It's back to school time! With a new school year starting, now is a great time to develop new habits that can help your kids develop life long study skills and learning techniques that will help them be successful. Success in school is a great boost for self esteem. The earlier you can start the better, but it is never too late to create new study habits and learn new skills. The first thing you can do to help your children/teens with homework is to let them know how important homework is. Help them to understand that learning is a life long process and let them see you doing activities that involve learning: reading the newspaper, looking information up online, measuring, making lists, anything that lets them see you using information you have learned or things you are doing now to continue learning.
How involved you will need to be in your child's daily assignments will depend a lot on his/her age. For younger children you will most likely have to be directly involved everyday. If possible, designate a specific time and area for your child to do homework every night. Some families may even choose to have a set amount of time every day for homework and create a parent contract to make sure it happens. This will allow your child plenty of time to finish all they need to do and not have them rushing to finish so they can play sooner, or "forgetting" their homework so they can get out of it. While you should be directly involved, you should never do your child's homework for them. Help them understand the assignment and give them some direction, but allow them to make mistakes and figure things out the best they can on their own.
A great way to start is by talking to your child's teacher directly. Find out what to expect for the year regarding homework and how much help they want you to provide. Some teacher's may wish for you to make sure they are doing every assignment correctly so you can give them additional help and instruction if they need it, while others may not want you to correct it at all but simply make sure it is completed on time. Seeing errors in a child's work can be helpful to the teacher in assessing how much the child knows and what areas they need the most help in. Learning to do homework on their own is a great way for children to learn independence and responsibility. Use positive parenting skills to encourage your child and help alleviate any stress they may face.
As your child gets older and their assignments are harder and more time consuming, you will most likely need to help your child create a schedule or time line for a specific project. For example if they have an English paper that is due in 3 weeks you can help them by making a list of what needs to be done. 1. Select a topic. 2. Research and gather information on the topic. 3. Organize the material they will be using. 4. Write a rough draft. 5. Have someone read and give input on the rough draft. 6. Make edits, and create a final draft. Once your child understands all the steps they need to take, they can set a timeline for when each step will be completed. This will not only help them use their time more effectively, but will keep them from becoming overly stressed or depressed if they put it all off until the last day or two and have to spend many hours a day working on it.
It is always good to let your child do as much as he/she is able to do. The most important thing is that he/she knows you are available and willing to help in any way you can. Once your teen has reached middle school and high school, if you are not comfortable helping them with their homework, make sure you help them find out what tutoring and after school programs are available in their school and community. Help them set up times to get help in whatever subjects they need extra help with and then follow up with them every time to see how the tutoring session went and what else you can do to help them. The more you can be involved, the less you will have to worry about your teen struggling too much, getting involved in drugs or alcohol abuse or other risky behaviors. When your child sees how much you want and are willing to help, they will be more interested in their own work and success. And remember to stay in touch with your child's teachers, no matter what age your child is. Getting to know your child's teacher and having constant contact with them will keep you and your child aware of what assignments are due, what assignments are missing, and what assignments are coming up. The more information you have, the more help you can be.
