Conflicted: potentially tiger mum

[Hereforthebeer]

I'm on AIBU to get some home truths

My DCs are primary. They are both really capable and doing well. My initial view of primary school as an outsider was that it was all about being happy and secure.
I don't always make them do homework, I mainly do the reading required but if we have activities, they miss it. I sometimes miss spelling tests and generally am aware of whats required but also want them to love learning and so am sensitive of when I think they need a break/dvd night. So basically i encourage learning, within reason.
Recently, i've been thinking perhaps this is wrong. They are essentially under achieving even though they are only just out of nappies and I should make them always do their best, even if i sit over them, they should always do what is required even if they are knackered and I should be more 'tiger', more competitive.
WWYD/WDYD?

I think its very different to not do homework because the school isnt giving any and not doing homework even though the school is giving some.

In the first case, yes it will have little impact on what happens at secondary and beyond.
In the second, you've just spend 6 years teaching your dcs that doing HW isnt that important and that its OK not to do it. Not the right things to teach to a child, nor for HW, nor for when they will be at work (and asked to do things they dont want to do).

And YY about the importance of learnig how to spell in primary.
Unfortunately not all primaries have the same idea of what a 'good speller' is ....

Because the teaching methods in this country are so restricted and unimaginative appealling to only a limited range of learners.

And because standard of what is considered 'good enough' is very low too.

As for the question. There is no point in applying pressure to achieve. Children have greater success if they are rewarded for effort rather than outcome. Piling the praise on over the work they already do (which will be a lot) being their cheerleader does actually give them a boost. So many fairly able children lose their way as their parents start "getting bored" of encouraging them / being proud/ there for all those endless little awards and rewards.

My DD gets homework once a week that's not too hard, so we have always made sure she does it, and reading and spelling....I always remember a Mum saying to me that she took a very relaxed view of reading, and that she would only do it when her DS wanted to...she is in year Six now and struggling!!!

The other point to note is uou don't want them falling behind their peers as they grow. No kid likes that and it in itself has negative repurcussions on the child.

If the other kids aren't doing their homework either fair enough, but if they are then it's wholly possible they may start to at some point accelerate above uour kids as they spend more time on their work than uour kids do.

Alternatively, you could pretend they are Russian and say they will start doing it at seven, 😃

I'm pretty surprised by the idea of "make the kids do homework, even pointless homework, or they'll think it's optional and not do it." For me this is the complete opposite of the lesson I wan, the lesson people need is not do homework it's know when you need to do more to consolidate a subject, and prioritise

Teachers, especially secondary school teachers cannot differentiate every piece of homework by need, they probably don't even know, and it can also be too little homework, rather than too much. Learning to recognise how hard to work on a particular area is the essential skill, not the ability to plug on wasting time on already consolidated skills.

But sirfred, this is primary, these children are 7 or 8.

I think for me I just try and teach them it's non negotiable and try and do it. Just really to train them slowly for secondary school.

We do the reading at night in bed, just for ten minutes. The literacy and maths - it only takes about 15 minutes per week. I tend to get them to do it by saying, once you've done that, we can do this (fun thing).

I wouldn't say we're great at it - but we try to do it and it's rare we don't hand it in. I think though it's embarrassing for them to get 2/10 in a spelling test because we didn't go through it at home beforehand.

I try to work out when they can do the homework so that they're not tired. If we're going away for the weekend, do it Saturday morning for example before we go. It's just time management.

They get so much confidence from looking at their results afterwards. At our school they get a sort of colour chart depending on how many spellings they got right. If it's all green it's a boost for them.

One of mine hated it in the beginning. Shouting, stomping etc. Over time they've just learned it's non negotiable and get on and do it in 15 minutes. But it was a slow process and I'd have hated them to be like that at the beginning of secondary school. It's teaching them to manage their time to some extent and be a bit more independent. Now she's year 6 she just gets it out of her bag and does it without me prompting.

Making your children do the homework they are set isn't "tiger" - that refers to doing school, plus extra academic subjects and further coaching in school subjects at home, plus a heavily-scheduled assortment of other extra-curricular/worthy activities such as music lessons or semi-professional sport.

SirFred: But the teacher is responsible for deciding what needs to be consolidated. If you insist on making that decision, fine, but you should also be happy to take responsibility for your child's success or failure academically. Either that or accept the teacher's judgement.

Chewbacca well firstly I think primary children can learn to recognise what they need to learn/practice - after all I believe it to be pretty much a natural human trait to want to learn, and to prioritise learning.

But more relevantly, it's that if you dictate to the children that they must do their work simply because it's important to do homework, then you're teaching them the exact opposite of self prioritising. So they're going to learn different when older anyway - in which case there was no point forcing the homework in case they didn't learn those skills which was the argument.

Trifleorbust The teacher cannot differentiate every piece of homework for every child - they simply do not have the time!

SirFred: Well aware of that - teacher here!

