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.

I can't believe that people think it's okay to do their kids' homework. My parents never did mine. They didn't even know whether I had any. If I did it, I got the kudos. if I didn't, I got into trouble.

My mother is a primary school teacher - she diagnosed parents who did homework with "kiddy-itis".

I don't have kiddyitis, but I get to decide what is the best way for my children to spend their 'out of school' time. There is precious little of it as it is imo. School is far too long. I'd prefer half days in half-size classes and believe that would be a more effective way of using our education resources anyway.

We tried complaining about homework (after ds got lunchtime detention for not handing something in) and got told that as we'd signed the parent school contract we had to follow all school policies. So we asked to see the homework policy (which had never been given to us, and there wasn't actually any choice about signing the contract so it was a bit meaningless). the policy was clearly designed for a secondary school as it was full of 'getting ready to work' messages, hardly that important for a six/seven year old!

So the choice for us was spend all weekend fighting with ds over doing the stupid project, or leave him up to his own devices knowing that he wouldn't do it and would then get his lunch breaks taken away which in turn led to very bad behaviour because he needed to run around for a bit. Or just to let dd do it, which she enjoyed and took about half an hour.

mrz Sun 16-Mar-14 09:53:46

We used to have a decorated Easter egg competition which the children made at home - it was so obvious that most children had not decorated their own eggs so we decided it would be fairer if the eggs were decorated in school by the children !

Sorry Starlight that wasn't directed at you. I suspect the issue is more with the rules in the UK (or London at least, which is what I'm familiar with). I grew up in NZ in the 80s, but even now most primary schools in NZ have a policy of no more than 30 min homework for kids under 10.

I was genuinely shocked when I saw how onerous the UK primary school system is compared to NZ where I grew up and where my mum teaches. My nieces and nephews in a v affluent area of London have hours every night & also have to do all sorts of extra curricular activities. They are 6 and 4.

I was also shocked that parents have to walk them to school and then stay in the playground with them until the teachesr take them inside! Must be such a mission for the primary carer parent to find a job when you have to hang around the school gate for ages. (Sorry bit of a tangent there).

I can't think of anything more ridiculous than doing your child's homework for them.

Completely agree with you, OP.

I think it is counter productive too, but since there are consequences including sanctions and being put in the lowest sets for children who do not turn it in, parents are caught between a rock and a hard place. There are only so many hours in an evening, and parents who come in from work do not always have either the time or patience to sit and supervise homework. It is often easier to do the work themselves whenever they can fit it in between ironing and making lunches and tidying up and cooking and cleaning up and walking the dog and paying their bills and maybe even trying to relax a little in front of the TV.

For their part, when teachers are faced with only one or two children who routinely don't turn in homework or who have notes telling of difficulties it is perhaps easy to assume those children have a problem. If the majority of the parents sent a note or complained homework was taking too long or children didn't have a clue what was required, then teachers might reassess what they were giving out or how they were teaching, but as long as parents want to shield their own children from what they see as suffering the consequences of not getting homework done, they are going to keep up the pretence they think the teachers want to see.

Teachers know exactly when parents do the homework. I don't bother setting any homework like craft or projects because I'm not interested in seeing anything that the parents do, I need to know what the children can do. We do pretty much everything in class. If you want input in to their learning, I'd rather you spend time reading a book with them, or letting them help you cook dinner (recipes = literacy, maths, science, etc), or doing art projects together.

MidnightScribbler you sound like a very sensible teacher!

Primary teachers who 'know' that parents are doing lots of the projects, why do you still set them? Particularly the competitive ones (our school didn't do those thank goodness). I understand that some parents demand homework but why not set something simpler? You must know that some children really hate all the drawing/craft stuff (I assume that ds also made a fuss at school, but of course he might have been more compliant).

Ther headmaster of our primary school rules the school very tightly. He thinks that lots of homework is very important and forces the teachers to set a large amount every single day. This usually consists of reading, a few pages of maths problems and some language work every night. In addition there are 50 new spelling words to be learned every week for a test and a power point presentation to be researched, written and presented to the whole class every week or two.

I have often completed the written work for my children. More often than not it is not marked.
This is a local state run non denominational primary school.

boftastic;

I have often interfered in my DSs homework. I don't think it's a coincidence that at 17, he is a self-disciplined and independent learner, and is doing really well and on course for going to a great university.

DD does 90% of her own homework, but I will help if Google is needed, because so many results tend to baffle her. I do tend to have to 'bring her down' a bit because she has these great ideas, but I know that either she won't be able to do it, or it will take far too long and cause a meltdown.

I don't correct her if she gets it wrong though - like the time she had to do a 'timeline' from Tudor Britain to present day. A couple of the photos she used were of actors playing the parts of Tudor Kings/Queens rather than paintings. I do the 'Are you sure that's right love? And if she is, I leave it. She has to learn that Google isn't the be all and end all.

She did a brill nativity centerpiece last year that was all her own work, but the one chosen to go on the teachers table was obviously done by an adult. Even she could see that and it caused a few ructions at home.

At our school you are expected to do art homework with your dc - they have this deluded idea that it's good to share an educational project with your dc, so it is definitely not discouraged. I hate art homework with a passion.
Art competitions at school have always been a joke, the parents win the prizes, no one pretends otherwise. I really don't understand why the teachers encourage this to happen.

