Guidance Counsellor
St Mary's Catholic College
Jana Aksamitova
Guidance Counsellor
HELPING YOUR CHILD WITH HOMEWORK
Homework is an important part of engaging students outside of the classroom. It carries educational benefits for all age groups, including time management and organisation. Homework also provides students with the ability to think beyond what is taught in class.
The downside of this is that these benefits only occur when students are engaged and ready to learn. Homework sometimes can affect students’ health, social life, and grades. Students can feel overwhelmed and unmotivated if they lack a homework structure. Navigating the line between developing learning skills and feeling frustrated can be tricky.
How can parents help?
Being an active part of children’s homework routine is a major part of understanding feelings and being ale to provide the needed support. As parents, you can help your child have a stress-free homework habits as they get older. This routine also comes in handy when homework becomes difficult and time-consuming.
1. Try to Set Up a Homework Schedule
For some students, the responsibility of deciding when to sit down and do homework may be too difficult. Young people may decide to do their homework after school or after dinner. This is a personal choice and has to do with learning styles. However, once the time is determined, the schedule should be adhered to as closely as possible.
2. Rank Order Assignments
Some young people may find it difficult to decide what to do first. They may dwell over this choice for a long period of time because everything takes on the same level of importance. Rank ordering assignments means that the parent determined the order in which the assignments are completed.
3. Try Not to Sit Next to Your Child while They Do Homework
Employing this technique may create learned helplessness because the same “assistance” is not initiated in classroom. Parents serve their children better by acting as a resource person to whom the child ma come with a problem. After the problem is solved or question answered, the child should return to his/her work area without the parent.
4. Never Let Homework Drag on All Night
The only thing accomplished by allowing a student to linger on their homework for hours with very little performance is increased feelings of inadequacy. If this occurs, end the work period after a reasonable time and encourage your child to attend to this next day.
5. Instill organisation skill
No one is born with great organisational skills — they're learned and practiced over time. Most kids first encounter multiple teachers and classrooms in middle school, when organisation becomes a key to succeeding. Encourage your teen to use a student diary to help get organised.
6. Apply school to the "real world"
Talk about how what teens learn now applies outside the classroom, such as the importance of meeting deadlines — as they'll also have to do in the workplace — or how topics in history class relate to what's happening in today's news.
7. Be in touch with school
Maintain contact with your child’s Pastoral Leader, Guidance Counsellors and Teachers throughout the school year to stay informed, especially if your teen is struggling. They'll keep you apprised of what's going on at school and how to help your teen. They can guide you to tutoring options, offer perspective on course load, and provide guidance on other issues, including learning difficulties and disabilities.
8. Encourage students to reach out
Most teachers are available for extra help before or after school and might be able to recommend other resources. Encourage your teen to ask for help, if needed. Praise your teen's hard work and effort, and ask the Pastoral Leader, Guidance Counsellor or Teachers for resources for support if you need them.
