“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.
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
Permanent Link
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
Permanent Link
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
Permanent Link
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
Permanent Link
that is a great idea the kids wil love it
March 3rd, 2010 at 12:25 am
Permanent Link
I understand that homework is stressful, but that’s not really teaching responsibility is it? We all hate the homework but How is telling your kid its ok to NOT do what your teacher asked you to do, but instead eat cake and watch tv.?? Trust me, I have 2 kids so I know what you are talking about. But my oldest child now in the 5th grade comes home, and does her homework without asking. Its only going to get harder and you won’t be able to ban homework forever. You’re only hurting your child.
April 23rd, 2010 at 4:30 pm
Permanent Link
“How is telling your kid its ok to NOT do what your teacher asked you to do, but instead eat cake and watch tv.??”
Oh, boy, you really don’t get it, do you? And you say you have two kids. Looks like you have a lot to learn yourself.
My gosh, we don’t come on this blog to complain, tell our kids not to listen to the teacher, eat cake and watch tv. My family doesn’t even own a tv! Do you truly believe you are completely incapable of teaching your children any responsibility? Is the state raising your child or are you?
And homework overload isn’t about teaching responsibility. The home has become the dumping ground for all that wasn’t covered during the school day, under the guise of “rigor” and “responsibility.”
It’s not about defiance. Who are we defying? We are not little subjects, we are intelligent mothers and fathers here. We are adults in charge of our home life. It’s about our children having time to sink their souls into classic literature all afternoon, it’s about taking them to a museum, a nature center, having political discussions at the dinner table that go on for hours, it’s about raising and growing ethical intellectual happy children.
Those are my motives, my raison d’être. That’s why I came on board. It’s watching hyper-achieving teens lose their love of learning, grovel for grades and treat high school like a giant hoop to jump through.
It’s about finally saying The emperor has no clothes. It’s about decrying that we are using a factory model of education that calls to mind schools of the 1950′s. It’s not about being insolent and defying the teacher but working together (or die trying) to create new schools that work for today and tomorrow, not yesterday.
It’s doing something new, something that hasn’t really been done before. It’s involving the parents instead of ordering them around. It’s about respecting families instead of belittling parents, particularly mothers. It’s about rooting out a desiccated curriculum, designed not to inspire and ignite a passion for learning, but to raise test scores. It’s about teachers today who seem to care more about saving their hide than educating.
April 23rd, 2010 at 5:56 pm
Permanent Link
And homework overload isn’t about teaching responsibility. The home has become the dumping ground for all that wasn’t covered during the school day, under the guise of “rigor” and “responsibility.”
NO it hasn’t. Its called a review of what they were taught that day or week. Preparing for tests so they get good grades. Yes, I have 2 kids and I do Get It! I didn’t post that I couldn’t teach my kids responsibility. I posted that defying a teachers assignment IS not being responsible.
We all have a right to our opinion… sorry that what I posted isn’t that same as yours. You should know that not everyone that would happen to find this sight wouldn’t agree. And No, I’m not a teacher.
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.
And I do all those things after homework is done
April 24th, 2010 at 1:27 pm
Permanent Link
Lovely evening you describe there. Shouldn’t be a problem after six hours of homework.
April 24th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
Permanent Link
Anonymous says:
***
But my oldest child now in the 5th grade comes home, and does her homework without asking.
***
Anonymous, my question for you is, is there any situation that would cause you to say “enough already!”? For instance, what if your child became deeply depressed, had out-of-control crying jags, and started saying that she hates school? How about if the homework took up 4 hours a night, no matter how diligently your child worked at it? Would you still make her do all the work?
April 25th, 2010 at 9:01 am
Permanent Link
Exactly, Fed Up. Because we have been there. And there comes a point at which you say, enough is enough. And if a teacher demands that level of compliance, at all costs, takes no prisoners, there comes a point where you take over, you call the shots, because it’s your home, your rules.
