Trying to help 6 grade aap DC that spends 4 hour to study and complete school assignments daily

[Anonymous]

DC is at a homework heavy ES, only for aap classes. He does his school assignment and study for test on his own, doesn’t own a cell phone nor interested in browsing internet or YouTube. When we asked DC if school work is hard he said yes, but when we asked if he knew how to do he said yes. DC had either pass advanced or perfect score on sols so we don’t really pay attention to his academics. However, DC is a very slow paced person and a perfectionist, maybe fits some special need category but we don’t really know. Last night DH took a look at the report DC’s working on and said it’s not easy. We’re wondering if we as parents should start to help to shorten the time, since 4 hours a day is just crazy and unhealthy, or leave it for DC to continue if that’s how kids learn to do project and research on their own, to prepare for middle school and high school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC is at a homework heavy ES, only for aap classes. He does his school assignment and study for test on his own, doesn’t own a cell phone nor interested in browsing internet or YouTube. When we asked DC if school work is hard he said yes, but when we asked if he knew how to do he said yes. DC had either pass advanced or perfect score on sols so we don’t really pay attention to his academics. However, DC is a very slow paced person and a perfectionist, maybe fits some special need category but we don’t really know. Last night DH took a look at the report DC’s working on and said it’s not easy. We’re wondering if we as parents should start to help to shorten the time, since 4 hours a day is just crazy and unhealthy, or leave it for DC to continue if that’s how kids learn to do project and research on their own, to prepare for middle school and high school?

What school is this? My 6th grade AAP kid has never had 4 hours of homework.

[Anonymous]

+1 OP do you mind sharing what school this is?

[Anonymous]

4 hours of homework in addition of 7 hours in school. That's 11 hours a day. It's too much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:4 hours of homework in addition of 7 hours in school. That's 11 hours a day. It's too much.

+1

It's way too much. Request a conference with the teacher and explain that your DC will be limited to 60 minutes of homework per day total (this might include 15-20 minutes of free reading). It may be time to request a 504 or IEP, unless every student is working for multiple hours every night. You need to figure out a solution before middle school.

[Anonymous]

DS has 30 minutes of homework from school a day plus his RSM homework. 4 hours is crazy and way too mcuh. I seriously doubt his classmates are spending that much time on the homework.

[Anonymous]

Is your kid just slow and struggling with the work? Ask other parents how much work their kids have in a day. I think you have two options, either decline services and drop down to gen ed or tell him that ES grades don't matter and not to spend more than 30 minutes a night on homework even if it means no assignments are finished. He should understand that he can get a 1 in every class this year and still be eligible for AA classes in middle school

[Anonymous]

Teacher here. This is way too much time. It could be that he has a processing difficulty. You should take him for testing for a possible learning disability based on slow processing. He could also be struggling with trying to do everything perfectly, such a a child with OCD might do. You should sit with him and watch exactly what he does with homework to get an idea of his approach. There are many kids who are both gifted and LD, and the older they get, the harder they have to work.

You also need to definitely have a meeting with the teacher and find out why he has so much homework. Is he not getting stuff done in school?

This is absolutely not normal and I can promise you that his teacher would be horrified to learn that he is doing so much work at home. Investigate everything to get to the root of this.

[Anonymous]

Can you give us an example of what they are doing? My son is in 7th aap and still doesn't have four hours a night.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teacher here. This is way too much time. It could be that he has a processing difficulty. You should take him for testing for a possible learning disability based on slow processing. He could also be struggling with trying to do everything perfectly, such a a child with OCD might do. You should sit with him and watch exactly what he does with homework to get an idea of his approach. There are many kids who are both gifted and LD, and the older they get, the harder they have to work.

You also need to definitely have a meeting with the teacher and find out why he has so much homework. Is he not getting stuff done in school?

This is absolutely not normal and I can promise you that his teacher would be horrified to learn that he is doing so much work at home. Investigate everything to get to the root of this.

This. I teach AAP 6th and the kids have a max of 30-45 mins a day. Some days they have none. I told parents if kids are working longer than that to stop the HW and let me know.

[Anonymous]

Hi it’s OP and thank you for all your kind help here, we will start with sitting beside DC while he does school assignment to see what the problem is before talking to teacher. Yesterday DC had 3 homework and I only knew one was a social studies reading that asked students to write/type 4 pages of report. Last year was like 2 hours a day for school assignment and study for tests and I heard other parents complained about too much homework and one or more parents asked to do less. I thought this year would be different since it’s different teacher.

[Anonymous]

Also wondering which school. Lots of hw here too.

[Anonymous]

In elementary schools HW is less than 30 minutes. Even kids at TJ dont get 4 hours of homework.

Something radically wrong here.

A close friend's child is on the spectrum and the child has problems completing on time. So his dad asked him to write out the steps that he would do to complete the homework. I was utterly shocked when my friend showed me that list of steps. It had like 40-50 items at a very minute level that filled out both sides of an entire page. That is one way to find out what is going on in your child's head.

Seek professional help with a doctor.

I hope the very best for your child and your family.

[Anonymous]

And this is for homework in one subject.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hi it’s OP and thank you for all your kind help here, we will start with sitting beside DC while he does school assignment to see what the problem is before talking to teacher. Yesterday DC had 3 homework and I only knew one was a social studies reading that asked students to write/type 4 pages of report. Last year was like 2 hours a day for school assignment and study for tests and I heard other parents complained about too much homework and one or more parents asked to do less. I thought this year would be different since it’s different teacher.

Are you sure that’s the correct homework? 1/3 of his homework is to type or write a 4 page report?? In one night?