To whom does the responsibility of homework belong? If you believe the child should be accepting the responsibility, then read on. If you just want your child to make good grades regardless of whether he learns anything or not, you better skip this chapter. There will be nothing here that advocates grades are the important thing regarding homework.

It is my firm belief children get too much homework anyway. I think teachers are responding to the perceived demand from the parents that their children get a lot of homework to do. Parents are probably doing this because they think school work is of paramount importance. How would you like it if you routinely had to bring work home from the office? Don't you think children need a break from school? Actually, I believe learning to like the process of learning is more important than grades or even the learning. The attitudes about homework existing today are causing learning to be associated with work, deprivation from play, missing fun activities after school, and many other unpleasant things. This doesn't seem conducive to getting children to like the learning process associated with school.

Even though I have been a college professor in the past, I don't think of myself as an expert educator. Some of the things I will be saying may not be things the educators think are academically sound. I am a clinician whose main concern is the psychological welfare of people. I believe a child's work includes play and social interaction with his peers--just as an adult's work involves bringing home a paycheck.

If too much emphasis is placed on getting good grades at the expense of other activities, the child will not be getting a broad education. He may be learning math or spelling, but he won't be developing his motor skills such as running, jumping, manipulating objects such as a baseball, and such things. He also won't be developing social skills if he spends most of his time at the study desk. Don't think I believe grades are not important. I just think they should be kept in perspective. Grades and learning are important, but so is developing life skills aside from the school environment.

However, the fact remains that a certain amount of homework is going to be a part of a child's life. That returns us to the question: To whom does the responsibility of homework belong?

One of my pet peeves is the tendency of parents either to do or mostly do the homework for the child. This may get good grades for the parent, but it sure doesn't do much for the child's learning process. I think many parents get carried away with the importance of grades and forget what homework is supposed to be about. Homework should be helping the child learn--not the parent. If the child gets an "A" on some homework that was mostly done by the parent, the grades look good, but the child didn't learn anything other than it must be okay to cheat on homework.

A further thought in connection with this is that sometimes the homework consists of work the child should have done during the school day. Sometimes a teacher will send unfinished work home rather than see the child learn nothing and receive a failing grade. It would certainly be a very serious mistake for the parents to do it in this case. Usually, however, it is larger projects that parents are tempted to take over. They will do essays, reports, exhibits and so forth. In doing this work for the child, they are robbing him of what could be a valuable and satisfying experience.

There are times when it is appropriate to give the child some help with homework. Sometimes the teacher will send home a supplementary reader or other book with an assignment to read a certain number of pages. Young children need a lot of practice in reading, sometimes more than the classroom schedule allows time for. Sitting down to read with him can be helpful to him and satisfying to both of you. Or there may be times when the child needs help in understanding a point, just a nudge to get him over the hump when he is doing an assignment. But it is never in the child's interest for the parent to take over.

If your child drags his heels in getting his homework done, any one of a variety of reasons is possible. Maybe he does not understand the work. Maybe it is dull and boring to him. Possibly he is assigned too much work too much of the time. Possibly he sees no profit or reason in doing it. Probably he would rather be doing something else. Maybe he is a person who tends to procrastinate, whatever the job.

Before you decide he is just fooling around, you need to check the kind of assignments he is bringing home. If his assignments routinely consist of work not finished during the day, he needs to finish the work at home, certainly; but his non-performance in school will be an additional problem to be addressed.

If he doesn't seem to understand what he is supposed to be doing, a little boost from you may put him on the right track; or it may become evident he is in over his head academically. In this case he should be at a different level of instruction. That is yet a different problem, one that may call for a conference with his teacher.

Some children have a very low threshold of tolerance for written assignments. They involuntarily freeze up when faced with what seems to them an overwhelming task. The problem can be severe enough to hamper seriously a child's progress in school. My wife told me about three or four children in her third-grade classes years ago who had this problem. They were completely bowled over by routine written assignments. They were so intimidated they would not begin, or would finish only a few words before giving up.

She had never heard of successive approximation or shaping at that time. But she tried several things, one of them being to seat one child near her so she could encourage him every time he wrote a few words. This is an example of using attention as a reward for an accomplishment and taking it in small, easy steps.

She didn't get far in helping him overcome his problem, but she was on the right track. She realizes now she might have obtained better results if she had gone about it more systematically, with short sessions at intervals during the day on a regular basis. It is very important to give a child only as much to do as he can succeed in doing. What seems to us like a simple job may be completely overwhelming to a child.

This kind of routine can be difficult to maintain in a classroom, where the teacher has the affairs of twenty or thirty children to manage. But a parent can help with this problem in the homework situation. Using the technique of shaping, you can help your child learn to increase his capacity for written or other kinds of work. This may involve rewarding him for very small increments to begin with and gradually working up. It takes a certain amount of time, and a lot of patience. Remember, this is your child whom you are teaching how to live successfully.

But if it's only a matter of disinterest and boredom, there are some other things you can do. If you can teach him the habit of getting his homework done promptly, he will be learning a valuable lesson whether or not the homework itself provides any learning of value. His reward comes from getting an undesirable job out of the way so he can enjoy the rest of the day. It will be even better if he can learn to take some satisfaction in the homework itself.

