To homework or not to homework?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mom of two older kids with ADHD (and a few other things going on). I took a different approach. I gave my kids the responsibility for their work. Rule was that it had to be done. But time, place, and supplies were at their discretion. For big projects, we developed a schedule of what had to be done every day.

Each day I ask my kids to list their responsibilities and then ask them for their plan as to how they will get everything done. So long as the plan doesn't include starting something at bedtime I agree to it. I let them fail so they could learn how to make better plans. But I didn't cut homework.

Now that we are in MS and HS, I am very glad I taught them to manage it instead of eliminating it (which I could have done because we did have a homework reduction in their IEPs). Things only get worse and harder when you have a special needs child so you have to start young with helping them develop the skills to manage life and at your daughter' sage, managing lifenonlyni gloves self care, chores and homework. It gets so much more complicated. I can't tell you how many moms of special needs kids tell me they wish they had worked on independence when their kids were in ES.

Thank you PP. I am a NP and mom of a rising first grader. So far we have had little homework but I am reading this as I know it is coming as my kid gets older. I like your approach but have a question. You said that your rule is that homework must be done, but you also said you let your kids fail to learn to develop better plans. What does that mean? Let's say that your kid follows his or her plan but does not get homework done before bedtime. What do you do then? Get the kid to bed on time, or have him/her stay up late finishing it? How would you handle this if you had extremely limited time at home after pickup and before bedtime? TIA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mom of two older kids with ADHD (and a few other things going on). I took a different approach. I gave my kids the responsibility for their work. Rule was that it had to be done. But time, place, and supplies were at their discretion. For big projects, we developed a schedule of what had to be done every day.

Each day I ask my kids to list their responsibilities and then ask them for their plan as to how they will get everything done. So long as the plan doesn't include starting something at bedtime I agree to it. I let them fail so they could learn how to make better plans. But I didn't cut homework.

Now that we are in MS and HS, I am very glad I taught them to manage it instead of eliminating it (which I could have done because we did have a homework reduction in their IEPs). Things only get worse and harder when you have a special needs child so you have to start young with helping them develop the skills to manage life and at your daughter' sage, managing lifenonlyni gloves self care, chores and homework. It gets so much more complicated. I can't tell you how many moms of special needs kids tell me they wish they had worked on independence when their kids were in ES.

Thank you PP. I am a NP and mom of a rising first grader. So far we have had little homework but I am reading this as I know it is coming as my kid gets older. I like your approach but have a question. You said that your rule is that homework must be done, but you also said you let your kids fail to learn to develop better plans. What does that mean? Let's say that your kid follows his or her plan but does not get homework done before bedtime. What do you do then? Get the kid to bed on time, or have him/her stay up late finishing it? How would you handle this if you had extremely limited time at home after pickup and before bedtime? TIA.

PP here. If they don't get done by bedtime, they stay up until it's done. I consider that a fail and then I work with them the next night to make a better plan. If they decided to do homework in the morning and didn't get it finished, they would have to finish the next night along with their homework for that day. In all my years as a mom, there have been few fails and they learned to plan better by those fails. I will say though that just this year in 7 th grade we had an epic one where my son was up until after 2 am. Still, while its painful to lose sleep it got him back on track in terms of his time management and planning. If

It's hard when they are really busy. My kids are competitive gymnasts so they have about 15 hours a week of practice so they really have to have good time management skills. But that level of activity started after I had put them in charge of their schedules. So they already had good skills to manage it. And staying up late isn't a good option because being overtired combined with the impulsiveness of ADHD is a dangerous combination for a gymnast. Their options are to get it done or to reduce their activity schedule. They have always gotten it done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Another teacher here:
It should be 10 min per grade so 3rd grade should have 30 min per hw max.
My DD often had more than that, but she only resisted or was openly upset when doing hw with my XH. We're working on resolving that this year.
See if you can have your DD's IEP updated to include a no HW accommodation or at least reduced workload for HW. The only time as a teacher I've been less supportive of parents who are struggling with homework is when I assigned something as preparation for the next day's class and the parent wanted the child to turn it in two days later for full credit which completely ignored the purpose of the assignment (to ready the child for the next lesson).

