Have your kids made a second career out of whining about homework? Banish their complaints and everyone wins.
A recurring discussion at the Fitzpatrick family dinner table throughout the years has been this:
"Why do we have to do homework? Why is there even such a thing as homework? We do work all day in school and then the few spare minutes we have at home to do whatever we want, we have to do more school work. It's not fair. Our teachers expect way too much of us. What do they think we are? Homework machines?"
There are times that I agree with them. We've had teachers that handed out entirely too much homework and seemed to be unaware that they not only had five or six other classes to work on, but had lives outside of school. There were years where I hesitated to give my kids too many chores to do, I felt they were overburdened enough with homework.
For the most part, I've tried to encouraged them to just do it. Rearrange your schedule, use your time wisely, be prepared, and stop complaining and just do the homework. Your grades will improve, you'll be better prepared for tests, and before you know it, the year will be over and you'll have another teacher who might go a little easier on you.
It helps when parents create the right kind of atmosphere for getting homework done. Set aside a nice, quiet place for your kids to do homework and keep yourself nearby - making dinner, reading or doing some homework of your own. Be there for when they need someone to proofread a paper, answer a question, or quiz them on vocab or spelling words.
Let them vent to you about their homework complaints, but after they get it out of their systems, help them get back to work.
