Question for Moms of School Age Children

I feel very fortunate that my school district doesn’t give homework. In elementary school they were expected to read 20 minutes a day at home. They did have projects from time to time they may need to work on at home, and if they didn’t finish assignments at school they need to take them home. The idea was to give students enough time to complete the work at school. I would question a teacher about sending homework home in grade two.

I had a principal tell me once that homework should be 10 minutes per grade. So your second grader shouldn't be doing homework longer than 20 minutes each night. And this is for typical kids, not ones with spec needs like ADD/ADHD.

My kids are ADD/Asperger's and ADHD with anxiety and they have never had homework. They are now 17 and 14. It's in their IEP's. Does your child have an IEP? I assume so with those diagnosis's.

When my son was in about 3rd grade he had a crazy teacher that sent home probably 40 pages of homework that needed to done each week. He couldn't even do it and was getting F's on it. I finally had a meeting with the teacher and principal. Long story short, after the teacher kept INSISTING he had to do it, I finally asked her flat out what percentage homework was in the class....barely any!!!! So even with an F for ALL homework, he still got passing grades. No more fighting! So she kept sending it home with him and I just threw it in the trash.

So I would first address this in your next IEP meeting. When kids get older and can have electives, most schools have one class where they can just work on missing classwork/homework/projects, etc. My kids both have this and get everything done they need to so nothing comes home. It's just too much for them.

If you don't have an IEP, and you probably should, then just talk to the teacher and ask what can be done. My daughter was really good at spelling words. She didn't need to write them 3x each night or in rainbow colors and in sentences, etc. So FINALLY I got the teacher to understand she didn't need "practice" with things she's already good at. So she agreed and she didn't get marked for not writing out her spelling words every night.

So there are ways around things. My big thing was I did not want my kids hating school, the teachers or themselves, because they were overwhelmed and stressed out. They could understand this and would make allowances.

I hope this helps. Good luck.

What the the hours of her school day? Getting home at 4:30 seems really late to me unless she goes to an after school program and if she does, then she can do homework there. Most schools that I know of let out at a little after 3 at the latest.

If her school day hours really are late, is there time to do homework, reading or flashcards in the morning?

Anyway...from your timeline above it seems like you have dinner on the table at 5:30, which I would imagine is done and cleaned up by 6, which gives 2 hours to do homework before bed. In second grade, other than 20 minutes of reading, she should really only have another 20-30 minutes of homework to do, so it seems that there is plenty of time of to do that. If HW is taking significantly longer, talk to the teacher and get a reasonable accommodation in place where she will do X minutes or Y% of the work and that's it. With the issues you list, she should be on an IEP or 504 plan that will allow reduced HW.

My daughter has dysgraphia, although not dyslexia. She doesn't have ADD but she has multiple medical diagnoses.

Has your daughter been evaluated for a 504 plan at her school? It doesn't sound like she needs an IEP, but a 504 plan could work wonders for her. An IEP is for a student who needs the curriculum modified, who cannot process the curriculum at the same level as his or her peers.

However, a 504 plan is for students who have difficulties hearing, seeing, writing or reading, or who need extra time to get to class due to mobility issues, or who need the freedom to leave the room for a snack (diabetic, for example), or to go to the nurse's office at a moment's notice. My daughter had a 504 plan and had extra time to complete assignments, reduced assignments (like only answering every other question, or not having to write out answers in complete sentences), and other ways to make her homework load easier. Since she has dysgraphia, she can be assigned what they call a "scribe", or someone to write her answers for her on tests or assignments.

Sounds like your daughter could really benefit from something like that. Use the school support system as your ally and request some accommodations to fit your daughter and help her succeed.

How much homework is she getting? It should be 20m a day at her age. I would talk to the teacher if it is taking her longer than 30 minutes. Studies show that homework does not help with learning and most schools have adopted a 10m per grade a day policy. If the teacher is not willing to change then it is time to talk to the principal. I would guess you are done eating at 6pm or 6:30. That would leave you with a couple hours or so before bedtime. Is she getting a ton of homework or is she having problems with sitting and working on her homework? We had this problem when our son was in 4th grade...he would procrastinate, whine, get angry, and refuse to work on it. Therapy helped a lot for him....but it does not sound like this is the problem with your daughter.

It's so hard isn't it?! It seems like you have a pretty good routine. Here's what I might suggest although I'm not sure it will help much...

Maybe could you skip the reading after school and go straight to homework. You could help her from nearby while you are getting dinner ready and possibly the brothers can go ahead and still use that time for reading. I know you listed some reasons why that's not ideal, but maybe try it with the brothers still reading? I get what you're saying about down time and you're not wrong, but I feel like it's easier to get it out of the way. With my kids it's harder to get them back into school/homework mode after they've been playing or eating.

