Help with homework?

He's 10. He reads for around 15-20 minutes to me.
I think 45 mins is ridiculous. Anyone would be hard pushed to read for that long, and I'd be hard pushed to listen too!

How old is this grandson, MissA? Mind you, if he likes reading to you that's just fine. It's just that by the time they were six and a half or so my kids wanted to be left alone to read to themselves (after we'd read the bedtime story to them) and fall asleep with their face in a book.

45 minutes!!!!!

I have to listen to grandson read for at least 45 mins, 5 days a week minimum, apparently.

My father helped me with the weekly learning of Shakespeare and poetry - he remembered it for years after whilst I forgot! I helped my DSs, first listening to reading and at secondary school giving suggestions on the homework. I do the same now with DGC. The older one asks me first rather than her parents if she wants advice. The difference nowadays is the advice is usually how to search for something online.

My Mum never helped me with my homework, I don't think she often understood it! My grandmother taught me to read and write before I ever started school, and I remember my granddad helping me to understand multiplication and division, and then I was told off for doing it a different way to what we were taught! I never had homework at primary of junior school, only in secondary school.

We helped our children with their homework when we were able to and when they asked for help, which wasn't often, but we never did the work for them. Usually it was spellings, history, geography, maths or research or providing materials for creative projects. When my eldest son was studying Art & Design he remembered one morning that he needed some paintbrushes for his lesson - so he took some of mine. His teacher noticed what he was painting with, and asked where he had got them. When he told her she took my best Sable watercolour brushes off him, carefully cleaned them and gave him something more suitable!

We live too far away to be able to help our grandchildren who are all at the Primary/Junior stage, but their parents help as much as they can with reading, writing, maths, spelling and projects etc. They often spend the best part of the evening on homework, only stopping when it's bedtime. Far too much homework! Personally I don't think children of that age should be given homework at all. After a long day at school they need time to socialise and relax with their families.

Completely agree with you Lucky

This whole business of parents helping children with homework is a farce. Firstly the homework should not exist (particularly in primary school) and secondly it is the pupil's homework and how can the teacher make a judgement as to how the child is progressing if they are being helped with it? - it is not their work.

Help with homework does not mean physically doing the work for you child. It means sitting with them while THEY do the homework and if a word is pronounced wrong while reading you are there to correct it. If they are stuck on a sum, you can give them alternatr ways to work out the sun until they find the correct answer. When it comes to spelling, they look at the word, say the word, YOU repeat the word so that the can hear the correct pronunciation, cover the word and write the word. Helping your children with a project, is more so you giving them advice on where they can find relevant information and allowing them figure out what needs to be out down.

Today so many parents sit on Thai phones when that time could be invested in one on one time with their children, even if it's showing interest in their homework time.

When my children were young their homework in infants and juniors mainly consisted of learning spellings, some reading, learning tables and doing sums with occasional projects. All aimed at their level. But when I visited my daughter and saw what my then 8 year old granddaughter had for homework I could believe that a teacher would give children of that age such complicated homework. It was more what I thought you give a 15 year old asking her what she thought of that and what conclusion did she draw from the other. My daughter says my granddaughter is dyslexic although this has not been confirmed by the school but even they didn't understand what was required. I don't think children should have homework like that before high school age. Let them be children for goodness sake.

I can remember calling a halt to homework which took up too much of my daughters time.
She was very sporty: netball before school, basketball after, plus other sports too.
She barely had any free time.

When I was in 6th year and my sister in 3rd, she wanted help with Latin exercises. But it was quicker if I just did the work for her rather than spend time explaining and I am sure that our Latin teacher knew exactly what was going on. However, something must have rubbed off as sister came very near the top in that year's exam! So older siblings, as well as parents, can be useful if they don't mind. 60 years later, I might suggest that it's pay-back time.

Well you are a lot of well educated ladies aren't you. I didn't help my children because my education was limited and I didn't understand what they were doing. But as one poster said surely the purpose of homework was to see if the children had understood the lesson, and parents helping would confuse the issue;

It didn't occur to me as a child that a parent would help with homework.
With my own children and as a single mum, time spent together in the evenings was precious. My son was (undiagnosed) dyslexic and homework could drag on with hours of frustration if I didn't put a time limit on it. He was highly intelligent but written work was allocated a mark to go towards the final exam grade so I sometimes acted as his 'scribe'.
However, both children learnt to be independant, supportive and resourceful as a result of their upbringing and both have their own successful businesses now. Ideally
I think working for 6 structured hours a day at school should be balanced with a creative and supportive homelife in the evenings and not be a continuation of school work.

