Kyle has a crap ton of homework, and not because his second grade teacher piled it on him in much the same way that other teachers seem to do in other classes or in other schools. It’s not because it’s too much for him, either. Some kids need a good long time to do their homework. Kyle usually breezes through his homework in minutes, taking longer if there is a word game or an interactive exercise on the web assigned.
No, Kyle has this crap ton of homework because he let a few long-term assignments pile up.
He has a book report due January 29. He got the book before winter break, and still isn’t finished reading it. Once he gets through it, he must write a report and draw or reproduce two pictures to illustrate the life of Henry Ford. For this 7-year-old car fanatic, a report about one of the most famous names in automotive history seems like it would be fun, right?
He also has a book group assignment. The book is called Sable, and it is about a dog. It’s not very long. He came home with the book on Friday, the day before a 3-day weekend. He didn’t even crack it open. I realized he had let this one slide only this morning when I opened his folder to put in a field trip permission slip. The assignment is due this Thursday.
Today he was assigned math homework and three exercises in spelling. These are due tomorrow.
I know this is a teaching moment for me as much as it is for Kyle. I know that I should have been more diligent about helping him set goals and reaching them. I did what I thought was necessary, and Kyle has fallen behind.
Tonight I am facilitating his work, keeping him from the TV and handheld gaming device. Earlier, he started to cry and said he was so stressed out from all this homework.
He is seven. I hope that this week serves to cure him of his procrastination tendency forever. The pileup comes mostly from his own slacking off, and some from my failure to provide boundaries. Looks like I need to step that part up.
I hope you’re right about this curing your son of procrastination.
I also think the homework thing has gotten out of control. I hate it when teachers say “we’re going to have homework four nights a week.” Why? What’s the point in predetermined homework? If you need to have it, fine, but don’t have it just because it’s Tuesday. Honestly, it starts to feel like a second job for me to facilitate all of the homework. Not a fun way to spend our evenings.
Good luck!
Kenna
I agree with you both, sort of. For Kyle the homework is often a creative challenge that he enjoys, and it helps me to see what his abilities and interests are, and where he needs to work a little bit harder. But I now I can see why some kids get so stressed out and don’t have enough time to just play!
Update on this situation: later last night I learned that two of the assignments are not due as soon as I thought. Kyle’s way of leaving out certain details confused us both. We have a few more days to finish, thank goodness!
Kyle may have procrastinated but WHY THE HECK are they giving ANY homework to a 7-year-old! Teachers pile on WAY TOO MUCH homework to justify their jobs/salaries/pensions and it’s NOT RIGHT. Let the young kids enjoy being a kid. Let pressure come later! There is way too much homework given at ALL grade levels but in Elementary School there should be little or NONE!
Ugh. Homework. I hope it cures Kyle’s procrastination too. My 16yo was cured of procrastination with his 4th grade mission report. Now he gets to work on all homework immediately. My 12yo DD is another story. I think procrastination is in her bones. (Handed down from yours truly who is procrastinating on her own work by reading blogs right now!)
And I agree that homework is given somewhat arbitrarily, but there are state standards for homework and teachers are REQUIRED to give out specific amounts of homework, so don’t come down too hardly on them. A lot of teachers I know hate assigning homework as much as kids hate having it assigned.
I think I read recently about a study that showed that homework really wasn’t that effective in helping kids learn. For my daughter, when she procrastinated on homework it was because she was bored by the assignment or didn’t like the book that was assigned. We had to perform surgery to get the book out of her hand, unless it was assigned reading and then she wasn’t going to do it for love nor money. Nearly flunked sophomore English as a result. She still procrastinates, but as she’s on her own now, it’s all on her.
IMHO, with three kids in three different levels of school, homework in elementary school is not out of control. Middle and high school – that’s a different story. But it doesn’t sound like the issue was the amount of homework but rather the procrastination, which is a lesson that is better learned in 2nd grade than in 6th or 9th. Charlene is right – they have guidelines and standards so it’s not arbitrary. You are right to be on top of it but ultimately – over time – he has to learn to manage the assignments … as appropriate at each grade level. That’s part of the learning!
I just think there is too much homework. David had so much last year. It was 45 min each day to go through it. At first he loved it, and as the year progressed he lost the plot. He is five years. He spends 8 hours a day holding it together at school. He comes home tired and all he wants o do is play. I kind of agree with him, but also think if I let it slide, it’s teaching him a bad habit. Also the way the curriculum is designed, if you don’t do the homework you fall behind at school and repeat.
I really wonder what happens when both parents work. It would be impossible.
I admire how much you take responsibility for your part in all this aspect of parenting, a part of the job I don’t think I ever handled well. The truth is, I think the kids knew I was hopeless at this and that they were on their own.
When our oldest (“not from the hard workers” as my husband would say) was- at the end of junior year in high school (only great self-restraint saved that last phrase from CAPSLOCK) I remember making up a poster in red marker on a huge sheet of brown paper outlining the missing assignments I’d just learned of at the Parent/Teacher conferences. Daily pleas/dictums/restraining orders did nothing to motivate him. Yes, you say, at that point the kid had bad habits! I hadn’t done my job!
I’ll never know. He was and is dreamy and wifty and plenty smart but, like his mother, ‘not from the great students’. So when the meeting with the college guidance counselor came around, and he mentioned a top school as ‘interesting’, she laughed at him with what sounded like contempt and mentioned an unknown local school. The kid blanched. But from that day until the end of senior year in high school, he worked like a driven scholar. Nothing could separate him from his work. He earned a 97% average for the year, got into and graduated from a really good college and is waiting on tables and applying to J school, his little notebook always at the ready for jotting insights and ideas.
I don’t have a clue what the moral of the story is. Hoping that maybe it’s helpful to some poor mother somewhere.