April 25th, 2010 at 4:06 pm
Permanent Link
“I posted that defying a teachers assignment IS not being responsible”
Please let’s not look at this as defiance and insubordination. Doing so has a distinct air of control, power and disdain. It’s disrespectful to parents and treats them like underlings. This is not the way you should perceive your role as parent.
Schools like to call education a partnership. A partnership implies cooperation, dialogue, respect. Name calling has no place in this conversation.
April 25th, 2010 at 6:56 pm
Permanent Link
A lightbulb went off in my head this weekend.
Last week my middle school son had a standardized test one day, and he had no homework the night before. They never have homework the night before standardized tests. I recall a few notes sent home in the past about “we want your kids to be well-rested before the test tomorrow…”
It finally dawned on me: the schools *know* that homework is disruptive and that it leaves kids ill-prepared for the next day because they never get a chance to recharge. But they don’t care except when it affects them.
April 26th, 2010 at 6:37 am
Permanent Link
Yes, on days when there is something important going on in the evenings that involves the children and their attendence at some school function, we parents get the message that we MUST pick up our children early, so they can eat supper and have a rest before they come back. But again, there’s the implication that the teachers have to tell us parents that their students, (our children) need rest, or else we dim parents might not know this.
It is interesting.
April 26th, 2010 at 7:26 am
Permanent Link
Matthew, our public schools do the exact same thing — no homework the week(s) of the tests, and that’s 2 to 3 weeks most years.
Absolutely right, when they actually care about the students’ performance, they ensure the kids get sleep by banning homework.
One of my daughter’s friends, who attends the middle school my daughter would have attended if we hadn’t run screaming from the public schools, says she likes the standardized tests for just that reason. They’re a break from the usual school routine, and there’s no homework!
April 26th, 2010 at 8:14 am
Permanent Link
My child was so depressed about her homework, the thing is i dont have the time to help her when she gets stuch and she has moody fits and crys her eyes out. her teacher had a go at her because she hadnt done homework that she hadnt been told about…she was very upset about this because she was ill that week and she had her back tooth pulled out, her teacher has NO sympathy.
Can we ban this stressful thing called homework???
May 5th, 2010 at 3:28 pm
Permanent Link
I think its great that this mom has given her kid a break but homework is still very important and kids should be developing good homework habits from a young age. I’m 16 myself and I wish I had been prepared for the huge projects and homework assignments that I have to deal with now. Sure you want your kids to have fun while they can but planning homework out and teaching them to time manage now is a very important skill that they will need for the future. For instance I was never really given homework at my old schools, and never really had any tests etc., but now that I look back i wish i had because now in college they have overloaded us and I am not really prepared. So in a way those little tests and homework tasks teachers are giving your kids in primary school are not such a bad thing, because your kids will learn to time manage and when they get to college like me they will be prepared. Hope this helped.
June 5th, 2010 at 1:01 am
Permanent Link
And I can see its been tough with your kids becoming stressed and the teachers having a go at them because they haven’t done their homework, but this is the world we live in. Filled with stress, grades and money. Its all money, money, money. Because I mean this is what its all about in the first place isn’t it. Ideally we all want well payed jobs so we can live in this crazy world, where everything is getting so expensive. And at the basis of it all is education, who does their homework , who gets the degree. So really we all wish, well i wish, that homework wasn’t a necessity and that kids learnt because what they were learning was beautiful, what they are learning is compelling but it is not this way and in the words of homework blues: teens lose their love of learning, grovel for grades and treat high school like a giant hoop to jump through. Everything is just messed up and our kids are at the center of it. They are growing into a world filled with a horrible media that sends across messages to the public that have no meaning. Buy this, buy that. Or the stressful lives adults have at work and then school with the build up of homework. So really this mom Rosie is right by giving her kid a break from the nonsensical world of stress and “you have to do your homework!”. Because there are more important things in life than homework and what society is doing to our kids is just wrong. They are making them grow up into paranoid adults that only see the material things in life, money, degrees etc. And thats not what life should be about. No we should be telling our kids that life is about being with family and having fun, making memories for yourself.
