If you do your DCs homework (esp. art), why do you do it?

[WalkingThePlank]

We expect our children (age 7 and 5) to do their own homework. We facilitate by helping them with materials and might ask them open questions for them to consider if they want to make changes to written work but I'd say at least 95% of the work submitted is theirs.

The 5 year old has recently had a 3 week art project. He's really enjoyed doing it but as he is 5 it does look like a dogs dinner. Other mums (never the children) have been proudly bringing in their uncovered projects into school. Some have been truly amazing (jealous, moi?) and when I've asked which bit their child has done they've said things like, 'You don't think I've let her near it do you?'

So if you do their work, what do you think your child gets out of the process? What do you think the point of the homework is? Also, what do teachers think or expect from the homework?

As an aside, my mum did all of my art stuff and I won lots of competitions at primary school but I am truly hopeless at art. I don't think it taught me anything having my mum do it for me.

DC's school send home project type work, where they have a fairly openended subject and several weeks to do it. Generally it is way too hard for the child to do unaided. I adopt the principle of helping as little as possible - but clearly some parents adopt the approach of the child helping as little as possible (openly admitted by parents). What on earth is the point? It's demoralising for my DC who see their classmates come in with wonderful projects making their own look paltry despite them putting lots of effort into them.

DS came home after the last project and moaned that his best friend had simply watched his mother do the homework, and it wasn't fair that he had to do his himself. Hard to counter this if your child (and you) think the homework was pointless in the first place.

You might be good at it now but do you want your dd to not be able to do it until she is an adult?

The point, as the parents quite openly admit, is to win. If the school removed the competitions then the parents' contributions would shrink. Some parents would still do their children's homework, but that would be up to them.

When I was 9 there weren't any home computers or internet to search but there is now and in UK schools children are taught to use it from the beginning of primary Bonsoir.

I would be very concerned if a teacher set homework but didn't care who completed it ... why set it if you don't want the child to do the work?

I don't do dd's homework, I'm far too lazy for that. However, my dad has helped her a lot with a couple of homework projects involving carpentry. I don't see a problem with this tbh. He had the skills and the tools, she didn't. She has always been fully involved and has learnt lots from doing it with him, even if she has only watched him do some bits of the process because they were a bit beyond her. They have been lovely projects for them to work on together, and I think she'll look back fondly on the time they spent on them.

I struggle to believe that anybody would actually do their kids' homework without the kids being involved. Surely this is a joke, isn't it?!

My father was an artist but never really took much of an interest in teaching us art or helping us learn art. When I was 11 years old our school entered a national competition for the best Christmas painting. I did it on my own at home, my dad didn't even look at it and I won third place. We had to go to a big event and handed medals, etc..

The next year my dad took over and insisted he did it for me. I was really upset as I didn't want him to, but he was quite aggressive about it and I had no choice. I didn't win any prizes. I think it was blatantly obvious that an artist had done it, even though he got me to colour bits in. I never forgive him for that. Even if I had won I would have been equally upset. I refused to enter the following year.

There was always one boy in my primary class, whose parents just pushed that bit further/took over everything. It became a matter of personal pride to beat him at anything for a good half the class.

I remember a project on sound (thus go home and make your own instruments) and being excited because I had made two instruments, a cardboard box guitar and a rain stick, and brought in my own recently purchased olive wood rainstick to show and tell that week. All done by me (had some help pouring the beans in the stick etc) fully painted and decorated. About to get top marks, and then this other boy's dad walks in with a full steel drum set he had made from some bins. Thus his son came top of the class.

Not a single child in the room clapped and the boy was shunned for the rest of the day. But his dad didn't care, they'd "won".

Just bugs the hell out if me.

Recent project on oceans. Using a shoebox make your own ocean scene. DS (6) painted it blue, collected some shells glued them in, drew some fish/sharks etc and stuck them in. It was a 6 year olds effort, he was pleased with it and excited to take it into school.

Queuing up before school and over half the class had obviously done by parents HW. Moving parts, wired in fairy lights and then uber mummy carrying her "DC"s effort of plaster of Paris, painted, sculptured aquarium.

DSs face fell. Who does she think she was kidding? She must have something lacking in her life that she feels the need to gain kudos from her child's artwork.

Well yes I've heard of oatrnts supervising homework then marking it and making their DC do the corrections. Indie school - I've no idea what they are paying the fees did tbh.