Ugh - this makes me ill to think we expect our fifth graders to be doing close to an hour of homework a night. Is two hours expected in high school? At what point do we say the system is broken if we can't teach our children during the 8 hours they are in the classroom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mom of two older kids with ADHD (and a few other things going on). I took a different approach. I gave my kids the responsibility for their work. Rule was that it had to be done. But time, place, and supplies were at their discretion. For big projects, we developed a schedule of what had to be done every day.

Each day I ask my kids to list their responsibilities and then ask them for their plan as to how they will get everything done. So long as the plan doesn't include starting something at bedtime I agree to it. I let them fail so they could learn how to make better plans. But I didn't cut homework.

Now that we are in MS and HS, I am very glad I taught them to manage it instead of eliminating it (which I could have done because we did have a homework reduction in their IEPs). Things only get worse and harder when you have a special needs child so you have to start young with helping them develop the skills to manage life and at your daughter' sage, managing lifenonlyni gloves self care, chores and homework. It gets so much more complicated. I can't tell you how many moms of special needs kids tell me they wish they had worked on independence when their kids were in ES.

Thank you PP. I am a NP and mom of a rising first grader. So far we have had little homework but I am reading this as I know it is coming as my kid gets older. I like your approach but have a question. You said that your rule is that homework must be done, but you also said you let your kids fail to learn to develop better plans. What does that mean? Let's say that your kid follows his or her plan but does not get homework done before bedtime. What do you do then? Get the kid to bed on time, or have him/her stay up late finishing it? How would you handle this if you had extremely limited time at home after pickup and before bedtime? TIA.

PP here. If they don't get done by bedtime, they stay up until it's done. I consider that a fail and then I work with them the next night to make a better plan. If they decided to do homework in the morning and didn't get it finished, they would have to finish the next night along with their homework for that day. In all my years as a mom, there have been few fails and they learned to plan better by those fails. I will say though that just this year in 7 th grade we had an epic one where my son was up until after 2 am. Still, while its painful to lose sleep it got him back on track in terms of his time management and planning. If

It's hard when they are really busy. My kids are competitive gymnasts so they have about 15 hours a week of practice so they really have to have good time management skills. But that level of activity started after I had put them in charge of their schedules. So they already had good skills to manage it. And staying up late isn't a good option because being overtired combined with the impulsiveness of ADHD is a dangerous combination for a gymnast. Their options are to get it done or to reduce their activity schedule. They have always gotten it done.

You felt the problem was your son and not the teacher that assigned enough homework to keep your son up until 2 AM. Unless you started at midnight, this is an education failure. I would have had my son in bed and a note to the teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another teacher here:
It should be 10 min per grade so 3rd grade should have 30 min per hw max.
My DD often had more than that, but she only resisted or was openly upset when doing hw with my XH. We're working on resolving that this year.
See if you can have your DD's IEP updated to include a no HW accommodation or at least reduced workload for HW. The only time as a teacher I've been less supportive of parents who are struggling with homework is when I assigned something as preparation for the next day's class and the parent wanted the child to turn it in two days later for full credit which completely ignored the purpose of the assignment (to ready the child for the next lesson).

Ugh - this makes me ill to think we expect our fifth graders to be doing close to an hour of homework a night. Is two hours expected in high school? At what point do we say the system is broken if we can't teach our children during the 8 hours they are in the classroom.

Because they aren't getting instruction for 8 hours and even when they are getting instruction its not that much. Homework supplements what is going on and reinforces the material. I think 15-20 minutes is fine for younger grades and 30 for 5-6th. Teaching is about tests now. So, its important to work with our kids on the foundations that we got but our kids no longer get.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another teacher here:
It should be 10 min per grade so 3rd grade should have 30 min per hw max.
My DD often had more than that, but she only resisted or was openly upset when doing hw with my XH. We're working on resolving that this year.
See if you can have your DD's IEP updated to include a no HW accommodation or at least reduced workload for HW. The only time as a teacher I've been less supportive of parents who are struggling with homework is when I assigned something as preparation for the next day's class and the parent wanted the child to turn it in two days later for full credit which completely ignored the purpose of the assignment (to ready the child for the next lesson).

Ugh - this makes me ill to think we expect our fifth graders to be doing close to an hour of homework a night. Is two hours expected in high school? At what point do we say the system is broken if we can't teach our children during the 8 hours they are in the classroom.