June 5th, 2010 at 1:22 am
Permanent Link
And I should know because I’m a kid, growing up in a society overcrowded with these things. It just makes me wish that our world had not escalated to this, what we call “progress”. With all this new technology, everybody needs the latest apple whatever. And it all branches to what we are teaching our kids our next generation. So don’t stress your kids out with homework, give them a break once in a while. Sure you need to teach them time management and responsibility but don’t let these schools overload them. Don’t let them get to a point where they are so stressed they can’t sleep, because they have not done some stupid assignment. But what do i know right I’m just a kid. I cannot even begin to fathom what is happening here with this homework “situation”. But I do know one thing, that going through these years of pointless exams and homework assignments has taught me, that there is more to life than grades. And that the stress homework creates is just one little pebble in the riverbed that we call “modern society”.
June 5th, 2010 at 1:42 am
Permanent Link
Honestly, I dont think this is such a great idea. I have an eighth grader who is taking 3 high school credit classes. She comes home with about 3 hours of homework a night. If she doesnt get it done her entire gpa is lowered and she wont pass the class. If I didnt make her do her homework when she was little, she would still think it was ok to just not do any homework, which it’s not. She is very stressed out alot and I agree it’s alot to handle, but on Fridays she gets all of her homework done that night, and yes she also has homework on weekends, then we have a relaxing weekend and we all (me, my daughter, my 3rd grade son, and my husband) reward ourselves for working hard this week. We order out for pizza, rent a movie, pop some popcorn, and just relax. Or sometimes we’ll all go out for a fun day, rollerskating and bowling, or movies and park. But anyways, there are ways to relieve stress without teaching your child it’s ok to take shortcuts and skip homework. Trust me those habits will continue and then, when it really matters, it will be much harder work, and alot more of it, and your child will think it’s ok to skip out on it. You should probably try to find other ways to help your daughter relieve her stress.
August 26th, 2010 at 6:56 pm
Permanent Link
Crystal:
Would you take a job where, at the interview, they told you that you have to work on work related tasks every night at home..for free? Would you take a job where they told you to forgo all family time for sake of the “Company”?
Yes, corporate executives take jobs like that. But they get paid handsomely to do it. Children get nothing. They have no choice or control and the content of what they are made to do is usually dull.
This mindset that suffering first leads to greater riches is really bizarre….How about living a balanced happy life? Maybe that really leads to more of the same.
August 27th, 2010 at 7:10 am
Permanent Link
But if you still take the job, weather or not they pay you for doing that overtime at home, you do it. because that’s your job. a kids job is to go to school, work hard, and make a future for themselves. I’m not saying kid’s homework isn’t fun, because i agree, it’s dull and my kids hate it. but there are certain things i hate about my job. that doesnt mean I’m not going to do them. Living a happy balanced life is possible without skipping out on necessary work. It may not seem fair, but some things just arent. What all of you are doing isn’t going to prepare your kids at all. One day your kids arent going to be kids and they won’t be in school anymore, it’s just going to be the real world. And their job might require a little extra effort. maybe some days they have to take a little work home with them, my job requires it, and I don’t get payed for it. When it’s your kids they’ll think it’s ok to skip out on that work when it’s too stressful for them. But that will not put them in a good place with their boss. Things aren’t always fun, but you just have to suck it up, get it done, and then you feel so much better having your work done with.
August 27th, 2010 at 5:43 pm
Permanent Link
Crystal, I really don’t agree. Life contains plenty of unpleasant chores already — why should we go out of our way to invent more?
If homework doesn’t help our kids learn, and I mean learn actual subjects like math or history, not fake subjects like “study habits”, there is just no point. I don’t want to spend a big chunk of my kids’ childhood forcing them to do tasks that have no purpose besides demonstrating compliance.
