To not make DD6 (Year 1) do homework?

[Thesnailonthewhale]

She was 6 in December, an she's above age related expectations in all areas. Reading age of 8y6m.doing Year 2 maths etc

School are getting a bit uppity about her not completing the set homework each week. (Spellings, some maths sheets etc)

She reads every day without being prompted and is incredibly inquisitive etc helps around the house, plays creatively, is active.
She counts coins at shops, does puzzle books, can tell the time to quarters and halfs and (still working on 5 mins) - weighs and measures ingredients for cooking and baking etc. (all applied maths)

Should I make her do the extra stuff? I can't see the point personally.

Same thought I had.

How does one force a child to brush their teeth?

You are the parent, you tell them that their teeth need brushing and keep going until they let you do it... that's your job as a parent.

But apparently you can't make a child do something they don't want to do. If they refuse to do it and have a hissy fit, you just have to accept it.

I wouldn’t punish them for feeling that way, or think this meant they had something “wrong” with them. Because I’m a normal, rational person with experience of raising children, I’d first and foremost put this down to a phase because I know children can be melodramatic.

My DD used to scream so much and so list when having her hair washed the neighbours actually asked if we were all OK. She’s now a teenager who spends more time in the shower washing her hair than anyone I 6 knew. Despite me not overreacting or getting help, or labelling her over the aforementioned blue-murder reactions to hair washing

That’s not the definition of “force” but OK.

We clearly have different parenting styles. I personally wouldn’t bark orders and make demands at a distressed child because “I’m the parent”. I don’t think being a parent means I forgo a bit of kindness and perspective

Parenting is about picking your battles. I haven’t always been adamant that I “win” just because I’m the parent.

As a result I have two hard working well rounded and, most importantly, happy, children

You hold them down and brush their teeth for them, like I had to do with DS for a couple of years. You certainly don't just not brush their teeth, that would be neglect.

Yeah you might be ok with using force against a child, I’m not.

You would rather let your child's teeth rot? Do you think they'd thank you for that later? Brushing teeth is not like doing homework or getting dressed or things like that, its essential.

I’d rather find a place between not brushing their teeth and being physical with them.
But yes it’s obviously very different to doing homework!

That's a perspective, though not one backed up by research which shows little to no academic benefit in young children doing homework.

Regardless, it's entirely irrelevant to my post which was about the fact children don't need to be doing homework at 5 in order to find the transition to homework at Secondary school relatively easy.

Obviously you try other methods first! But if all else fails, like it did with DS, then you just have to do it somehow.

I may be overly sensitive to this but my parents didn't force me to brush my teeth and there was a period of a few months when i mostly skipped brushing and my teeth really suffered as a result.

i know she has issues, which is why people going "just force her" or "don't you value eudcation" isn't helpful.

they think i'm being some sort of wishy-washy parent who allows a kid to pout and say "No!" and lett hem get out of thing they decide they dont' want to do.

I'm still waiting for your answer...

DH’s parents often made him brush his teeth by eating an apple(!) and he has had expensive and paintul dental work as an adult so I so sympathise that must be hard with a child who refuses. Maybe you’re right maybe I would hold them down when it came to it, I’m very thankful I’ve never faced this dilemma. But as you point out it’s essential and very different to not doing homework. Which is why I think perspective matters in parenting

To be fair I was not really including reading, spellings or times table practice as homework, only things you would turn in. So possibly we had fairly similar experiences.

But even if we had different experiences but that doesn't make my assertion, which, was intentionally not a blanket statement about all schools, untrue.

Are you Hyacinth Bucket?

Yes she can do her spellings and do her maths.

Doesn't matter how long it takes, she can do it. It's just some spellings and some sums. If she can do it at school, she can do the little bit of work then teacher sets at home. It'll be good for her to reinforce her learning. The benefits are she completes the homework task, does her spelling and does her maths.

I didn’t mention transitioning. I said they need to do homework to cement some of their foundational learning.

So you still haven't actually said what the benefit of physically forcing her into submission is... Just that it will be completed...

Let's pretend your child is terrified of something...let's say it's dogs. You have decided this is ridiculous and just a temper tantrum, .... Would you force them to be near a dog, crying, hysterical, scrabbling to get away from them...you'd force them to be near the dog, by physically restraining them, until they stopped fighting through exhaustion, and then do it again the next day, and again and again until they submitted? And the only reason is "so they stood next to a dog".?

I’m clever and absolutely hate being told when and how to do a task. Like I feel it viscerally. I’m able to regulate my emotions but can understand why a person might throw a fit at being asked to empty the dishwasher with any sense of immediacy.

Given she seems to otherwise like learning, I’d probably adapt the homework into a way that suits her style (like the example you gave with spelling should). Could you come up with the WOW word sentences on the walk/drive home from school, for example and give her the option to write them down when she gets home? Leave the maths sheets out on her desk for her to do when she chooses? Chat about the spellings randomly throughout the day - maybe test her on spellings that aren’t homework regularly?

If you know she has issues then why won’t you get her any help?

She has said she is working with school.

As a side note, if OPs experience of 'getting help' is anything like mine, then it is REALLY not as easy as everyone in this thread seems to be making out that it is. She's 6, she's literally at the start of her journey. It took us 4 different primary schools, an entire year out of education entirely whereby I continuously reported myself to the LA as having a child missing in education, a 9 year old in mental health crisis, an extortionate private diagnosis to try and speed things along, another private assessment, a fortune spent on a private child psychologist, endless meeting with SENCOs etc, and we STILL didn't get an EHCP until two weeks before he was due to start secondary school, by which point we had no school to send him to because 9 schools had told us that they couldn't meet his needs, despite all of his struggles in primary school falling on deaf ears. So he missed the first half term of year 7, despite me desperately trying to get help for him since he was 4 years old.

It's not always as easy as everyone seems to think it is. We are STILL on the waiting list for an NHS assessment and he is 13. We don't need one now, but we are still on the list (advice from his school in case anything changes in the meantime and he does need it by the time it comes up, i'm not just wasting NHS time or anything), and he'll have aged of of the system by the time we actually get one I imagine.

“Working with school” isn’t enough (I don’t buy that anyway). She needs to see the GP.