Watching What You Say
If your children get the impression that you never liked to do homework
and that you thought of ways to get around doing homework, they probably
won't want to work very hard on it either. They can tell when you are "not
so happy" that they have homework to do after ballet lessons or sports
practices.
Young children receiving their first home assignments will be excited
about doing them. There's a wonderful enthusiasm about being given such
a "big student" responsibility. It's your job to try to keep
this enthusiasm going, but no matter what, it's the student's job to do
the homework.
If you disagree with what a teacher is giving your child for homework,
it's best not to grumble about this at home. Talk with the teacher and
learn about the purpose of the homework, if the teacher explained what
to do carefully in class, if the teacher let the children start on it in
class to see how individual students did with the assignment, etc. Perhaps
there is a problem and the teacher didn't realize that the children wouldn't
know how to do the assignment at home, perhaps what to do was explained
and your child didn't listen, perhaps there was a misunderstanding about
what was to be done (For example, child thinks an entire report is due
the next day and what was required was an introduction.), . . . .