Childhood is short. Why should our kids spend their childhood stressed out and anxious over useless homework?
August 27th, 2010 at 6:01 pm
Permanent Link
I have literally changed my work schedule to get home an hour earlier because of my son’s homework. He’s in 1st grade, and he has 30 minutes or more of homework every night, and he’s not daydreaming here. They give us a big packet of work every Monday (sometimes Tuesday) and it has to be turned in Friday.
So I try to pick him up a little early so he can have a little snack and work on his packet, and then we can relax before dinner. Without that extra hour, I have to oversee the homework while I make dinner, which is stressful.
It’s tough for working parents; we’re tired too and don’t want to spend our time with our kids fighting about homework. So we as a family literally lose $100 a week so we can be relaxed in the evenings. If it wasn’t for homework, I could leave an hour later and still chat with my son while making dinner.
That’s reality and it’s part of being a parent, but I don’t know if schools truly realize the impact homework has on family life.
November 8th, 2010 at 4:59 pm
Permanent Link
My daughter is home again! from school, I belive this is is because she is exausted. PC is age 7 and has what I think is far to much homework, they are in school all day and then when they get home most of her time is taken with homework. I dont think they shouldnt have any, but shouldnt we remember they are young children and have there adult life to work work work! Yes i think they need to learn that work has to be done, but please, someone give them a break. they need some free time. No doubt ill have a letter telling me she has a poor attendance next.
Hard working, buisness running, mum (Bristol)
December 3rd, 2010 at 7:29 am
Permanent Link
All I have to say if that my daughter’s homeowork takes her from 3:30 to around 11:00
February 16th, 2011 at 3:37 pm
Permanent Link
Actually…..I’m a 11 year old boy..hehe..and I can’t believe that I still said “boo”to the mother even though I hate homework and schools……
March 19th, 2011 at 12:50 am
Permanent Link
Usually…I do homework in my school bus,I have friends to do with and I don’t really like to do it in bus because I’m morning session and always get tired…So,I decided to do it in bus when it’s nessasarily!
March 19th, 2011 at 12:55 am
Permanent Link
I applaud this in some ways- I guess it just seems silly to me to have to ban homework once a week for a six year old. But perhaps that is the problem! Six year olds have too much homework, so that only shows how crazy it gets with age.
At a college age, I’m finding myself burnt out and tired from being in high school. With my college being set up in the same manner (stupid, eh?), I’, sick of it and ready to cry myself to sleep every night. Is this really what it takes to be a respective, well rounded citizen?
I just want to do something with my hands and prove that I am capable of actually producing SOMETHING. I don’t care if it’s making a puddle- I just want to do it and be good at it, rather than learning things that have little relevancy past the class I am taking in regard to the subject.
Why can’t that be the way? Instead of homework, which supposedly only reinforces the ideas that make us good people (when really it just makes us angry, crazy and depressed).
October 25th, 2011 at 11:37 pm
Permanent Link
I wish I could do the same… ban my son from doing his homework. My son, who attends a french school, and has to write in french cursive is under a lot of stress, and overwhelmed by daily homework copying texts, preparing dictation math, etc he simply refuses to do his homework, argues, protests, threatens for hours… as long as I don’t mention homework he is happy as soon As I say come one let’s do the homework , our home becomes a battle ground. he doesn’t understand why he has to do it, since he just came home from school having written those same words or solved those same math problems in the classroom-copy-book… at the beginning I was not pressuring him then i was summoned to a meeting with the teacher and coordinator… I was warned that if I don’t make my son do his homework he will go on to have very bad handwriting throughout his life. I told them but he is just in grade one… encourage him, motivate him be patient…they wouldn’t have any of it… they said this is the French methode… I envy you. Good luck. I will follow your posts.. and get inspired. Thank you.
December 21st, 2011 at 4:56 pm
Permanent Link