Help
With Your Rule
A Mother's Rule and Children's Homework
Dear Holly,
Thank you for your book! What a gift! My husband and I have been blessed with 6 children. (13,12,10,8,4&3). Our 4 older ones go to our parish school. I desire to home school. God has not yet opened those doors for our family. God placed your book on my heart months ago. This past four weeks I have been working on putting together our family rule. My family has been receptive.
My question is what are your thoughts on home work time. Two of my children have "learning differences". They have A.D.D. and are dyslexic. Great kids, but school is hard for them. After school time is crazy. Sometimes there are 2 hours of homework. I work on having older ones help younger ones. Because of impulse control issues, I use our kitchen area for the school work. We limit outside activities. School work is best done before dinner. I am trying to have 6:30-8:00 family/rosary time. The kids are home at 3:00. This time of the day is so stressful. The teachers are good, but their hands are tied because of the size of the classes (18-20 kids).
I need some help to bring peace to after school time with my family and create a learning environment. I will add that as a mom, I struggle with the idea of my children needing some down time after school and the amount of work they are expected to do after school hours. My hands are tied in regards to home schooling. I must remain positive. Any wisdom that you or other schooled moms may have to share?
Labels: 4th P Parent
posted by Holly at 5:27 PM
1 Comments:
I was struck by your question about my views on 'homework' for children, and your motherly-intutition that desires 'down-time' for your kids after school....
As a former school teacher, I can honestly tell you that I never assigned homework. I didn't believe in it. I figured if I couldn't teach children what they needed to know in 6 hours of classes a day, then assigning homework seemed to me a dismal failure of my classroom efforts... So I didn't make children do much work at home - perhaps the occasional project...
As a homeschooler, when children even in highschool can be finished their studies in 4-5 hours max, it only seemed to reinforce my beliefs.
If I were in your position, I would talk with my children's teachers about the amount of homework being assigned and the cumulative effect of many teachers assigning many lessons. I would even go so far to request independant study programs if what is being assigned is burdensome to your family life.
I recall in the elementary school I worked in, we had a limit of cumulative work a child was permitted to have for homework - 10 minutes a night per grade level. So a Grade 1 child could have no more than 10 minutes, where a Grade 6 child wasn't to be assigned more than 60 minutes maximum. And these were maximum guidelines. And as a rule, they're not bad...I would also look at influencing the principal's position, or the local home& school committee or school board.
I too believe there needs to be a balance between school and family time. Children need a life, after all, and Mom and Dad have other things to teach besides Math - like faith and prayer and relationship and hobbies and time to spend in peace...
Even after you have chatted with teachers to see what diminishment of homework can be arranged, it is likely that your children will still have some homework. Perhaps you can work on making this as pleasant as possible - plan a little snack when they come home. Have a little chat session. Give them 1/2 hour or so to get relaxed. Then, call them to the table for 30 or 40 minutes and say a little prayer, put on some light background music, and when the time's up, let them put away the books. Inform your teachers of your plan.
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