When you are mulling over incentives, it is wise to be aware that a young child does not comprehend long-term goals. A young child does not connect what is happening now with what is going to happen six weeks from now when report cards come out. The importance of passing is not likely to mean anything to him until the day the grades arrive.

Some young children seem naturally to take pride in good grades on daily papers, spelling tests and so forth, while others need to be encouraged to develop this sense of pride. If your child is having a homework problem, it is likely he is in the latter group. So in coming up with incentives, be aware the incentive, or reward, for getting his work done will have to be immediate. Warm praise, perhaps an activity or a special treat at supper, when the day's assignments are finished will be more effective than a big blow-out when report cards come out several weeks down the line. Let me repeat my dislike for the notion of paying a child in money for doing these kinds of things. You may get results, but you will also be teaching him that money is all that matters.

Some possible incentives in addition to praise--always include praise--might be such things as my earlier example of Dr. Pepper and peanuts while working. They could include getting to go play immediately after a specified amount has been done. Maybe he could watch his favorite television program if he is finished by the time it comes on. You know your child, so you can probably think of others that will apply to him.

The main thing to remember is the reward you devise needs to come immediately after getting some of the work done. If your child has a short attention span, you may need to provide the reward after getting a small amount done and then more when more is done. Don't stretch the amount of work required more than the child is capable of attending to at one sitting. Again, you know your child so use your own judgment.

Now here again, in dealing with an older child you will have to modify your tactics. The principles are the same, but the things that are rewarding are changed. It is good to remember that to an adolescent, a parent's approval is probably very important, but it is not cool to admit it.

At this point, let's look again at a statement from the chapter on responsibility. To teach a child to be responsible, give him all the choices he is able to make and allow him to have the complete consequences of those choices.

Homework is an aspect of responsibility, and you want it to be your child's responsibility, not yours. We are talking about an older child now, one who is capable of understanding the consequences of not doing one's homework. These include such things as trouble the next day at school from the teacher, leading to possible failure at the end of the term. However, if he is consistently not doing it, the results are the same as if he doesn't understand.

Lectures about how he is not going to pass this semester, and how he will never be able to get a good job if he doesn't make good grades, and how he will probably end up as an old man sleeping under bridges, will probably fall on deaf ears. Some immediate consequences will have to be introduced if you are going to get results.

Do you remember, in the chapter on responsibility, the mother I told you about who was having trouble getting her 12-year-old son up in the morning? She got results by turning the responsibility over to him, where it belonged. She didn't nag or fuss when he didn't get up, she just let him bear the consequences. But she did make it pleasant for him when he did get up. The same technique can be tried if the problem is homework. Don't nag or fuss or remind. See that pleasant things happen as soon as the homework is done. You might even find a way to make it pleasant while it is being done (the equivalent of the Dr. Pepper and peanuts).

It would probably be wise to make it a rule that no TV, computer games, or other desirable leisure activities are to be indulged in until the homework is completed. Here you are making the desired activity contingent on his fulfilling his responsibility. That is different from punishment, which would be something like taking it away from him tonight because he didn't do it last night. Remember, punishment is the least effective way of controlling behavior. You want your child to come to connect fulfillment of responsibility with reward rather than punishment.

Remember, no nagging or reminding. If you keep saying "You're not going to get to watch such and such if you don't hurry up and finish your homework," you are making it your responsibility. Say nothing. Simply see to it you keep control of the consequences.

Now, sometimes students, particularly older students, are assigned masses of homework. It seems sometimes each teacher behaves as if his assignments were the only ones the student has to worry about. Night after night of this is a real burden to some children. As I said earlier, I don't approve of this kind of thing, but it does happen. In this case, the child deserves a short break every now and then during the evening. Anyone can be overwhelmed by the prospect of a whole evening of work with no relief. An older child, able to grasp the concept of long-term reward, might also profit from some kind of special treat at the end of a grueling week, provided he has done his best.

Something I think would also be good in the case of overwhelming amounts of homework would be a conference with the teachers who are assigning so much. It may not do much good, but on the other hand they might not realize what total load the student is receiving. I think teachers are conscientious people who genuinely want to teach their pupils. If they can understand that they are teaching their pupils to hate school and school work, they might be able to see it differently. It's worth a try.

If the child has any conscience about the necessity of homework, he will still procrastinate getting it done. But he will be feeling the heavy burden of the incomplete work hanging over his head. I still remember the lesson I learned in graduate school. It took me that long to learn it. When I was an undergraduate it seemed like I had a black, heavy weight hanging over my head all the time. Those unfinished term papers and other assignments were there but I put them off as long as possible. I suffered all the while they were being put off, however.

When I entered graduate school I decided to turn over a new leaf. I decided I was going to do my assignments as soon as they were assigned rather than wait until they were due to start on them as I had in the past. It was a wonderful relief to get them done and feel the weight lifted. I found my professors were amazed when I turned the assignments in early. Some would even refuse to accept them until they were due. I just set them aside in that case, but still they were done. I had a wonderful reward for stopping my procrastination and getting my homework done on time. I made much better grades too. If you can instill this idea in your child early, he won't have to suffer through school because of the heavy burden of unfinished work hanging over his head.