Your children and their homework - do you help them?

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Waaib

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If you have kids or siblings much younger than you do you help them with their homework? I can't remember anyone ever helping me with my homework.

I have a daughter in grade 3 and she gets about an hour of homework everyday. If I don't help her through it she gets basically nothing done.

I've asked the teacher about it and she says we shouldn't be worried but the kiddo is bringing home tests with results like 1/6 and 2/15. The teacher has more than 20 years experience and is highly respected at the school.

I'm interested to hear your thoughts and experience.

Thanks!
 
If you can have your child evaluated by an occupational therapist. They will be able to evaluate if your child is up to standard for her age group & would be able to recommend remedial work or extra classes in the areas where she needs to pay more attention.
 
I've often assisted others with homework, but one just has to be careful on not doing it for them. Last time I helped my 11yr old daughter (she lives with her mom) with her homework, I had to explain things on paper and then ask her question to see if she understood. I've also learn't never to answer the question while explaining, rather use a similar example.

On what Venomous posted, my 3yr old son is behind on his speech and we saw various people about it, its not cheap but its worth it. Identify the problem now and work on it. A teacher with 20yr experience is not indication if she is a good teacher or a bad one.
 
I always let mine to it themselves, I am in principle against helping them, because I believe that it makes them lazy, if they did ask me for help however with science of math etc, I would usually ask them: "so wat verstaan jy reeds" and have my own way into guiding them into doing it themselves.
 
Venomous said:
If you can have your child evaluated by an occupational therapist. They will be able to evaluate if your child is up to standard for her age group & would be able to recommend remedial work or extra classes in the areas where she needs to pay more attention.
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Yup,I went to a remedial school for a bit.
 
I don't help mine do it, but I do make sure she understands the work by checking what she did / is busy doing, and then helping her to understand.

I must admit though... she's in grade 11 and some of the stuff even I find hard to understand! :D
 
If by help you mean do it for them, then obviously not. But if you mean explain and guide, then definitely yes. How else are they going to learn? If the idea was to simply let them struggle through without assistance we wouldn't need teachers, just give them the books and tell them to figure it out.
 
I can't remember having homework in grade 3 myself except for this one time where we were asked to go and research "lang-deling" (in Std1), I couldn't do it and I got pinched under the soft parts of my upper thigh. After that all my work was finished at school, except my history projects and other projects in general. I think kids get too much homework these days in the lower grades and all those projects where less than half of the marks are for the content.
 
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Either the missus or myself sits with out eldest when she's doing her homework, not so much because she needs or assistance but mostly just so we're involved. Her teacher insists on it (we have to sign off on her work) and we're happy to comply
Venomous said:
If you can have your child evaluated by an occupational therapist. They will be able to evaluate if your child is up to standard for her age group & would be able to recommend remedial work or extra classes in the areas where she needs to pay more attention.
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Our eldest has always been one of the youngest in her class since she started pre-primary so when faced with making the decision whether or not to start her in grade one this year or next we decided to consult an OT. After a couple months of a weekly therapy session she went from marginally behind in a few areas to advanced levels for her age so we had no qualms about having her start primary school this year. Probably some of the best money we've spent on her education so far.

On the flip side when she was three it was suggested that speech therapy might nip a few potential problems in the bud but in hindsight we realise that was a complete waste of money.
 
My parents never helped me or my sister with our homework. My dad loved checking my history and biology projects though...but not to help me with it...just to read it and see what I had to say :-)

The only help I got was from my sister...she was a wizz at maths and I really struggled with Algebra and ...erm.....Meetkunde (not sure what that is in English)
 
noxibox said:
If by help you mean do it for them, then obviously not. But if you mean explain and guide, then definitely yes. How else are they going to learn? If the idea was to simply let them struggle through without assistance we wouldn't need teachers, just give them the books and tell them to figure it out.
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+1
 
Waaib said:
I've asked the teacher about it and she says we shouldn't be worried but the kiddo is bringing home tests with results like 1/6 and 2/15.
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Isn't that scary. Also have a kid in school and I recently learned from a teacher "... it is okay to have 48%. Anything below 40% should be worrysome" - quite a shocker that schools nowadays start treating results slightly below 50% still as a "PASS". It grinds me when my kid flunks a test and the teacher then writes "Well done" next to it. I have started to put my "educational thoughts" next to hers.

Is it just me or is homework for kids nowadays shockingly little? Looking at grade 6 homework, kids have till Thursday to complete and it isn't more than 2 hours effort. Perhaps showing my age, but when I was going through school we used to slave over homework and studying for tests every afternoon and there was no concept of having free-time in the afternoons during school.

I think the educational system is taking a major dive (just looking at our internship applications, the average score across graduates is about 60%).
 
When my daughter was in primary school we would sometimes try and help her and n occasions came here for help. If we did not help her I would only see her to sign her homework book.Now that she is in high school I have yet to see a homework book.
 
MagicDude4Eva said:
quite a shocker that schools nowadays start treating results slightly below 50% still as a "PASS".
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40% was the pass mark at South African schools decades ago. Where do people get this idea that it was 50%?

Is it just me or is homework for kids nowadays shockingly little?
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Actually the common complaint of the parents I've spoken to is that these days children get huge amounts of homework. Way more than was typical back in the days when I was at school. Grade 6 would have been standard 4 for us. Can't say there was that much homework to do.

there was no concept of having free-time in the afternoons during school.
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We definitely had that concept. Frankly the entire 7 years of primary school could have been covered in at most 4 years, but then of course children would not have time to be children.

Anyway excessive amounts of homework is not a measure of the quality of education.
 
MagicDude4Eva said:
Isn't that scary. Also have a kid in school and I recently learned from a teacher "... it is okay to have 48%. Anything below 40% should be worrysome" - quite a shocker that schools nowadays start treating results slightly below 50% still as a "PASS". It grinds me when my kid flunks a test and the teacher then writes "Well done" next to it. I have started to put my "educational thoughts" next to hers.

Is it just me or is homework for kids nowadays shockingly little? Looking at grade 6 homework, kids have till Thursday to complete and it isn't more than 2 hours effort. Perhaps showing my age, but when I was going through school we used to slave over homework and studying for tests every afternoon and there was no concept of having free-time in the afternoons during school.

I think the educational system is taking a major dive (just looking at our internship applications, the average score across graduates is about 60%).
Click to expand...

i think you are :P i remember in grade 6, we got 1 week to prepare on an oral on any topic
 
Its all relative, school needs to repair you for varsity, if you go to a school were you dont get home work for the 1st 11years of school and then suddenly they give you work in matric you are going to kak your pants... If you dont get much work at all, the step up is big when you hit uni.. I myself went to a school were the workload was constant and we where properly prepared but i saw a lot of friend struggle to cope with the work at varsity in the beginning.. I am now in my 3rd Bcom Accounting and lets just say we dont have any play time no more :P
 
It makes no difference anyway. There is such a huge chasm between the way of teaching at school and at university and the complexity of the material taught that no-one is really prepared. Going from one standard to the next meant a fairly minor increase in complexity and workload, but not going from matric to 1st year. School was mostly a waste of time.

There's a very good case to be made for keeping homework to the minimum or non-existent for the first few years of school and then gradually introducing it. School is such a thoroughly unnatural environment as it is and has been set up to run entirely contrary the way children naturally learn. So much so that I have always presumed those who came up with it had no exposure to children and had no recollection of what being a child was like.
 
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