THE HOMEWORK POWER STRUGGLE

If you care about theirhomework more than the kids do, there’s a problem. This is the kids’ issue, not yours. It’s not about whether you’re a good or a bad parent. It’s about the kid. Even really great parents have sometimes have kids who do poorly in school.

Trying to wrestle your kids into doing homework is exhausting. Unless you’ve got the kind of child who eagerly completes the assignments given, you’ve probably struggled with this. Striking a balance between being an indifferent parent and an over-involved helicopter parent is the challenge.

Homework is the kid’s business, not yours.

It is appropriate for parents to set up a firm home structure, which allows for time to complete homework and it is appropriate to limit access to electronics during this time. Parents can also stress that, while the assignments are the kids’ responsibility, there can be longterm, life consequences to not doing these. This is the parental role in stressing the importance of homework. You don’t need to blow off the importance of this in kids lives, but you don’t need to make getting it done your business, either.

Parents can be helpful in many ways and can certainly be involved, but children have to decide if they care about their grades. They get confused when their school work seems to be more about you than them. Power struggles—you know the threatening, yelling, grounding part—leads to this confusion.

Homework is their business.

You can be around to be supportive, if they need help. You can arrange tutors in areas where they’re weak. You can certainly find help if the child has a significant learning issue. You can’t, however, make your child care about doing well in school. If you punish them for unfinished assignments, you’re missing the point. School success can only be the result of children deciding to succeed.

You need to let them fail. You can talk--without a great deal of emotion--about the difficulty in trying to find a good job without an education. But you need to let them decide. This is a massively important life lesson.

It may sound horrible, but failure provides a life lesson that everyone needs to learn. Failure and the fear of failing can motivate a change in the way your children deal with their school work. They have to decide if school success is important to them. Your job is to point out the value of graduating high school and college and then get out of the way. Do this early in the child’s academic life, rather than waiting until high school, when the consequences are more life-altering.

Remember, kids need to make their own experiences. This is massively important in life overall and really pivotal in academic achievement. Applying parental pressure to the homework dilemma doesn’t solve the problem. The biggest lesson kids need to learn is to assume responsibility for their own school achievements.