Cancelling Activities to do Homework?
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Anonymous
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I'm the one with the three sports. I think you have to include some homework on the weekend - not friday night, but certainly there's an hour on Sunday to do some. It never crossed my mind from your initial post that you only allowed 4 days to even do it.
I don't think you have too many activities overall - although two in one day never worked for us. However, if you are going to keep the two nights of activities, you really do need to bring Sunday in as a HW evening (or sunday afternoon). You have to decide what to do if you aren't going to do what the school asks. There may be good reasons, but there are definite implications from modeling to your daughter that she is different and special. Also, your kid has an LD - yeah, the homework is harder for her, but she also has greater need. I like the approach of finding out how long it should take, setting a timer and stopping at that point. |
Anonymous
| Agree with PP about weekends. In fact, I've been teaching DS to do as much of his homework as he can on the weekends, which are more free, so that he can do non-school-related activities during the week. |
Anonymous
| I am a mean mom and make my kid do 30 minutes of homework or math/reading enrichment if there is no homework or of it takes less than 30 min. to do homework, 7 days a week. If you set the expectation of 30 min. of homework Fri., Sat., and Sunday she would probably finish all of the homework packet. Set a timer and tell her homework first with no whining then you get a show, a fun activity, computer time, a Popsicle, etc. |
Anonymous
| To me it seems like both too much homework and too many activities. I know that's not what you're asking, really, but look at what you've described. This is a second grader with a lot of activities, a tutor, and a homework load that is going to grow significantly in coming years. Is this a sustainable way to proceed? |
Anonymous
| 2nd grade is old enough to start prioritizing daily homework. If you also want free play time then you need to drop some activities. You are definitely over scheduled. |
Anonymous
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i wish we could do HW over the weekends since i too find it hard to squeeze in sometimes during the week since the packet comes home Tues night and that is the 1 night each week she has an activity so we only have Weds & Thurs to do it and then it's back to school Friday. I think it's especially hard if you aren't home right after school since it is hard to cram it in if you dont get home until 5 or later.
OP - you need to shift some of the tutoring or activities to the weekend though. I totally disagree with just letting her skip homework. If you think it is too much, you can talk to the teacher/school about it or let her do a half-hearted effort rather than a pain staking effort. But saying "I know your teacher told you to do this, but we aren't going to do it"...sorry but i think that sends a really really terrible message aobut the teacher's authority and what your child should expect moving forward in school. |
Anonymous
| ^^ I have asked the teacher to give us the pack earlier in the week. She changed the timing because a lot of us had the same problem. Talk with the teacher -- there may be no particular reason she chose that day. |
Anonymous
| I am going to have to agree with an earlier poster that this is an ADHD issue and not one that can be "solved" easily. I like the idea of asking for the homewrok earlier to try to knock some out on weekends. Also, talk to your doctor. We started having issues with my child in kindergarten when the homework that was taking other kids 5 minutes would take mine literally an hour and a half. There were daily meltdowns- the only thing she was getting out of the homework was that she hated school. First and second grades were horrible, so by the last quarter of second grade she was doing the homework (which was reduced) in the counselor's office. We decided to start medicating her this year (3rd grade)_ and it has made a world of difference. She can now do her homework independently within a normal time period. Though on days we do not medicate her...whoa... |
Anonymous
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I think it also depends on the homework.
My second grader can spend 30 minutes on a word find and still not find all the words. I also don't think a word find is quality homework that teaches or reinforces anything. I'll work with him on the word find (scrolling the paper down & across). After we do it once each direction, we stop. Math sheets need to be done. (although I have seen a few worksheets that were valueless) Reading logs are writing practice and must be filled out (sometime we fudge on what is written - but we do have the reading done every day, it just might not be what is written on the log) After that - I don't care. As an adult we know what busy work it. I don't fight the homework battles on busy work. |
Anonymous
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Thanks for the responses. Just to clarify. I don't ever try to skip homework, and certainly don't say that it's ok to skip it. We just have trouble getting it done.
Yes, the child's ADHD/attitude is a big part of the problem. If I try to have her do homework when she's tired or right after school, etc. I can expect an amazing amount of resistance to the point of almost being impossible. You may be right about the weekends. It's just very difficult, and definitely will be a fight. Will try to work on some of the suggestions, though. |
Anonymous
| Why are you pushing a second grader with LD to do homework?? Set aside 10 one night a week to work on homework under your supervision, with the goal to help her develop her executive functioning skills rather than completing all the homework. Make sure there is something good as a reward for afterwards. |
Anonymous
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10 minutes? Ten minutes isn't enough time to do the daily work on the planning, organization and completion skills that a kid with certain LDs needs to practice every night so she'll be ready for at high school.
OP needs to send the message that academics are a priority over everything else, including ECs. One half hour a night is perfectly reasonable for a 2nd grader, and sends the message that academics are somewhere up there with the 2 hours she's spending at soccer practice and the commute to practice. |
Anonymous
OP, when I read the words "mega-packs" to describe second grade HW I have to ask -- do you think this HW is valuable? Or is it busywork? For kids that young, with ADHD, with busywork, I think it is OK to have them do SOME on her own, and then do your best to get through the rest or to tell the teacher that's all she is going to be able to do. My kid at that age had a terrible time writing. and was required to write a TON. I had him dictate the answers to me, then we took a break, then I dictated back to him. It really helped him. He still practiced all the skills involved, but one piece at a time. (I also sometimes told him how to spell words, and as he got more and more tired, I let him copy what I had written. After school activities that she loves are very important, too. Don't skip those for busywork. |
Anonymous
| Both of my DCs have ADHD and are now in middle school. We cut way back on the out of school activities because they can play sports through school by middle school and although they both play basketball, we don't do the travel teams because they need down time on the weekends. They swam competitively for 4 years but grew tired of the practice schedule and frankly I got tired of waking up at 6 a.m. on the weekends to go to swim meets. They get their homework done after school in study hall or during one of the resource periods. When they get home, which can be 6:00 p.m. or 6:30 p.m., they can relax. |
Anonymous
"Too much homework" is relative to each kid. I have one kid who takes forever and one kid who breezes through. I think the activities really put a pinch on the homework time regardless of how long your kid takes to do them. Is there some kid/family downtime built into the daily schedule between homework and multi-sport activities? |