Is it possible that the best way to help our kids succeed in school is by not helping them?
Family psychologist and best-selling author John Rosemond discusses homework, parent participation and achievement levels in his book Fail-Safe Formula for Helping Your Child Succeed in School. He shares that with the homework ABC’s kids can succeed on their own.
All by myself. In other words, the child does their homework in their room.
By myself. Which means that parents aren’t involved sitting there helping the child do their homework.
Call it quits. That parents need to set up the limit, a deadline per evening that defines when homework has to be done and put away.
“What I have found is that when parents observe those 3 simple rules in setting up a Homework Management Program, things go extremely well and homework doesn’t become a family drama.”
Does having your child do more homework, encourage higher achievement?
John says no. Studies have shown that children reach a point of diminishing returns at different places in their lives and homework becomes a burden for many.
“At a certain point, the doing of homework becomes counter-motivational. In other words, the child begins to view academics as not a challenge, but a burden and begins to dislike school because that’s where the burden is assigned.”
He adds that many of our school systems believe that the amount of homework given to a student will factor into their learning outcome.
“This is what’s going on in America’s Public schools, all too many private schools and all too many Christian schools…the powers that believe that the more homework they give, the more learning will take place”
We need to pay attention to the research.
“Research just simply doesn’t confirm that at all, it disconfirms it. Schools are not paying attention to the research, if they did, they would operate in a completely different fashion than the way they are operating today.”
John recommends a fail-safe formula for helping your child succeed in school.
“The fact of the matter is that all of the recommendations that I make are based on solid research.
The longest, most expensive, broadest, study on parent-participation and homework that has ever been done confirms what is counterintuitive…that is, the less help parents give, the higher a child’s achievement level will ultimately be.”
