“I Have Banned My Child from Doing Home­work,” says Eng­lish Mum

Rosie Scrib­ble, a free­lance writer in the U.K. who spe­cial­izes in men­tal health issues and blogs about life with her 6 year old, wrote a won­der­ful piece about why she doesn’t make her daugh­ter do home­work. Many of the com­menters also wrote that they didn’t make their chil­dren do home­work, either. Now, if they could all inspire their friends and their friends’ friends, etc., home­work for young chil­dren would no longer exist (after all, most ele­men­tary school chil­dren require some kind of parental involve­ment to get their home­work done).

I Have Banned My Child from Doing Home­work
by Rosie Scribble

Some­times I get a bit hot under the col­lar, stamp my foot and decide that what­ever I have been told to do — I’m not doing it.

Then I won­der why my six-year-old daugh­ter does the same.

How­ever today, once again, I have decided there are a few things that our lit­tle fam­ily will not be doing, for one day at least.

Here’s the list:

    I.J. [my daugh­ter] will not be doing any home­work
    I.J. will not be watch­ing News­round
    I.J. will not be look­ing at her school read­ing book
    I will not be dis­cussing key­words and spellings with I.J.
    I will not be test­ing her on her addi­tion and mul­ti­pli­ca­tion
    I will not be help­ing her to prac­tise her alpha­bet
    We will not be doing any­thing related in any way to edu­ca­tion
    We shall only be doing fun things
    Why?

Because a mother knows when her child is under stress, when she has had enough and is over-tired and over-sensitive, when being asked to watch the news will only add to her cur­rent anx­i­eties, when num­ber work at school is get­ting her down to the point where she can’t sleep at night, when the pres­sure to prac­tise her read­ing every night is get­ting her down, when it is all becom­ing too much.

A mother knows when her child needs a night off, a break from it all, and when a dose of fun takes pri­or­ity over homework.

So here’s what we will do instead:

    We’ll close the cur­tains, turn off the lights and turn the front room into a cin­ema
    We’ll watch a brand new DVD, pos­si­bly Cloudy with a chance of Meat­balls as rec­om­mended by A Mod­ern Mother
    We’ll eat party food fol­lowed by choco­late cake
    We’ll cud­dle up on the sofa
    We’ll shut out the rest of the world
    We’ll for­get about school
    We’ll for­get about every­thing else
    We’ll have some fun
    And I’ll hope for a calmer more relaxed child tomorrow.

(Read the post and the accom­pa­ny­ing com­ments here.)

5 Comments on ““I Have Banned My Child from Doing Home­work,” says Eng­lish Mum”

  1. Rosie Scribble says:

    Many thanks for the men­tion, Sara. My post cer­tainly got peo­ple think­ing and it was inter­est­ing to hear their views. Many felt pri­mary school chil­dren were get­ting far too much home­work. They get tested over year in school aged 6 so that might be one rea­son why. I don’t think for­mal tests like that should exist but that’s a whole other debate!

    February 4th, 2010 at 8:06 am
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  2. Fred Baumgarten says:

    I really needed this — thank you! I am going to insti­tute a day like that in our house!!

    February 4th, 2010 at 8:17 am
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  3. PsychMom says:

    Oh it’s nice to know there are some sane par­ents around. My child is 8 and I absolutely cringe when she says she’s got work to do at home.…mostly I do it for her unless we can make some sort of game out of it that’s quick and done. It’s such an offence really. I object to the pres­sure placed on the kids at such a young age. She was so happy to report to me the other night that her “Unfin­ished Work” file was empty at school. Why should an 8 year old need to feel a bur­den that fol­lows adults prac­ti­cally their whole work­ing lives?

    February 4th, 2010 at 8:42 am
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  4. Crystal Jigsaw says:

    I fan­tas­tic idea. My daugh­ter (10 yrs old) is autis­tic and doesn’t get home­work because she can’t cope with it. She’s done enough work at school — home is for home life. This should be the case for all chil­dren until they need to start study­ing of course.

    Fab­u­lous post from Rosie, as always.
    Crys­tal Jigsaw

    February 4th, 2010 at 4:07 pm
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  5. Anonymous says:

    that is a great idea the kids wil love it

    March 3rd, 2010 at 12:25 am
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