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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

AIBU to let my secondary school (yr 7)child do his homework, Badly, by Himself. Warts and all.

93 replies

swanriver · 13/10/2011 22:54

I've tried helping. It helps. He understands better what he has to do. He has developed confidence in his ability to write Good Stuff. He has worked out how to draw, how to budget, how to research, how to present projects. He has a better grasp of some topics than he otherwise might have had.

But, I can't go on helping him. Can I?

We've just finished budgeting a trip for Maths homework. I had to make him rewrite some of it as it was such a mess. I knew teacher would make comment "untidy work" , and he would shrug and think..I don't care, I can't do what they want...

Perhaps I should have just let him hand it in..

Would teachers give a child enough individual attention to actually turn their work around (rather than just grade his work), if I don't pay attention to it? Is it my responsibility to motivate him or the teachers?

OP posts:

CeliaFate · 14/10/2011 10:32

We help dd a lot. I show her the national curriculum levels for whatever subject she's doing so she knows what's expected of her. If it's a language piece of homework, I'll suggest changing words, or syntax and explain why. I use the BBC Bitesize website to show examples, revise and do online exercises to help her understand it better. That to me, is teaching her how to improve on a 1:1 basis, not doing her homework for her. We'll provide her with the resources she needs. Eg if she has a huge project, then I'll copy and paste some relevant information for her into a word document rather than her trawling through the internet with no direction.
Our role is to guide and help her, but sometimes to model a good example of the standard she should be aiming for, in the hope that she learns and continues in that vein.

nottonightlove · 14/10/2011 10:36

i help my dd up to a certain point because i want her to understand her homework. i'ts a case of getting the right balance.

gramercy · 14/10/2011 10:36

Ds (year 9) does all his own homework now. He won't even let me have a look at it. Everything's left to the last minute, but that's the way he seems to work (chip off the old block!).

But at junior school... aaarrgghh. There were always these "projects" to be done which always got left to the last minute. The one on Clarice Cliff to be completed during one half term holiday (in which we were away) ended up being written completely by me and laboriously copied out by ds at 9pm on the Sunday evening before returning to school. Thankfully the school had a change of heart and has now abandoned homework except spellings and tables. Parents used to joke "What mark did you get?" to each other.

woodleydoodle · 14/10/2011 10:50

CeliaFate I think you are helping too much.

woodleydoodle · 14/10/2011 10:52

Goodness, gramercy You wrote the project!?

gramercy · 14/10/2011 10:55

8-year-old boys, in my experience, are not much interested in Clarice Cliff at the best of times, let alone on a Sunday evening after a week's holiday. It was an emergency situation!

CeliaFate · 14/10/2011 10:58

Maybe. But I'm trying to teach her that "that'll do" isn't good enough. I don't help her with every piece, she got a good grade for a piece of homework that she did on her own so I know what she's capable of with the right motivation. Unfortunately, if she's not interested then she puts zero effort in. Those are the pieces I help with to try and teach her that what you put in, you get out.

mumofbumblebea · 14/10/2011 10:59

angelinterceptor shouldn't be done. not relevant to the child's learning and everyone who sees the piece of work can tell if it's untidy or not by looking at it anyway. i agree that you need to teach children to present their work neatly but i have found that many of the brightest children i have taught have the scruffiest work you can imagine! however, the content is fantastic. things like handwriting etc imrpove over time anyway so as long as it is legible it is not a huge deal imo. there are bigger fish to fry! (also with most things been done on computers now, i doubt how useful having ultra-neat handwriting and work will be by the time your children leave school). if i made a comment like that in a child's book and my head saw it i would be given a very stern word!

schroeder · 14/10/2011 11:00

Nope.

I help if asked of course and I remind them each evening to check what needs to be done for the next day.

But going through it with them and suggesting things-well I don't think that is a help to them in the long run.

CeliaFate · 14/10/2011 11:02

Why? Genuinely curious as to why you can't teach them to improve. It doesn't happen by osmosis, you've got just as information to impart as a teacher if you google everything like I do

CeliaFate · 14/10/2011 11:03

*just as much

woodleydoodle · 14/10/2011 11:26

CeliaFate The language homework isn't an opportunity to demonstrate your vocabulary and knowledge of syntax.

woodleydoodle · 14/10/2011 11:28

Also, you are identifying which information is relevant with regards to research/fact finding.