For homework...how long is it taking her? In theory, it should only take her 20 minutes (at 10 mins/grade level). If it's taking a lot longer than that I would talk to her teacher and explain that it's taking her X amount of minutes and it's frustrating for her and impeding her play time, etc. My daughter was also taking FOREVER on her spelling homework last year (also 2nd grade) so, with the ok of the teacher, I started setting the timer for 20 minutes and she got done what she could get done in that time frame and that's what she turned in. She wasn't penalized or anything and wasn't falling behind in school because of it either AND it made things MUCH easier and less stressful for both of us.

Then, when she goes to bed, use that time to read together to count as her 20 minutes. It's my opinion (and I'm a former teacher so that should account for something, right?! ;) that whether kids are reading to themselves or being read to it counts for reading minutes and education and together time and no matter how the reading is done, it is helping.

I do eliminate some chores during busy weeknights because it is so hard to fit it all in. I understand about what you're saying, but honestly, doing homework and working all day at school is hard too. She can always do a few chores after her homework is done while you are still getting dinner ready.

This is super long, sorry, but I feel like if maybe you just get all the hard stuff over with, have more fun with the reading as a family, she'll get more down time for herself.

For your oldest, I would save the reading for before bed. She can do homework independently while the younger kids look at picture books. Also, talk to the teacher about making her homework scaled down to an amount appropriate for her needs. It should NOT be taking forever for her to complete. Could the spelling list be shortened for her? That is something that can also be addressed in an IEP if you have one, or consider setting one up for her. I would try to get her in bed in time to have 20 minutes of reading down before you want her to be sleeping. But I would not worry about it if some nights she falls asleep before 20 minutes is up or some nights she reads for longer. I think schools having a required amount of reading minutes makes reading a chore and an obligation and sucks the joy right out of it. Use 20 minutes as a guideline in your mind, but I wouldn't use timers or talk about reading to her in terms of "20 minutes required"

Another thing is maybe some chores can be Saturdays. I think chores are great, but maybe simplify it a bit to 2 daily chores for each kid if you feel like they are missing out on some down time and getting to bed on time.

The chores you describe sound fine to me. I think reading should be untimed, not a forced timer situation.

The problem is the homework (and math flashcards, which are connected to homework). Stop the homework! As posters write below, she should be spending no more than 20 minutes on it, and maybe not even that much. Eliminate homework from her nightly schedule.

Also, it would be great if everyone could get home earlier than 4:30, but I guess from the way your post is written that is just how long it takes for everyone to get home from school.

Try one week without homework and see how it goes.

When my 10 year old was in 2nd grade, we tried to do SOMETHING every night. He did have some homework each week, but not every night. If he had homework, that was the priority. If not, we had him read or we did math facts or we did site words or we did spelling words. There was never a night where we attempted to do everything.

Truthfully, we are so fortunate because our son does not struggle academically. So we did practice math facts, but he didn't need us to do it every night in order for him to know them. Same with site words and spelling words. We just did each of those things a couple of times a week. If he had struggled with something we would have focused on it.

Before I was a parent, I thought homework was great! It's good for kids, right? Helps them learn, reinforces what they learned at school? Prepares them for the days of more independent work when they are older? Boy was i wrong!!! Kids need to play. They need down time. They need fun time. Most of them don't really need to have much homework.

Seriously, it's time to pick and choose some of those academic activities. As long as she's learning the concepts, she doesn't need to do all of them every night.

I have one around this age. Is reading a book that the school sends home, or can it be part of her bedtime routine? Here, sitting down and me setting a timer to read for 20 minutes, with any of my kids, would not have gone over well. By second grade, we'd read a chapter or so, and my kids would read for a while before I'd shut off the light. Is that an option?

Can you do homework on weekends? Whenever I could, I did. We also did not have that much in second grade. If we were given homework, we generally had the week to do it.

The nights my kid this age has activities, we skip shower that night. We do every other night for showers.

When my kids were in after school care, I counted that as an activity - playing with their buds and playing basketball, etc. in the gym. We didn't have them in many activities at that age as they had exercise and social interaction after school. How many days does she have dance?

If our week nights get hectic, we schedule activities on weekends. Is that possible?

