:00pm to 6:30pm)
These boundaries might seem difficult to put into place when you are a concerned parent who is afraid of losing control, but they enable children to develop autonomy, and, little by little, to take charge of their own workload.
Give children tools to learn
To help your child learn lessons, mental/heuristic maps can be very helpful, particularly for visual learners. First, your child must write the main theme on a piece of paper and circle it. From this circle, draw arrows to note important dates or key facts that support the main subject. Keep drawing outwards until the map is complete. Your child can accompany any written words with small drawings, or even note these elements on Post-its that can be repositioned as he revises his lesson.
This technique makes it possible to approach new material without having to classify it immediately, and thus reduces stress. A mental diagram becomes a colorful and dynamic work of art, which children are often very proud of!
There are many softwares out there to learn about mind maps: Freemind, Mindview, Xmind, etc…
Seek outside resources
As a last resort, enrolling your child in supervised study or hiring a competent tutor may help to ease tension in your relationship with your child when it comes to homework and school. There are also online tutoring platforms such as Maxicours.com that support learning through successions of activities, videos, quizzes and exercises, at a very reasonable annual subscription price.
I hope that these suggestions will help you to foster autonomy in your child, and that soon the chore of homework will become a moment of family togetherness. As you can see: the playful nature of these few tips will relax your children, reassure them in their ability to succeed, and build concentration—conditions without which learning becomes impossible.
About the Author :
Vannina Boussouf grew up on the Mediterranean island of Corsica, where bilingualism is an integral part of identity. She studied English and Spanish at the University of Corsica, and philology and letters in Cordoba, Spain, before starting a career as an elementary teacher and administrator. Vannina relocated to the United States in 2004, where she taught at the International School in Louisiana. She joined the Lycée in 2007 to direct the Primary School, and during her tenure, she has focused on innovative teaching methods that support the development of the whole child in a bilingual setting.