How much supervision is "normal" to give to Yr 8 (DS) re homework?

[Blewitt]

Ds Year 8 is completely hopeless with his homework. I don't think he would do any if I didn't look online and tell him exactly what he has to do every night. He has no idea mentally of what he might have due and more or less all of them seem to take him by surprise. He says he didn't get the sheet, he can't remember doing anything in class associated with what is set etc. What he does do is pretty poor but he seems to get away with it and I'm not about to start doing it for him. I just want to know if this is typical of a Yr 8 boy and will he at any point start to take responsibility himself? I could just do nothing and let him get into trouble and have detentions but they don't really seem to bother him. When I have left him to self manage, nothing gets done.

A thought, what are they doing instead of homework? Do they have screen time during the weeks? Or other things that are more fun..?

I mean, of course it’s easy to not pay attention to homework if there are more tempting things to do.

My Year 8 DD is exactly like this, she will not knuckle down to homework unless chivvyed. She comes home from school, picks up a book, and doesn't do anything else until reminded, and that includes packing her bag for the next day, taking a shower, brushing her teeth, putting her phone on the charger.
DS did still need a fair bit of chivvying when he was in year 8, but some time about Year 9 /10 he suddenly grew up and took on responsibility himself and I don't even bother to check the online homework app for him anymore, as he is totally on top of it. Only thing we have to remind him about is practicing for his French oral with DH, because a) DS dislikes practicing for the oral, although he is getting better about that, but b) he operates on the principle that DH's life revolves around his, and that DH will be available to practice the oral at whatever time, day or night, that DS decides he wants to do it, and not when it is actually convenient for DH. So he needs to be reminded, fairly constantly, that if he wants to do the oral practice tonight, he might need to do it before maths or whatever else he has on. DH's French is much better than mine, so I can't substitute.

But basically I think they do mature, although DS is now more mature than most, but I don't think he was in Year 8. DD is a lot worse in this regard than DS was, and I do wonder if she has some sort of special need. Alternatively I wonder if it is because she is a summer baby, and not much older than the Year 7's, whereas DS is in the older half of the year.

I didn’t supervise at all but I would help if asked or if they seemed to be struggling with something. One of mine refused all offers of help though, insisting they wanted to do it by themselves, even if they didn’t quite understand. I wouldn’t know at all what homework they were given and I wouldn’t check. The only thing I would do was nag about not leaving weekend homework to be done on Sunday evening.

DS in year 8 also.. He is fine with homework but needs reminding at times and revision is really painful - he won't do it independently and if he does it's patchy at best. I really worry about him, as revision will be really important later on.

No tips as Dd1 needed a bit of support in year 7 but by year 8 was totally independent.. I do think it's maturity a lot if it...

I have twins in year 7 - both in different grammar schools. Both of then forget homework. The only difference is its easy to get my son to do homework while my daughter struggles. I have discovered after seeing specialists with my daughter that children can have issues with the working memory part of their brain - it can affect their organisation abilities.

I haven't told my dd to do homework since y1. (She's now y11)
Her brother (y8) has to check his planner when it's time to study then does his homework. He has a specific study time because if I left it up to him, he'd check at bedtime then find he has work for the next day. He generally does the subjects that he likes best first rather than the ones that are due first. He knows not to leave stuff until the night before because he often doesn't have the stamina to do it in one go and his work will be better quality if split into more than one night. In y7 I had to check his planner and tell him which subject to do so this is a considerable improvement.

Our DS was hopeless so we took control ourselves right from the start of year 7. Each night we literally sat next to him to make sure he did it and, yes, we helped a lot - it was more our work than his.

But we started to stand back in year 8, more in year 9, so by the time he was in year 10, he was in control himself and did everything himself to very high standards. All we did in years 10/11 was to "prod" him to do it.

So, it's not really a "bad" thing to take control and do it yourself, but you have to make sure you start to stand back and transition to him doing it himself. I think the first couple of years at secondary are more about familiarisation and getting used to "big school", so if they're not motivated to do quality homework themselves, then you have to take control.

It's just that some parents seem to feel that they must manage every aspect of their children's lives.

If the children need it, then it's the parent's job to support them.

My mother used to dictate essays to me when I started secondary school back in the 1970s. It's not a "modern mum" thing at all. It also did me no harm as I got a grade B at GCE English and a grade B at A level English.

Far more harmful would be to let your child produce crap to hand in or not do homework at all.

You have to strike a balance.