At most we do it together. But I let HIM plan it, and decide materials to use etc. When we recently had to make a roman roundhouse, he decided he wanted to use clay, and spaghetti for the roof. So, I ordered terracotta coloured clay from Ebay, and we made it together. It was messy, but it turned out really well, and he was really proud.

He would not have learnt anything if I had done his projects for him.

My 7 year old is fairly talented when it comes to art. I am not. Without exaggeration, since about the age of 5 all her artwork has been better than anything I could produce. Which is kind of ironic, because she is constantly entering competitions and being disappointed that a piece of work that is clearly not as good as hers is the winner. I suspect that whoever is judging looks at hers and thinks that she has had help from an adult, when in actual fact, if I had helped her it would have looked a lot more like something a child would do. She has now taken to doing her art and then trying to damage it a bit to make it look more convincing.

I actually think my sister is great at this, but she does not stop at art work. She spend most of last spring helping with her dds Biology project, which was to find, photograph and categorize specimens of plants and insects. Her dd only had to do 30, but my sister added another 70 she did herself, pushing the collection up to a 100, and was gushing with pride of her clever daughter at her 100 specimen collection. We are talking A levels here.

We had "make a Tudor house", for 5 year olds. Parent homework! We did get our 5 year old to do the sticking, colouring and gluing, but he was too little to do it all by himself, so we ended up finishing it off for him (after he fell asleep in the middle of it trying to get it done). And that was even though we had tried to break down the tasks for him over more than one day.

His friends came in with the most amazing creations, with fancy gables and various sorts of thatched roof, so I don't think we were the only family giving a lot of parent help.

We would try to get our child to do conventional maths/ English homework himself as a point of principle though.

Someone I know wrote all of her son's GCSE and A level assignments (and probably his Uni work too)

Pantone363 I don't see anything wrong with that :S
At school my parents supervise me but when I did my homework I'd always ask them to check it before I handed it in because I hated getting things wrong. They wouldn't tell me the right answers just pointed out what might need redoing

I don't see the point. I don't help dc with their homework, but plenty of parents do. And then the children get higher marks for it. I had a word with the teacher about it recently and she seemed genuinely surprised. I am surprised that she's surprised. But it made no difference having a word. And it makes my average child look completely behind as she can't compete with the other parents. And then it knocks her confidence and she thinks she's stupid

I did dd's art homework recently because there was no time to do it otherwise, it would have ruined the weekend fitting it in. I did it so ineptly (am a bit dyspraxic) dd was chuffed, said: 'Oh Mummy, now Miss X will think I did, she knows everyone else gets their nanny to do it.'

I have a colleague (secondary teacher) who told me he does all his son's homework because he thinks there's no point in primary school homework (which research does tend to support) but rather than get annoyed with teachers who are following school policy it's easier for him just to do it.

I have done my children's homework on many ocassions. If it's long and tedious and something they already do well then I have done it. Our primary piles on the homeworkusually 2 or three pieces every night- Far too much in my opinion

I have never done my children's hw. I have explained it and done an example then they are on their own for 20 mins Max. If they really can't understand or give it a go I write a note on it. I would never complete it...who is that helping? They don't have art hw.

I'm afraid DD1 and me do DD2's art/crafty HW.

Fortunately she has had very little over the years because it causes a massive fuss that the rest of the house cannot be bothered with. She just hates it.

Since she does any other HW with no fuss, there are battles I'm not having.

mummy1973- "who is it helping"- well it's helping my child who knows the subect inside out and is frustrated at having to do 2 hours homework every night after being at school all day. Takes the presure off.

We don't have art homework,thank God.

Re other homework I tend to talk it through with them,ask what they think and how they're going to set it out etc.If there is anything they stumble on which is extremely rare (as I think it's consolidation)I ask leading questions and would put a note in.

I sometimes get them to do things in rough but this is getting more rare as they're now at the stage where they'll do a neat first copy and take care with setting out.

My son is six and just gets uninspiring worksheets to complete each week. I will explain to him about what he needs to do and then maybe discuss bits with him but I will never do it for him. When he was 5 and in reception he came home with a "design and make a flying contraption" piece of homework. He couldn't do it, so I wrote a note to say we would not be completing it as it involved too much parental input therefore, making it my homework and not his. It is so obvious and I think quite embarrassing on the parents behalf when a child brings in artwork clearly made by the parents.

I sometimes help them with art & craft projects (the older two aren't arty or practical and hate doing it). Luckily everything I make looks as though an eight year old has done it.