I can see no problem with home work. providing it is both proportionate and appropriate. I had homework ,certainly at secondary school. probably younger at some primary schools (I went to 8) and my children had homework as well. tables and spellings in primary school. more complicated at secondary school. Much the same as DGC have now, it never bothered my DC nor does it bother my DGC, they learn their tables and spellings without complaint.

I think having homework is important at secondary school. It helps the children develop self-discipline and to be self-starters. When they go on to further education, lecturers will not be clucking around their little biddies checking on how their essay is going, whether they need any help, to remember to hand it in on time and so on. As students they will be given a topic and a date and time to hand it in by and left to organise their time to do the proper research, Write the essay and get it in, with penalties if it is late. If they have developed a lot of these skills before they enter further education, they have a head start and will do better

My dad always refused to even let me DO homework ,and insisted school was for schoolwork .
My teachers always thought I was telling porkies

I think it is no bad thing to involve parents in helping with homework, as they are then aware of what topics their children are learning at school and may be able to extend their interest in ways a teacher cannot. I was very lucky that my Mum was a librarian so if I had a project to do she would keep an eye out for useful books and bring them home for me. When my daughters had been learning about 'Myths and Legends' (DD2) and Ancient Greece (DD1) we had a holiday in Crete and visited the palace of Knossos (home of the Minotaur). Last week GS1 had to prepare a presentation about Beatrix Potter and he had been on holiday to the Lake District with us and his family. We had great fun going over old photos so he could choose which ones to use.

I do wonder what is covered during school hours when I see the amount of homework both GDs have to deal with at home. Youngest GD is tired after school and absolutely not in the mood to do yet more school work. All this accomplishes is unessesary stress for DD as she tries to motivate GD to get the work done which then has to be signed off and GD getting upset as Mummy has to make sure GD realises this has to be done.

I'm talking about young children here, not teenagers. Nowadays even five and six year olds are expected to do "homework". Ridiculous!

Children do learn through play. But they also need to learn to read and write and do some basic math. The two can coexist.

I agree, alchemilla. Six hours at school a day should be enough for a child to learn to read and write and some important social skills.

Take out time for them to do all life's necessaries: washing, toilet, getting dressed, having teeth cleaned, eating meals at home, etc, etc. and what's left should be for them to make their own choices. So when my child wanted to make a pile of stones outside and not practise reading her "reading book" from school, I let her.

That's what I call side by side. If six hours a day "schooling" isn't enough what the hell are schools doing?

No never got help. Helped my two when they were in primary school. Couldn’t help in secondary school.
Had to pay for a maths tutor for my gd. Still struggles with maths even at college even though she’s retaking her gcse maths. I don’t believe in homework.

Children do learn through play. But they also need to learn to read and write and do some basic math. The two can coexist.

I regret helping my DCs. I was more interested in their homework than they were. I don't think it helped with the key thing: confidence to try, fail, try again and succeed. And organising themselves. With my GCs I'm keeping well back apart from talking to them, taking them to museums etc, and reading/listening to them read.

At the first term "meet and greet" I would tell the new teacher "I am a single parent. I don't do homework". Of course I would still take them to the library to get a book on a particular project, and I must admit, I DID love getting a clean large sheet of white Bristol Board and giving suggestions for collage........ Both got degrees, and Post Grad Degrees, so they didn't need me anyhow!

Children learn through play. "Educationists" seem either to have forgotten that or never to have known it.

I agree with your daughter, saggi, at least at primary school level. We told the headteacher at Minibaggs's primary school that she would not be doing homework set by her class teachers because she was far too busy doing her own thing when not in school. And, besides, it was none of a school's business what a child was doing when not in school.

I kept a copy of the letter I wrote to the HT explaining our views and each year gave her new class teacher a copy of it.

She read her way through the kids' section of the local library so that by the time she went to high school the teachers there could tell how well read she was because of her enormous vocabulary.

She's now in her final year at high school (she did homework throughout high school, never because we said she had to but because she wanted to) and has received two unconditional offers of university places for later this year.

My older kids were never given any homework to do at primary school. Neither was I. Nor were my four siblings. Neither were my parents. We all have degrees.