CeliaFate · 14/10/2011 11:36

Yes, but dd can also research further if she doesn't like what I've done - it's to start her off and give her a focus. With regards to the vocab and syntax, I don't write it for her, I teach her another way. eg. she may write "The trees are very big and shade the animals from the sun". I'll teach her to use a thesaurus and to vary the way she starts her sentences, "Shading the animals from the sun are the enormous trees". I'm not doing it for her, I'm extending her knowledge. If she's able to, she'll then use this independently in further work. If not, then she's not ready for it.

mumofbumblebea · 14/10/2011 11:38

CeliaFate i think it's great when parents want to help regarding their child's education but i do think showing your child NC levels is perhaps putting a bit too much pressure on her? however, i do think that parental involvement is vital and i think using it as an opportunity to keep parents involved in their child's learning is it's main advantage. a lot of the bitesize stuff is brill!

CeliaFate · 14/10/2011 11:39

Just to add, I don't see it as any different to dh practising football skills with ds over and over again. Ds is on his own in the match, whether he chooses or remembers to use the skills he's been taught is up to him. But dh has given him the support to do his best.

CeliaFate · 14/10/2011 11:42

NC levels are just to show her what she should be aiming for tbh. Children today are supposed to know what's expected of them, so they can try and fulfill the criteria. The last (primary) school I taught in used boards for story writing with the level criteria for spelling, purpose and organisation, punctuation, handwriting and grammar. If you include what they're looking for, then you are that level.

SoupDragon · 14/10/2011 11:43

I do think you have to let your child stand on their own two feet and let them "fail" if necessary.

I have no problems helping my child insofar as I can shove them in the right direction and perhaps suggest ways to make it a good piece of homework but, at the end of the day, they have to do the work, they have to understand it and they have to do the exams. The teacher needs to know what the child understands, not what I know.

ZZZenAgain · 14/10/2011 11:52

I think YANBU. I don't guide or correct my dd's homework at all. We do a lot of other things together which is parent-imparted academic learning but the homework I step away from. A dc should have some freedom in learning IMO. I understand why parents like to monitor and help their dc with it, as I said, I do a lot of this outisde of the homework so it probably works out pretty much the same in terms of extent of parental input in learning, but the homework I have always left dd to do.

Organa · 14/10/2011 11:52

I think you are doing a great job. Teachers should do all this in an ideal world, but the reality is they don't.

If it helps, I would say that I had to help my son when he was seven too but what I was really doing was stopping him from stressing out about it. However, anyone looking on would have said I was doing 90% of it for him. In fact the only person who thought he was really doing it himself was my son and he started to believe in himself. Gradually he started to do more and more by himself and his increased confidence and skill fed through into the work he was doing in class. I don't think he would have got there without the tutoring I was basically giving him at home because the teacher could never have given him that sort of individual attention.

The only thing I would say is don't be too picky (its soul destroying to have to rub work out and start again).

Lancelottie · 14/10/2011 11:53

You can't assume every teacher will have time to work out from the homework what your child is capable of, though.

DS1, it turns out, was predicted borderline C/D for GCSE maths. The teacher was perfectly happy, therefore, with any homework he turned in that seemed around a C grade, and more than happy if he looked like edging towards a B. Over Easter, DH and I made him re-do all the sloppy, half-done homework, worked out what he DIDN'T know and understand, and sent him back, grumpy but well prepared, to do his first two GCSE modules. He got A* on both papers... rather to his teacher's surprise.

CeliaFate · 14/10/2011 11:55

Exactly, Lancelottie. I tell my dc "short term pain for long term gain". It works for us at the moment, I'll reassess it term by term.

Lancelottie · 14/10/2011 11:58

Also guilty here of taking DS1's random ramblings in English and reordering them so the words are his throughout but the reader can tell what he's getting at.

I'm hoping this will eventually pay off, and he'll manage to make the link himself between his original plan (usually fine, but henceforth ignored) and his sentences (usually positively well written, but thrown at the page at random).

Overdoing it? Yes. But DS1 seems to carry across almost no information or advice from school to home, although he works hard in both places.

woodleydoodle · 14/10/2011 12:05

ZZZenAgain That it pretty much my viewpoint.
CeliaFate If she doesn't like what I've done??

CeliaFate · 14/10/2011 12:10

Woodley I meant the bits I'd cut and pasted from the internet, websites I've saved etc. I don't actually write anything for her.

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