Just some thoughts. I hear you. When I worked it was pretty rushed.

we are home at 4. he does chores (lunch box taken care of, dishwasher emptied and clothing put in the right place). then he sits to do homework which is about a 10 minute task ( sometimes 20) then he sets the table and we have dinner with all his dilly dallyin its right around 6 when we eat. after dinner he feeds the dogs, fills their water bowl, dd lets the dogs out and back in. then they play or we have family board games till 745 when its bedtime snack time. then we head to bed. he reads for 20 minutes to us then its lights out.
if shes struggling with getting her homework done i would talk to the teacher about giving less... someone mentioned that 30 minutes is all a second grader should get and its an accurate assumption. if theres more than that the teacher is not handling her day properly and needs to ajust what shes doing so theres not so much homework.

you are very organized. i commend you!
i'm glad you're building in a little down time for your daughter in that tight timeline, and i think your chores sound great. i agree that chores are a good thing and yours sound very age appropriate.
but your daughter only actually gets 10-20 minutes of down time on a good night.
flash cards in the car, then 20 minutes of reading (yes!) and then another hour or more of grueling homework, is very very tough for a very young girl.
in second grade she shouldn't be doing more than half an hour of homework, total.
even if you don't count the reading into the homework time, she's having to focus and study way, way too much.
after being at school all day, kids should be able to let their brains run free for most of the evening. 2nd graders still need to play.
i'd talk to her teachers about how to lessen the very heavy homework load. if there's absolutely no way around it, i'd cut out the dance classes and the math flashcards at the very least.
khairete
S.

I am truly grateful for the teachers in my town. The whole school system looks down on sending homework home with the kids. They just do their work in class.

My girl has only had true homework, busy work-not incomplete assignments, true busy work, maybe 2 times in all her years in school. She's a teenager now.

She is also a pretty much straight A student. Hardly ever has a B in anything. She doesn't bring home anything at all.

I have read so many articles, some from the department of education, that say doing homework does NOT make a child a better student. In fact it actually has shown the students who routinely do homework have lower grades and lower test scores.

Now, all ya'll are probably screaming at me that this statement was a lie. But it's not. Do your own research. Not one other country in the world does their education like ours. And our education system ranks really low low low when it comes to what the kids know when they graduate from high school.

Did you know that half of our grad students in college are from foreign countries? And they come here and get in easily because our own students can't hack it? They don't make the grades to get in grad school?

Crazy, right? We are producing some of the lowest educated people in a first world country.

So cut the homework as much as possible. The reading? that's fine. She needs to read but she also doesn't need to set a timer and only read that long. Have her read a set amount. Like to the end of chapter X or the whole book. Some books don't take that long to get through. Make sure all the books she is reading are AR books so she can take the test and get credit on them.

I think your time frame for her is perfectly fine. Not one of my grand kids would go to bed and to sleep until around 9pm. No matter if I put them in bed at 7 or 8. They just naturally went to bed and to sleep around 9pm. Got up at 7 and 9pm-7am is 10 hours. That's enough for most kids at any age.

We had a ton of work last year - it was stressful. They got away from that this year. honestly, it has made it easier. I think you have a good schedule. Especially, with 3 kids and two that are four! We get home after 5:00 due to work. So it can be a challenge to get everything in. However, we manage by everyone helping. Also, my kids are in 3rd and 4th. Second grade was really hard for some reason with both girls.

Try the Vocabulary Spelling city app. You can enter the weekly words into the app and they can practice using an iPad on their own. I have not had to help out as much with spelling and it is a fun way to learn. My daughters always do well on their spelling test. Especially, my youngest who dislikes studying.

Also, we limit activities during the week and use the weekend to do homework. I hired a math tutor last year and the tutor helped my daughter with her math homework. Worth every penny and her grades even improved. Homework was less stressful as it was the math that was taking so long.

My husband helps when he is not traveling - cooks dinner and does dishes while I manage the kids. When my husband is traveling, my girls pick up the slack. They make their own lunch the night before and get all of their school stuff ready while I do dinner. They bring trash cans in, feed the dog, etc.

So many good responses about limiting homework time. From your post I read that she is doing homework in the car (flashcards), as soon as she gets home (silent reading) and the after dinner she sits down to more homework. This, and the possibility that she is not getting enough sleep*, would concern me. It's time for a parent-teacher meeting about the workload and her learning needs.

*As a former teacher, I am very aware that children require different amounts of sleep. Do you have to wake her up in the morning or does she wake up naturally? If she is being woken up, that means she requires an earlier bedtime.

More sleep, less homework and more assistance in school could all contribute to better school success. All my best.

We've found the timing of the down time to be critical.
If our son took a break BEFORE doing homework - he had such a hard time getting back in the mindset to get his homework done.
"But they need a break" is what I hear - I say they HAD a break on the bus on the way home.
If he started the homework after getting home - just taking enough time to use the bathroom first - it got done much more quickly.
"The quickest way to fun is to get the work done" is what I've tried to live by and it seems to be working well for us.
By then I had supper ready and we can watch some tv before putting things away from supper (son helps with this - loads dishwasher, puts away leftovers, etc) then bath and bedtime routine.
Reading happens as part of settling down for bed and we're done with tv way before then.

When he had after school taekwondo they had the kids do their homework before taekwondo class started and could only play video games once their school work was finished.
Which was GREAT because all I had to do was check over his work and sign it those evenings!