Balancing Schoolwork with Family Time -
An End of Year Review

Washington Parent, May 1996
Annette Spector, M.S., Ed.

As this school year approaches the final countdown, and as you look back over this past year, how does your family rate in terms of balancing schoolwork, extracurricular activities and good-quality family time? How much time was left for relaxation, regrouping or just chilling-out? How much planning ahead was done so that balancing every one's schedules created reasonable time frames? Dr. Joseph R. Novello, in his book Bringing Up Kids American Style depicts "the American model of mental health" as a juggler who happily balances several balls in the air at the same time. In recognizing the well-established theory that children grow and develop best both cognitively and psychologically in environments that are well balanced and as stress-free as possible, how would you rate the stress factor in your family? To help you answer these questions, let's take a look, at several school issues which have a major impact on your entire family from September to June.

Daily Homework

• In looking back over this past year, do you feel a "reasonable"; amount of time was spent on homework? Or, are you recollecting many nights that involved long, drawn out battles trying to get homework finished? Perhaps you recall a pattern of rushing. through homework as quickly as possible resulting in poor-quality work. Frequently parents are at a loss as to whether to stop children from working on homework because dawn is approaching or whether to yank children back down to correct sloppy, careless work. Were you confused as to how much help to give your child or how much correcting of homework you should have done? Here are some guidelines to follow to help make next year less stressful:
  
• Ask the teacher what is a reasonable amount of time for your child to spend on homework each night.
• Periodically time your child (count only time on task) and report back to the teacher if excessive time was taken. Teachers aren't mind readers and generally welcome feedback from parents.
• Ask the teacher if she wants you to help with homework, and, if so, to what extent. Find out if the teacher wants you to correct careless errors.
• If you find out the "purpose" for the homework, then you'll have a better idea as to the amount of input you should have. For instance, if a story worksheet comes home and the purpose is to have the students plan an original story by writing an outline listing characters, plot, setting, events, then correcting spelling mistakes would not be a major priority. If a math worksheet comes home, and the purpose is to find out if the student has mastered the correct sequential steps for long division, then correcting a careless subtraction mistake might be appropriate.
• If neatness and quality of the homework are the teacher's priority, then monitoring how long your child spends on homework to insure neatness and accuracy would be appropriate. Often, for young children, setting a timer with the rule that the child must remain seated until the timer goes off, eliminates the pattern of rushing through and running to play. If your child finishes before the timer goes off then going back to proofread and check for mistakes is the thing to do instead of jumping up and bolting out.
• After you've established that the homework is reasonable and appropriate for your child's age and skill levels, set clear-cut, consistent rules for homework completion. For instance, watching TV, time on the computer, playing games, is contingent on getting homework completed within a certain time.
• Don't be over-zealous in monitoring or correcting your child's homework, just so your child can hand in perfect work. Particularly in this highly competitive area, we, as parents, have a tendency to prod our children into being number one. This sometimes translates into correcting all homework. In theory, your child owns his/her own homework. A major purpose of homework is to develop independence, and for the teacher to check whether skills taught during the day in the classroom have been mastered on an independent level, if you do feel the need to correct homework, add a note to the teacher specifying what part of it you helped with. If all work comes back to school perfect, then the teacher is going to assume that your child has mastered the skills.

Long Term Reports/Projects

How often have you been in the situation when your family is just getting ready to go on an outing, visit relatives, or go on vacation and your child announces, "Oh, by the way, my report on dinosaurs, is due the day we get back." Or perhaps your child reached down into the depths of her/his backpack only to find a crinkled up outline form of a major school project which should have been worked on for the past several weeks. These situations can certainly throw families way off balance, as you and your child go into an emergency mode consisting of hysterical type behaviors to try to remedy an impossible situation. Here are some tips to help you and your children get through these long term assignments:

• Look in your child's folder or backpack for written outlines and teacher-made worksheets describing long-term assignments.
• Check occasionally with your child's teacher about long-term reports/projects.
• Early on, clarify with the teacher the amount of help you are expected to provide. Caution: Remember, this is your child's opportunity to develop independence and the final product should reflect the child's best effort, not yours.
• Read over, with your child, the list of supplies and books needed to complete the project. If these items are going to be difficult to obtain, suggest to your child a change of topic. Contact the teacher to discuss a possible change.
• Buy a large, monthly planning calendar which can be placed on a desk or on the wall. Write in separate dates for the various steps for completing the project. The separate steps can include: collect materials, go to store and buy materials, go to library and check out books, read, take notes, fill out index cards, draw pictures, make chart, interview a person, build whatever, etc. Also write in the location of where each step is going to happen: in school, at home, at the library, my room, friend's house, etc.
• If a fair amount of reading is going to be involved, determine your child's reading rate. Follow this simple method. For each book, have your child read silently for ten minutes. Count the amount of pages read (eliminate pictures). Ask your child to retell in her own words what she remembers to check for understanding and retention of facts. If you feel this is a comfortable level book for your child, make a chart to figure out how many pages can be read in 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 40 minutes, etc. Then, with your child, look at how many pages must be read to finish the whole book. Then divide the total number of pages by the number of pages which your child will read at each sitting. This will tell you how many sittings will be needed to finish the book. Then, on the monthly planning calendar, record the name of the book and which pages will be read every day. You'll need a new reading rate for each book because the print size can be different and size of the pages can be different.
• When you list the separate steps on the monthly planning calendar, always make the final due date 3 or 4 days before the actual due date.
• Agree to help your child with typing, drawing, proofreading, as long as you are asked several days before something is due. Make a rule that you don't type the night before, and stick with it. Even if it means a penalty or lowered grade, your child will get the message quickly that you will help only with reasonable timing, never at the last minute.
• If your child is experiencing excessive frustration, or if you are having to help too often, contact the teacher right away. Don't get into nightly battles pushing your child to work on a project. Ask the teacher if modifications can be made or whether "trouble spots" can be addressed in school.

The Bottom Line

If homework and long-term assignments are developmentally appropriate for your child's age and skill level, then he/she should be able to complete most homework and projects independently within a reasonable able time frame. This pattern of cutting into other important family activities and responsibilities can cause undue tension and stress. To avoid this situation, communicate frequently with your child's teachers to find out the purpose for an assignment and what is a reasonable time period for completion. If you've done this, and your child is still experiencing excessive frustration or is taking too long, then talk with the teacher about adjustments that might need to be made.