Setting Up For School Success
Of all the myriad aspects that make up the school year -- routines, extracurricular activities, early mornings, pick up and drop off plans -- the one that challenges parents the most is homework. And most parents (and children too!) close their eyes to its inevitable occurrence thereby finding themselves ensnarled in power struggles and tantrums with each other once homework passes through the portals of their previously calm home. Let's look at an alternative to the closed eyes route and see how you might be able to set your child up for success even before school begins.
It's striking that even though we live in a democracy we often fail to recognize one of the basic principles upon which our country was built and by which we live on a daily basis -- that people are more likely to live by rules that they help to make up. This foundational principle is no less true when dealing with your children. In fact, many schools now recognize this and engage children in discussion at the beginning of the school year about classroom rules finding that, in doing so, children remember the rules more clearly and stick to them more closely. This basic principle is also useful in dealing with homework in a proactive manner.
Prior to school beginning, engage your child in a discussion about homework. Say that you'd like to settle upon a satisfactory arrangement for both of you with regard to how and when the homework gets done, and elicit your child's opinion about what his needs and thoughts may be. Ask your child outright when he thinks the best time to do homework would be. As you listen, keep in mind some basic guidelines that will make this discussion a productive one:
* Listen without judgement. This is perhaps the most difficult of the guidelines, yet one of the most critical. Remember that if you appear judgmental, if you shoot down your child's ideas (as wild and crazy as they may sound) then your child will get the impression that this is not a discussion at all, but simply a way to manipulate him into doing what you want him to do. As the object of this discussion is to allow your child to help make up the rules for homework, it will backfire the minute he thinks that it's a ploy to force your ideas upon him.
* Write down the key points that both you and your child make during this discussion. Children feel taken seriously when you write down what they say. The more seriously your child feels you take her, the more likely she is to take herself (and her homework) seriously.
* Remember that different personalities have different needs. Some children do much better with a "work first, play later" philosophy. This means that a schedule for homework that involves eating their after school snack while they do their homework and playing afterwards will be conducive to their getting homework done quickly and efficiently. Other children, however, need a half hour or so of down