I don't see how there can be any hard and fast rules about parental intervention in homework when some schools/teachers only set homework that can be completed independently and others expect parental intervention and/or set tasks that are poorly designed. There is no point taking the moral high ground on one course of action or extrapolating DCs' educational successes or failures from homework intervention or refusal to intervene.

IMO parental involvement (which is very highly correlated with academic success) means taking a flexible attitude and supporting DC as the need arises, without prejudice.

At our school you are expected to do art homework with your dc - they have this deluded idea that it's good to share an educational project with your dc, so it is definitely not discouraged. I hate art homework with a passion.

Yes, same at our school - they even have a homework club for children to get help from the teachers if they haven't been able to get it at home (which is a good idea, as some kids clearly won't get any help at home). However, apart from the projects that my dad has helped with which I mentioned earlier, I tend to let dd get on with it by herself. I find that she is generally perfectly capable!

And just to add - sharing an educational project with your child is great if you are both interested in it - when the child and the parent both detest art it becomes quite torturous and there is very little to be gained.

I am also fairly capable of doing things with my dcs that are educational - having the school dictate what these should be only causes friction and negative associations with learning. Not that much learning takes place!

I agree shimmy.
I am also not going to force my child to dd apiece of homework that I think is pointless, she finds tedious and is beyond expasparated. I want to use our valuable home time by educating my children in the areas that excite and inspire them. Six hours at school is a long time for a primary child, having two more hours of homework too is over the top.

"At our school you are expected to do art homework with your dc - they have this deluded idea that it's good to share an educational project with your dc, so it is definitely not discouraged. I hate art homework with a passion."

Exactly, head at ours even acknowledges "mum's work" sexism alert at assemblies where they're all wearing their easter bonnets or whatever. Children who come in with their own work tend to be mocked by other children for it not being good enough. It's ludicrous.

Well as much as possible I try NOT to do anything art homework with them.

However, my issue is that most of these homework DO require parent intervention (Anyone designed a boat recently?) and then children arrive at school with these wonderful things where the child has never been involved in. And children DO compare each other 'artwork'. When they are young (egY2~Y3), they have no concept of 'this artwork has been done completely but mum and dad and this one has been done my friend' so the ones who have done the work more or less or their own end up feeling down because their 'isn't as good as the others'.

We've also had some posters to do (with full research on the romans) where the children were supposed to then do a presentation in front of the class. One of them brought a powerpoint presentation which she clearly hadn't done herself(again Y2~Y3). The teacher asked the class to mark each presentation and of course said child got the most points....

Cue for me to feel that I have to do some of their homework so they don't feel left out....

Who the heck sets three week art projects for 5 year olds? I don't do DS's homework but it's never an art project. I will go as far as emphatic placing of coloured pencils on the table otherwise all diagrams, posters, maps etc would only be in grey. I also sometimes read through homework and joke I found the deliberate errors so he can now remove them - DS age9 forgets to cross T's/ dot I's/ leaves the answer at 3 decimal places when it requests round to 2, for example. But I don't then check it again so if doesn't find them himself they stay in.

When ds was younger, I have been known to do colouring in for him.

He once spent hours on a homework which required him to make a board game. He came up with an ingenious one and made all the bits. However, because he had not coloured in the squares on his board, the teacher sent it home. Ds's talents do not lie in colouring in. He had made a huge effort already, so I coloured it in for him.

Once worked in a school where major art projects were undertaken at home and then brought back in after the half term.

I knocked that on the head, and made the kids do it in school!

It was clear to me that the parents were doing the work, and seemed so unfair on the few children that did not have that kind of support at home.

The only kids/parents who complained, were the ones who previously had 'won' and now had to work out how to do it for themselves. Tough!

(the kids produced, imo, much better work, and they felt very proud of their achievements, in a way that they hadn't before.)

My heart sinks when an art/project based homework comes home - I let DD2 (she was 9) do her own research and put together her powerpoint presentation on "facts about her local town" - I just pointed her in the right direction and she had a great sense of achievement having done it pretty much herself. Which she then felt miserable about when she went into school and some kids (parents) had done amazingly professional presentations. You could tell by the language that they hadn't all been done by 8/9 year olds - I'd only expect one or two kids in a year to be that good at writing. I mistakenly thought it was for her to learn basic powerpoint skills and research. silly me.

Easter bonnet competitions - not bothering to enter again - she made lovely pompom chicks for her bonnet, all by herself, and tissue paper flowers. Not necessarily the best, not saying she should have won, but it was one of the obviously done-by-a-child ones. Winner for her class was a very lifelike chicken on nest, if that was done by a child at primary school they should be ready for their GCSE art exam already - was beautifully made and didn't bear much resemblance to anything I'd previously seen on the classroom walls (so I'm sure there isn't a fantastically gifted child in her class)

I believe it should be her effort not mine - I've been to school already! My role should be provide materials/guidance on techniques and act as a sounding board - and the odd bit of help if time is an issue or she needs another pair of hands.

Me and my ds (4) have a discussion about his homework the night he gets it, I get supplies the next day if needed. Than we sit down work out what writing needs to be done, I spell the words he writes it. Than he'll draw or make whatever he needs to.
Three hours of patience testing work later it's done and we move onto his reading book