Why Homework for Kids is a Valuable Asset to Life Lessons for the Future

You might now be asking yourself if homework assignments do really help children learn, and how you can manage to make it a positive and successful experience. Homework can have many benefits for young children. It not only improves remembering and understanding of schoolwork, but it enables students to develop valuable life-skills that will be of vital, even after they leave school.

According to John Rosemond, (author on parenting) here are the 7 values that homework develops: responsibility; autonomy; perseverance; time management; initiative; self-reliance and resourcefulness.

Here are some strategies for successful homework management:

  • Setting goals at the beginning of the academic year. When students set their own goals, they take responsibility and ownership of their
    learning goals. It can be especially important for students with low achievement motivation, thus the goals set are their motivator.
  • Allowing participation in choosing the time-frame for homework is very important as you make them responsible for their choice and avoid making them resisting of responding to your orders.
  • Encouraging tools which helps with the child’s learning style (auditory, visual, kinesthetic) Visual learners can best learn through bright colors, diagrams and other visual aids.
  • Praising effort instead of results and take away all emphasis on tests. You can surely discuss the results to understand what went wrong and say: “show me what you’ve tried and where you did well, and let’s see what went wrong and figure out what you can try next”.
  • Be a ‘consulting parent’ instead of a ‘parent participant.’ Many studies show negative effects when parents are asked to help students with homework. Children don’t feel the issue of homework is their concern. Parents are compensating not correcting the problem, and children are not being held accountable. Consulting parents are available, they assign responsibilities. They send positive messages to their children (“you can do it by yourself”), they encourage independence. Whereas, parent participants or the “over-involved” parent hovers, they assume responsibilities. They send negative messages to their children (“you need me to do your homework”), they produce dependent children.

    • (Credit: Haifa Dada, Youth, Parent and Family Coach & Addiction Recovery Coach/Cognitive Behavioral Coach)