Waging War on Homework: Homework (Part 1)

My Family Care asks Amanda: The after school homework regime epitomises 'War and Peace' in many a household. What steps can you take to minimise the battles, and how can you support your children from homework hell to homework heaven?

I love the school holidays

Not because I'm one of those earth mothers who loves having their kids joined to their hips all day. And not because my boys are paragons of virtue who never fight or turn the house into a battle ground when they are at home. They do all those things and more during the holidays...

The main reason I love the holidays is the lack of homework. For some reason, I find homework far more stressful than my kids.

I think a lot of that comes down to being a working mum. Like many others, there is a huge amount of juggling in my life. There is no such thing as a 9 to 5 job, which means your phone can ring or ping at any time of the day or night.

And, for some unspeakable reason that always seems to happen when I'm trying to organise tea, music practice and homework. Whilst also feeding the cats, dealing with a grumpy husband, fixing a broken drawer, and ordering new pants online (for the kids, not me).

'Helicopter parents' have it covered

I've read about mothers who do their child's homework for them. They are called 'helicopter parents', apparently. There are two things I find extremely surprising about that:

1) What mum has the time to do that? and

2) How do they know how to do the homework?

I stopped understanding my boys' maths homework around about Year 3. My grade D in French means I know less words than my 7 year old. And I'm not creative or scientific, so that rules out pretty much all other subjects. Even my boys have learned not to ask me for help.

The battleground for me when it comes to homework is physically getting them to sit down and do it.

How to 'nail' homework

Split the kids up

I have two boys aged 10 and 7, which means getting them both to sit down at the same time and do homework is impossible. My advice is: don't. Split them up and, if you can, send them to different rooms.

The problem with that, of course, is that you can't be in two places at once. So be prepared to run like an athlete between the two rooms. I've worked out that if I put them on two separate floors, I can run up and downstairs, and have completed a full workout by the time the homework is done. Another time-saving device for the time-strapped mum.

Remove distractions

Another good piece of advice is to remove all distractions. No music, TV, radio, books, games or toys anywhere near the homework zone. And no husband. He tends to be the worst distraction and absolutely no help whatsoever.

In addition, don't send your child up to their bedroom as two hours later he will have made the most amazing Lego creation but achieved exactly "nil point" in his English Comprehension.

What do kids think?

When it comes to homework, we as parents don't actually have to do it. We've been there, done that and probably failed miserably along the way. It's my boys that have to do it.

So, I thought it would be interesting to find out exactly what my 10 year old feels about homework. Stay tuned for next week's instalment to read his response, written without any 'helicopter parenting' from me, I promise...

Amanda Coxen, Business Owner, Mother of two