Should I Help My Child With Homework?

The simple answer is, “no”.

As a teacher I used to often get homework that was perfectly done from my students, and then discover shortly after that their parents “helped” them.

I say “used to” because I would always request for the parents to stop doing so.

In order to understand why I am so adamantly against parent involvement, it’s important to first understand the purpose of homework.

1. Reinforcement

Homework is used to reinforce what was taught. It is much more effective when a child tries to recall what he or she learnt that day and apply it on his or her own.

That meaningful process is lost when the child doesn’t need to make the effort to recall and reflect, and instead simply gets help from you.

A common misconception about learning is that it is like pouring water into an empty jug – first it wasn’t there, and then it is.

I suggest that it is more like growing a plant. You provide the conditions for learning, but ultimately, it is up to your child to build their own knowledge.

There is much research to prove that a child that constructs his or her own knowledge retains and applies it much more effectively than one that is just given it.

2. Feedback

Homework is used to identify gaps in both learning and teaching.

If a student does his homework badly, it is a good sign that the student has barriers to understanding that the teacher can then remediate.

If a large number of students do badly, it’s an indicator to the teacher that the lesson was not effective, and the teacher can then work towards improving it for a later date.

All this feedback is lost when the results that come back are not truly representative of the students’ real work.

Now you may feel like you’re a bad parent when you refuse to help your child, but on the contrary, you’re teaching your child a few major life lessons.

3. Awareness of weaknesses

One of my biggest fears is not knowing what I do not know.

These blind spots may potentially sabotage me at a later stage of my life when the stakes are much higher.

It is best to make mistakes while one is young, so as to learn one’s own weaknesses and work towards overcoming them.

Michael Jordan, arguably the best basketball player in the NBA, states in a commercial, “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. That is why I succeed.”

This pattern of building upon failure is evident in the lives of every highly successful person I know of. It is a lesson I have learnt in my own life.

You can’t build success on a foundation of hidden weaknesses; and weaknesses do not show in the absence of failure.

4. Resilience

Teach your child that it’s okay not to be perfect, and that mistakes are part and parcel of life.

There is a stigma about mistakes – that they are bad and should be avoided.

I believe one reason for this is that we often make too big a deal out of them. Mistakes are a great way to learn and we should welcome them.

Children build resilience when they learn to embrace a fall, learn from it, dust themselves off and just carry on.

There used to be an old joke in the 90s that ITE stands for “It’s the end”.

That is totally untrue. It is never the end if you keep learning and trying to improve.

5. Responsibility

By resisting the urge to always come to your child’s rescue, you give your child the opportunity to meet a challenge on his or her own terms.

You are teaching your child ownership – Ownership of the task, ownership of any possible failures, ownership of the solution, and ownership of the sense of accomplishment that results from their own effort.

When your child comes to you for help and says that they “can’t”, instead of being the one that “can”, empower them to be the one that “can”.

So, back to our discussion about helping with homework. What should you do then?

I suggest to leave them be. Let them stand on their own two feet.

Let them make their mistakes. Let them know that it’s okay, and more importantly to learn from them.

Let them realise that mom and dad don’t have all the answers and that they have the power to help themselves.

Let them understand that, at the end of the day, they are learning, not for you, but ultimately for themselves.

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