Tasks are easiest to accomplish when tied to specific routines. By establishing daily routines for homework completion, you will not only make homework go more smoothly, but you will also be fostering a sense of order your child can apply to later life, including college and work.
Step 1. Find a location in the house where homework will be done. The right location will depend on your child and the culture of your family. Some children do best at a desk in their bedroom. It is a quiet location, away from the hubbub of family noise. Other children become too distracted by the things they keep in their bedroom and do better at a place removed from those distractions, like the dining room table. Some children need to work by themselves. Others need to have parents nearby to help keep them on task and to answer questions when problems arise. Ask your child where the best place is to work. Both you and your child need to discuss pros and cons of different settings to arrive at a mutually agreed upon location.
the homework hubbub answer key
DOWNLOAD: https://urlcod.com/2vKs2L
Step 2. Set up a homework center. Once you and your child have identified a location, fix it up as a home office/homework center. Make sure there is a clear workspace large enough to set out all the materials necessary for completing assignments. Outfit the homework center with the kinds of supplies your child is most likely to need, such as pencils, pens, colored markers, rulers, scissors, a dictionary and thesaurus, graph paper, construction paper, glue and cellophane tape, lined paper, a calculator, spell checker, and, depending on the age and needs of your child, a computer or laptop. If the homework center is a place that will be used for other things (such as the dining room table), then your child can keep the supplies in a portable crate or bin. If possible, the homework center should include a bulletin board that can hold a monthly calendar on which your child can keep track of longterm assignments. Allowing children some leeway in decorating the homework center can help them feel at home there, but you should be careful that it does not become too cluttered with distracting materials.
Step 3. Establish a homework time. Your child should get in the habit of doing homework at the same time every day. The time may vary depending on the individual child. Some children need a break right after school to get some exercise and have a snack. Others need to start homework while they are still in a school mode (i.e., right after school when there is still some momentum left from getting through the day). In general, it may be best to get homework done either before dinner or as early in the evening as the child can tolerate. The later it gets, the more tired the child becomes and the more slowly the homework gets done.
Step 4. Establish a daily homework schedule. In general, at least into middle school, the homework session should begin with your sitting down with your child and drawing up a homework schedule. You should review all the assignments and make sure your child understands them and has all the necessary materials. Ask your child to estimate how long it will take to complete each assignment. Then ask when each assignment will get started. If your child needs help with any assignment, then this should be determined at the beginning so that the start times can take into account parent availability. A Daily Homework Planner is included at the end of this handout and contains a place for identifying when breaks may be taken and what rewards may be earned.
Many children who are not motivated by the enjoyment of doing homework are motivated by the high grade they hope to earn as a result of doing a quality job. Thus, the grade is an incentive, motivating the child to do homework with care and in a timely manner. For children who are not motivated by grades, parents will need to look for other rewards to help them get through their nightly chores. Incentive systems fall into two categories: simple and elaborate.
Building in breaks. These are good for the child who cannot quite make it to the end without a small reward en route. When creating the daily homework schedule, it may be useful with these children to identify when they will take their breaks. Some children prefer to take breaks at specific time intervals (every 15 minutes), while others do better when the breaks occur after they finish an activity. If you use this approach, you should discuss with your child how long the breaks will last and what will be done during the breaks (get a snack, call a friend, play one level on a video game). The Daily Homework Planner includes sections where breaks and end-of-homework rewards can be identified.
Building in choice. This can be an effective strategy for parents to use with children who resist homework. Choice can be incorporated into both the order in which the child agrees to complete assignments and the schedule they will follow to get the work done. Building in choice not only helps motivate children but can also reduce power struggles between parents and children.
Step 1. Describe the problem behaviors. Parents and children decide which behaviors are causing problems at homework time. For some children putting homework off to the last minute is the problem; for others, it is forgetting materials or neglecting to write down assignments. Still others rush through their work and make careless mistakes, while others dawdle over assignments, taking hours to complete what should take only a few minutes. It is important to be as specific as possible when describing the problem behaviors. The problem behavior should be described as behaviors that can be seen or heard; for instance, complains about homework or rushes through homework, making many mistakes are better descriptors than has a bad attitude or is lazy.
I had psychic surgeries, soft-tissue chiropractic work, drank herbal tinctures and elixirs, bought every kind of healing essential oil, collected a library of self-help books, and did inner-child work, gestalt dialogues, and did loads of homework with several life coaches.
RACHEL DRETZIN, Correspondent: So it really hit me one night not that long ago. I was in the kitchen and I was cooking dinner, chopping vegetables, and my husband was in the next room on his laptop. And across the table from my husband was my oldest son, who was also on a laptop, doing his homework. And my younger kids had picked up my iPhone and were playing a game on it or something. And I don't know, it just hit me. We're all in the same house, but we're also in other worlds. And I don't know, it just kind of snuck up on us. I didn't see it coming.
DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF: Distraction- combatting distraction isn't as easy as turning off your email program. If you turn off your email program, it's not the software that's going to complain, it's the people on the other side- your friends, your boss, your bills. You know, "Where's- where's my report? Why haven't you answered your email? Are you mad at me?" You can't do this in isolation. If you're going to deal with the problem of distraction, it's something we're going to have to deal with together.
Last fall, after a lot of careful consideration, we decided to send our oldest son to a middle school that requires him to use a laptop in class and for most of his homework. We figured since he's likely to be using computers for the rest of his life, he might as well learn to use them in a school setting.
GINA CRUZ: Jason said, "My vision is to have all the students with laptops, do their homework on line." I said, "Jason, I've been doing this 25 years. You think this is possible? I think you're crazy!" He said, "No, this is going to happen, this is going to work here, Gina. Watch."
TODD OPPENHEIMER, Author, The Flickering Mind: My concern with this digital media is it's such short-attention-span stuff, that they get bored. It's what I call instant gratification education. A thought comes to you, you pursue it. You see a Web site, you click on it. You want to hear music while you're studying, you do it. All this bifurcates the brain, keeps it from being able to pursue one linear thought and teaches you that you should be able to have every urge answered the minute the urge occurs.
Prof. HENRY JENKINS, USC: I don't know anyone on the planet who doesn't struggle with the issue of distraction personally. You get pulled in every direction today. But this is not a new issue. Go back and read descriptions of the progressive era, walking down the streets in New York and the sense of your eyes being pulled in every direction by the hubbub of the crowd. People described it as being like electrocuted, you know, bolts of energy shooting through you from every direction. People as early as the 1960s were telling us we were moving to a reality of information overload.
P.W. SINGER, Author, Wired for War: Technology is wrapped up in the story of war. You know, look at all the things that surround us, everything from the Internet to jet engines, these are all things where the military has been a driver for technology. And technology opens up new frontiers, new directions we can go in, but it also creates new dilemmas, new questions you need to answer.
P.W. SINGER: Going to war has meant the same thing for over 5,000 years. Going to war meant that you were going to a place where there was such danger that you might never come home again, you might never see your family again. Now compare that experience to that of a Predator drone pilot. You're sitting behind a computer screen, you're shooting missiles at enemy targets, you're killing enemy combatants. And then at the end of the day, you get back in your car, and 20 minutes later, you're at the dinner table talking to your kids about their homework. 2ff7e9595c
Comments