Homework with teenagers

Homework with teenagers

Let me just say this one thing. Homework should be banned. I am a mother to 5 children and a I’m a teacher; I rarely set homework, research maybe.

The reason being is I am not my children’s teacher when it comes to homework. I learnt maths differently than they did, I had to go to the library to research things and I don’t believe just ‘googling’ something is always accurate.

When the kids come home from school with their home/coursework, the teacher does not provide me with a copy of their aims and objectives for the lesson and kids being kids (well mine anyway) do the absolute minimum necessary to complete their homework.

What is annoying me at the moment is my son’s private school, who we pay to educate him in boarding school and who know we are in the middle of relocating from South Africa to Dubai over Christmas have sent over tonnes of home/coursework for him to complete. Most of it has to be completed online and the hotel wifi isn’t the best in regards to speed for downloading and connectivity.

As with the other children I’m fighting a battle to get this work down, he sits GCSE’s in 2015 then A levels. I had the same battles eith the other children, it hasn’t got any easier, I’m still wondering why I’m paying all this money for my sons education, especially as I only see him 4 times a year maximum and the entire visit each time, I’m nagging him to do homework..

Hubby has a solution he offered to the 15 year old this week, after seeing the pressure I was under that if he passes his GCSE’s to include English and Maths, he’ll buy him an Iphone 6 plus.

Now I wish I’d thought of bribary earlier. It would have saved a lot of hassle.

Children's Homework

But you don't have kids living at home anymore, why are you blogging about homework?

I tutor a 12 year boy in study skills 2 days a week after school. He has the knowledge but like a lot of children his age, he doesn't have the concentration span and is tired after 8 hours at school.

I don't recall homework being this difficult when I was a child, I don't remember my parent's forcing me to do it. Maybe they did, maybe I didn't get any, maybe like most parenting experiences I've just blocked out the pain of persuading and bribing my children to do theirs. Maybe it's just easier when it's 'someone else's child'.

When my eldest now 22 used to get homework, it was paper based, in a world before google, it was reading, spellings and maybe an experiment, it also involved collecting a lot of things to take to school from what I recall of walks in the wood, with plastic bags full of leaves and I remember ageing a document with tea and putting it in the oven to age. We had a gas oven...oh the hysterics. The now 19yo was a pain with homework, never had any, never did any and TBH, I really wasn't that keen on homework anyway.

And then homework changed, it became computer based, google this, google that....and dial up internet, what fun...so I used to write in the homework diary 'no internet access' and no I wasn't prepared to traipse to the local library with 3 kids most days after school.

Homework has changed a lot over the years. I remember being taught in school, copying off the board then tracing or copying a picture from my text book and colouring it in at home.

Last week a mother to a 5 year old tweeted that she, not her daughter had been issued with homework, the reason why it was her homework and not her child's was that it required her to find out the differences between Indian and African Elephants.....now tell me? How is a 5 year old supposed to do that?

This week the 12 year old's homework has 'done my head in' we started with 'write 10 lines about your Easter holiday and translate in Sepedi'.

So the child writes his work out, then pops it into google translate and guess what? Sepedi isn't an option. So what does he do? Nothing, that's what. What do I do? Give me a Sepedi dictionary and tell him he has to use that. Ha, a 12 year old and a dictionary, it just doesn't work. We've had homework in the past on using a dictionary, but it's only been to find the definition of maybe 3-5 words. He wants to download a programme on my laptop, that costs money, when I say no, a full strop begins.

So we get out his Sepedi book and silly me, I assume that there will be work in the book similar to what he's been asked to do for homework, you know, a few clues to key words and sentences, but no, nothing, zilch?

And now he is revising for a Math test tomorrow, no text books, only workbooks that are complete and marked. How do we revise a subject when the answers are there in front of us? Well it's easy, I just do this........

Now how many parents have the time to do that?

Why teenagers gets stroppy

Have you noticed when you ask a teenager to do something that they always have to do something else first, like finish/save a game, go to the toilet or just send an important BBM.

Well here's why, according to my kids. It's what I do.

Whenever they ask a question or want something I usually reply 'what now?' or 'now, in a minute' I have to fund the remote to mute the TV so I can hear them, or go to the stairs to hear them repeat again.

I've explained a million times that when I'm in the middle of something it's cooking their tea or washing and ironing their clothes, not just doing something for myself.
In regards to having to go to them when they call there is a rule that I know enforce. There is one of me and two of them, if they want something, they must come to me, not yell and shout and expect me to respond.

But the biggest battle/hurdle I've over come is the asking them if they want something or to do something.

You see they will inevitably say 'no thanks' or request something we haven't got when I ask want they want for tea.

So, it's now 'you can either come shopping or do your homework' and not 'are you going to do your homework?' and 'would you like pizza or lasagne for tea?'

This way I'm not fighting a losing battle and the kids don't lose respect for me.

There's no point giving my teenagers an option if I'm not going to allow them to follow through with their choice.

At the end of the day their homework needs doing so why ask them? And there's no point telling them, so make it their choice to do it or whatever it is that needs doing, that way one can issue consequences without losing face and entering into a full scale battle.