Professional Development School Network
Parent Connection
Supporting Your
Children's Learning
Click on one of the following to read the
question and answer on that topic. Feel free to email
your own "letters" about general homework/academic issues to
Barry Frieman, at bfrieman@towson.edu
and check back for your answers!
Too
Much Homework
Dear Parenting Connection,
My first grade son is getting too much homework.
Both he and I are getting frustrated. I have to fight with him
every night to sit down for two hours to do work.
He is fine for the first half-hour, but after that he gets bored
and distracted. What should I
do?
Mom who is going nuts
Dear Mom,
You child's teacher assigned the homework to help
you son practice the skills taught in class not to frustrate him and make
him hate school work. You
child's teacher and you both have the same goals in making sure that
your child is successful. Make
an appointment with the school and talk to your son's teacher.
Tell her/him the problem and work together to make homework a
productive experience.
Mornings
are Chaotic
Dear Parenting Connection,
Getting my elementary-school children out of the
house every morning is an exercise in chaos.
I get up early and make them breakfast.
By the time they select their clothes and gather up all of their
things there is little time to eat. I
can't help because I am busy trying to put lunches together. I am tired of starting off the day yelling at my kids that
they are going to miss the school bus.
Help!
Dear Dad,
Mornings are hard. There are a lot of things to do
and a short period of time in which to do them.
Not everything has to be done at the last minute.
Make you life easier and make the lunches the night before so you
can relax in the mornings. Have your children select their clothing the night before and
lay it out ready to use. After
they finish their homework have them pack their backpacks for the next day
and leave them in a designated spot by the door.
Perhaps you can hang a peg on the wall for each person's
backpack. With everything
ready the night before you will find that mornings might be less hectic.
Keeping
in Touch with School
Dear Parenting Connection,
I am divorced and my elementary school aged-children live with their
mother. I want to keep in
touch with what is going on in my children's school, but frankly I have
a lousy relationship with my ex, and she never tells me anything.
I ask my children to remind their mother to let me know what is
happening, but they asked me to keep them out of the middle of our
arguments. I don't want to
make my kids uncomfortable, but I want to know what is going on in school
so I can be supportive. What
can I do?
Disconnected Dad
Dear Dad,
You are to be commended for wanting to keep touch with your children's
school. I agree that you
don't want to put your children in the middle of your uncomfortable
relationship with their mother. You
school wants you to be involved even though you are divorced.
Unless there is some legal protective order, school personnel will
gladly put fathers on the mailing list for all school announcements.
Call your child's teacher and explain that you want to have a
parent conference to discuss your child's progress.
At the conference let your children's teachers know that you want
to be involved and make sure that they send home announcements of projects
and trips.
To make things easy, you might want to give them some stamped
self-addressed envelopes. You
can be sensitive to your children and alternate going on field trips with
their mother. When coming to
see a school presentation or play you can make sure that you don't sit
together. You might have to
go out of your way to avoid a confrontation with your ex in order to make
life easier for your children.
Overextended
Dear
Parenting Connection,
My
daughter is in her second year of high school and very much wants to go to
college. All of her
classmates tell her that colleges want her to be involved in many
activities. She sings in the choir, plays a sport in season, and also
keeps up on her dance lessons and works to get good grades.
It is getting to be too much.
She is always running, never eats dinner with the family, and is
constantly complaining about feeling overworked.
Does she really need to do everything?
Worried
Mom
Dear
Mom,
We
live at a time when there are a million things available for young people
to do. Yes, all of those
things "look good" when one goes to college, but what goes does it do
if your daughter burns out before she gets there.
Help
her to set priorities and make choices. First priority will be her
academic work in school. Perhaps she can pick one extra-curricular activity and devote
all of her energies to doing well. It
might be one sport per season, or sports one season and something else in
the off-season. Your daughter
also needs time for home responsibilities and for herself. She needs the space to develop friendships and just relax and
have fun in an unstructured environment.
It
is true that certain colleges will go after the person who is involved in
multiple activities, but many good colleges will be attracted to her if
she does good academic work.
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