Homework

Hi all and welcome to The Big Family Experience! In this Blog I wanted to touch base on the subject of the dreaded “H” word…duh duh duhhhhhh…HOMEWORK! Parents hate it, kids hate it, everyone wishes teachers wouldn’t give it. It’s a family time eater! Our kids spend so much time in school studying for their next test, that I feel a lot of other needed content is not given the time that is needed during school, that it just gets handed off as homework. I am all for helping our children learn and help where it is needed, but I also feel like our teachers and schools are so under the gun to meet performance standards, that the bulk of school time anymore is preparing for tests, state tests and so on, so much so that the core curriculum is being overlooked. My experience…and it may not be this way for everyone, is that homework is being sent home without the kids knowing or barley understanding what they are working on. I have had to sit down countless times with my kids and see the frustration on their faces with their homework because they simply do not “get” what they were given to bring home. More often then not, the teacher gave the homework while barely teaching or going over the content, then handed the kids a worksheet or assigned problems and sent them on their way. My daughter has came home from school countless times telling me that all they did was test prep, practice tests and tell me that the teachers ran out of time to teach the material, so they had to send it home for the parents to teach. Now, I don’t know about you…but it has been awhile since I had to do some of these math problems, let alone try to remember how to do them correctly and then teach them to my child. I get frustrated by the workload, the lack of time being given to core curriculum and the time being given to test taking…then the fact that it eats up so much of our family time.

Do you think that too much homework results in excess stress, physical and emotional problems and leaves little or no time for leisure and family time? I know my daughters have been overworked, over stressed and suffered migraines from staring at a book or laptop for too long and have had to pull all nighters just to finish their work loads. I can play devils advocate here and speak how homework can help foster or reinforce what kids learn during the school day and help teach them how to buckle down, but at the same time how much is too much? Where do we as parents have to draw that proverbial line in the sand? Do you think our kids are being given enough time to just be kids anymore? To enjoy life and the beauty of the outdoors? To be free to explore and be care free? Please weigh in the comment section below and share your stories and your view on the homework debacle and as always don’t forget to like and share our Blog! 😉