Is Home Work Important?

  

 
                               Guide to Helping Children with Home Work

According to  the collin's dictionary home work is work done at home.  Home Work is a sore point with many parents and students. For students they feel as if home work should be non existence and takes up too much time and on the other hand home work is a torture that many parents would love to wish away.
Home work should not be a burden but rather should be a continuation of  work done  during the school period. Unfortunately  many schools pile on too much home work which really isn't necessary and often times children are very much turned off as well as parents end up doing their children's home work.

With technology at our finger tips it is very easy to access information but having this simple access is often abuse as parents  log on to the internet to get answers to their children's home work. What is meant to be a learning process for children ends up being all too easy which leaves children without learning important skills on how to access information or even acquiring correct study skills.
Some countries have looked at the possibility of banning home work. Having had a home school for several years I personally was not a fan of having students do a lot of home work, and in some instances there were parents who thought I needed to give more work. So what really is the point of home work?

Parents should not get stressed over helping  their children with home work but should rather take it in strides. When I used to be in the class room one of the things I encouraged parents to do is if they come across a concept that they do not know instead of stressing over it either tell their child to ask the teacher to explain or they set up a meeting with the teacher. But it was quite okay for it not to be completed in that moment.

1.  Parents should guide their children with home work and not give them the answers or do it for them.

2. Discourage children from going on to google to search for answers. If your child does not know the answer or how to solve a problem chances are that the concept was not grasp correctly, therefore children should be encourage to speak with their teacher.
3.  If children are in private school or in a school that gives a lot of home work parents should set up a system  to complete the home work. For example maybe start with simple subjects first and so on.

4. Children should have a desk or sit around a table when doing home work. Try to cut out the distractions around. No television in the back ground or iPods on.
5. Do not be afraid to let your child know that you do not  know the answer and if you are solving a problem and your child complains that is not how it is done by the teacher, then meet with the teacher so that you are on the same page with how your child is taught. You will then have consistency which is important to a child learning pattern.
6. Children should be encourage to do home work as they get home or at a certain time during the weekend and not wait until the last minute as this proves to be stressful to both parents and children.
7. Children with learning disabilities should not be over whelmed with  all the home work at once but rather should be given home work in small portions at a time. For such children structure is very important and breaks should be given in between.
8. Always remember that you learn best by doing and children need to learn how to learn. If helping your child with home work is stressful then seek help either from the teacher a tutor or another family member who may have more patience.

The essence of home work should be to practice and build on concepts learned. It should not be a burden or should not be stressful to children.