My point is that that is not an excuse to not do what is set. The homework set is a matter of professional judgement, so if you as a parent want to take over that judgement and say "You don't need to do that, son", then fine, but you need to take responsibility for your child's academic results. Failing that, if you want teachers to be accountable, you need to give them the support and respect of making sure homework is done.

I have to say that I'm not overly keen on homework for young DCs but unless the homework is particularly onerous, then your DCs should be doing it and I say this as one of the least tiger style DMs that I know.

In lower primary we were told how long the homework should take - sometimes they misjudged it and if it was going to take significantly longer then that, then I would mark where DS got to and put a note on it to say how long it took.

For spelling I used to write out the words and get DS to practice them with me on the way in and home from school - that way it doesn't take any additional time, also as it was a different way of doing things, he seemed to find it more enjoyable that way.

If your DCs are overly tired, then perhaps you may want to consider reducing any extra-curricular activities. DS found early primary quite tiring and only did one after school thing then.

Schooling is done differently round the world, but as people have chosen to put their DCs in UK state schools, then either follow the basic rules or home school or go private.

I really don't get it when people say 'well in Finland, Singapore, France etc they don't read until 7 and do better than UK so I'm not going to encourage my child to do any homework'. I'm very happy for the kids of those countries and they appear to have found an system that works for THEM. You live in the U.K. and your kids are in the UK education system so you must work within that system. Their systems are geared up for kids rocking up at 7 having barely read so from that age they will be taught appropriately. If a UK based child was still struggling with phonics at 7, they would never catch up without specialist intervention because the curriculum assumes you know the basics and will have moved on way beyond that.

I've have friends who have either gone to school in France (apparently school is more intense there and less creative thinking encouraged) or had kids in Singapore (apparently unless you go to the most elite school, the quality is overall lower than the UK).

A large part of the reason why some of these counties do better on league tables is because their cultures really value education. Being dim isn't cool and they respect educated people they don't call them 'elitists' etc etc. I've seen parents here appear to go out of their way to encourage their kids not to do homework saying things like 'little Timmy's too tiredness after school' but Timmy somehow has energy to play computer games or go to various clubs 3 days a week. They then blame the school when Timmy hasn't done well during exams.

Work within the system you've got. Children are happier in school when it's not a struggle so make it easier for them.

Exactly Capricorn and in some respects our country isn't too bad at all.

Friend was telling us about another family who has a deaf DC in French education system. Apparently they are really badly equipped for any SN and have not made the necessary adjustments, whereas I'd like to think in the UK in general we're pretty well set up for this.

Ok, OP, that's good to hear. It wasn't so much that I misunderstood as that we only have what you post here to go on.

You'd talked about taking a selective approach to doing the work that comes home. Some responses suggested talking to the teachers and focusing on agreed priorities. Your response said "I never criticise the teachers, even if I think homework is overkill, the children are not aware of this." which was your only reference to teachers. It may not have been in response to that point but the idea of talking to them and understanding their pov - which seems so obvious - wasn't acknowledged.

Then there's your use of the phrase 'tiger mum' which is so very irrelevant in this case as to attract interest in itself. Flippant I guess but says something about your attitude. Probably better if I let you explain what than speculate further!

You should make sure they do the homework set, no excuses. You are setting them a terrible example, that they don't have to abide by the rules if they don't like them or they have something else they'd rather do. How far do you want them to carry that way of thinking into future life? That they can do 70mph in a 30 zone because they have "somewhere important" to be? They can forget that "no means no" because they've had a drink and want sex? They don't have to pay their rent or mortgage because they'd rather go out and get pissed? It's a slippery slope you are setting them on.

I disagree so strongly it's making me breathless!

I don't define my childrens' success by their academic output!
For the life of me I cannot see the point in forcing them to do work they don't want to do! That's not to say I'm not broadly supportive of school and their teachers but I know my kids! If they're learning about magnets, I'll do stuff with magnets at home, but I won't stand over them getting them to fill in a bone dry worksheet for the sake of it, and turning them off learning!

We do quite a lot of project based activity at home. The kids don't think of it as "homework". This week we made a compass and a map and plotted our road. But one of them still got told off for not filling in a sheet about it!

For the life of me I cannot see the point in forcing them to do work they don't want to do

Totally up to you, Kitty, but I think the point is very clear to most of us

Reading, writing, spelling, mathematics, science, historical knowledge, understanding of languages, faiths, geography, the arts - all of these things come with some component of 'things any individual child may not want to learn about on a given day'. I want my child to not be ignorant. That's why she will be learning stuff whether or not she feels like it that afternoon.

Hope you've got your breath back.

This id going to sound sarcastic or sanctimonious and I honestly don't mean it to be, but have you watched or read any Ken Robinson, Trifleorbust? If so, what did you make of it?

Hope this link works

www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_changing_education_paradigms

It's only 11 minutes and changed my outlook entirely.