Two hours in high school might be a light homework night. I never had less than 3 hrs per night in HS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mom of two older kids with ADHD (and a few other things going on). I took a different approach. I gave my kids the responsibility for their work. Rule was that it had to be done. But time, place, and supplies were at their discretion. For big projects, we developed a schedule of what had to be done every day.

Each day I ask my kids to list their responsibilities and then ask them for their plan as to how they will get everything done. So long as the plan doesn't include starting something at bedtime I agree to it. I let them fail so they could learn how to make better plans. But I didn't cut homework.

Now that we are in MS and HS, I am very glad I taught them to manage it instead of eliminating it (which I could have done because we did have a homework reduction in their IEPs). Things only get worse and harder when you have a special needs child so you have to start young with helping them develop the skills to manage life and at your daughter' sage, managing lifenonlyni gloves self care, chores and homework. It gets so much more complicated. I can't tell you how many moms of special needs kids tell me they wish they had worked on independence when their kids were in ES.

Thank you PP. I am a NP and mom of a rising first grader. So far we have had little homework but I am reading this as I know it is coming as my kid gets older. I like your approach but have a question. You said that your rule is that homework must be done, but you also said you let your kids fail to learn to develop better plans. What does that mean? Let's say that your kid follows his or her plan but does not get homework done before bedtime. What do you do then? Get the kid to bed on time, or have him/her stay up late finishing it? How would you handle this if you had extremely limited time at home after pickup and before bedtime? TIA.

PP here. If they don't get done by bedtime, they stay up until it's done. I consider that a fail and then I work with them the next night to make a better plan. If they decided to do homework in the morning and didn't get it finished, they would have to finish the next night along with their homework for that day. In all my years as a mom, there have been few fails and they learned to plan better by those fails. I will say though that just this year in 7 th grade we had an epic one where my son was up until after 2 am. Still, while its painful to lose sleep it got him back on track in terms of his time management and planning. If

It's hard when they are really busy. My kids are competitive gymnasts so they have about 15 hours a week of practice so they really have to have good time management skills. But that level of activity started after I had put them in charge of their schedules. So they already had good skills to manage it. And staying up late isn't a good option because being overtired combined with the impulsiveness of ADHD is a dangerous combination for a gymnast. Their options are to get it done or to reduce their activity schedule. They have always gotten it done.

If they can handle 15 hours of gymnastics, they can handle homework. Yes, they are exhausted but that is a choice they and you make for them. Many at our gymnastics center do the homework while waiting for class to start. We often brought ours and a clip board (since some parents are really inconsiderate and sit at the table vs. letting the kids sit there with their homework).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mom of two older kids with ADHD (and a few other things going on). I took a different approach. I gave my kids the responsibility for their work. Rule was that it had to be done. But time, place, and supplies were at their discretion. For big projects, we developed a schedule of what had to be done every day.

Each day I ask my kids to list their responsibilities and then ask them for their plan as to how they will get everything done. So long as the plan doesn't include starting something at bedtime I agree to it. I let them fail so they could learn how to make better plans. But I didn't cut homework.

Now that we are in MS and HS, I am very glad I taught them to manage it instead of eliminating it (which I could have done because we did have a homework reduction in their IEPs). Things only get worse and harder when you have a special needs child so you have to start young with helping them develop the skills to manage life and at your daughter' sage, managing lifenonlyni gloves self care, chores and homework. It gets so much more complicated. I can't tell you how many moms of special needs kids tell me they wish they had worked on independence when their kids were in ES.

Thank you PP. I am a NP and mom of a rising first grader. So far we have had little homework but I am reading this as I know it is coming as my kid gets older. I like your approach but have a question. You said that your rule is that homework must be done, but you also said you let your kids fail to learn to develop better plans. What does that mean? Let's say that your kid follows his or her plan but does not get homework done before bedtime. What do you do then? Get the kid to bed on time, or have him/her stay up late finishing it? How would you handle this if you had extremely limited time at home after pickup and before bedtime? TIA.

PP here. If they don't get done by bedtime, they stay up until it's done. I consider that a fail and then I work with them the next night to make a better plan. If they decided to do homework in the morning and didn't get it finished, they would have to finish the next night along with their homework for that day. In all my years as a mom, there have been few fails and they learned to plan better by those fails. I will say though that just this year in 7 th grade we had an epic one where my son was up until after 2 am. Still, while its painful to lose sleep it got him back on track in terms of his time management and planning. If

It's hard when they are really busy. My kids are competitive gymnasts so they have about 15 hours a week of practice so they really have to have good time management skills. But that level of activity started after I had put them in charge of their schedules. So they already had good skills to manage it. And staying up late isn't a good option because being overtired combined with the impulsiveness of ADHD is a dangerous combination for a gymnast. Their options are to get it done or to reduce their activity schedule. They have always gotten it done.

You felt the problem was your son and not the teacher that assigned enough homework to keep your son up until 2 AM. Unless you started at midnight, this is an education failure. I would have had my son in bed and a note to the teacher.

It was my sons fault. I have no problem with the teacher. It was a sort of independent study class and he really blew it be his lack of planning and some uncharacteristic procrastination. And he could not move on to the next level or be approved for future independent study classes if he was late. There are serious consequences for not getting your work done as you get older. And as I said, my kids are MS and HS.

[Anonymous]

My approach is this, we set a time limit for each assignment. I find shorter time limits work best. For example 10 mins for the reading sheet and let my child do as much as they can within that 10 mins. This time does not include getting mentally prepared for completing the task. I also ask my child if they want to do it out loud (reading and questions or saying the math problems) while I sit with them or if they prefer going it alone - depending on the assignments I will sometimes make them do it alone. After the 10 mins there is a short break and we move on to the next assignment. After we've spent 10 mins on all assignments we go back to the ones that need more attention. - unless it was a particularly bad experience. For us it's not about the material but rather the coping techniques for accomplishing a task. I hate homework outside of reading but the reality is they need to know how to deal with it and time management is very important.

[Anonymous]

An hour a day for homework is more than enough for a 3rd grader.

For spelling, I'd skip the worksheet and just practice the words with her that she needs to learn. Go through the words with her each week, and just focus on what she needs to learn.

For math, is she putting it off because it is her hardest subject? If so, you may need to help her learn (as oppose to getting the worksheets done - not always the same thing.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:An hour a day for homework is more than enough for a 3rd grader.

For spelling, I'd skip the worksheet and just practice the words with her that she needs to learn. Go through the words with her each week, and just focus on what she needs to learn.

For math, is she putting it off because it is her hardest subject? If so, you may need to help her learn (as oppose to getting the worksheets done - not always the same thing.)

No, the kid actually loves math and does that one first. However, she does take longer doing it, because it requires refocusing after each problem is solved, which is hard for her. Reading is her next favorite and that usually takes the shortest. Usually we struggle more with science/social studies and spelling because she thinks they are both boring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another teacher here:
It should be 10 min per grade so 3rd grade should have 30 min per hw max.
My DD often had more than that, but she only resisted or was openly upset when doing hw with my XH. We're working on resolving that this year.
See if you can have your DD's IEP updated to include a no HW accommodation or at least reduced workload for HW. The only time as a teacher I've been less supportive of parents who are struggling with homework is when I assigned something as preparation for the next day's class and the parent wanted the child to turn it in two days later for full credit which completely ignored the purpose of the assignment (to ready the child for the next lesson).

Ugh - this makes me ill to think we expect our fifth graders to be doing close to an hour of homework a night. Is two hours expected in high school? At what point do we say the system is broken if we can't teach our children during the 8 hours they are in the classroom.

Yes, many of my students who are full IB (or who take a lot of APs) spend two hours on homework many nights, and sometimes more. It is about priorities, I suppose. Did you really never have two hours of homework a night in high school? How very odd. You didn't take many advanced classes, then?

I don't think that "close to an hour" of homework is out of order for a fifth grader, and I spent that much time on homework in fifth grade myself! I had Math and Reading every night, and I remember a lot of note taking and memorization for Social Studies as well. My DS spent at least this much time on his homework in 5th grade, and he also had a lot of group projects to do outside of school that we never had when I was a kid. I'm very glad that we raised him to be responsible because now he's at college on a full scholarship. What were you doing in fifth grade?

[Anonymous]

OP,

Seek a homework reduction or time limit cap.

Also, keyboarding class and preparing homework on the computer was a big plus for us.