The Homework Fight Is About the Clock, Not the Child

The Homework Fight Is About the Clock, Not the Child

She gets in, drops the bag, and tells you everything. Who got sent out of class, what somebody said at break, the whole thing. She's in a good mood.

Then you bring out the homework book.

Mummy I'm coming.

Let me just finish this one.

I'm tired.

And by the third time you've asked you're shouting, she's crying over a page she hasn't even started, and the evening's gone.

We've all had that evening. Some of us are having it every night.

So before you decide she's just being stubborn, have a look at what time it is when this happens.

Look at what her day has already been

Think about what she's done since this morning. Up before six. Dressed, fed, out of the door. Traffic. Six hours of being told what to do, and break time on top of that, which is its own kind of work if she's having trouble with anybody.

Then she walks in and the first thing waiting is more work.

And I understand why we do it. You want it out of the way before the evening runs off with you, because there's dinner to cook, a younger one to bathe, and your own work still sitting there unfinished.

But a child who's spent all day doing what she's told usually needs a gap before she can do it again. She won't tell you that, though. She'll just keep saying she's coming.

Find her slot

There's no one homework time that works for every family. It depends when she actually gets in, how old she is, and how much she's been given.

Start here.

Give it a week. Not two nights, a week, because the first two she'll complain about the change itself. If the arguing dies down and she gets going faster, you've found it. If nothing shifts at all, skip to the last section, because then it isn't the clock.

How long should it actually be taking?

Nobody tells you this part, and without it you can't tell whether your evening is normal or whether something's gone wrong.

The rough guide a lot of teachers work from is about ten minutes for every school year. It's a starting point rather than a rule, and it moves around depending on what she's been set. But it gives you something to hold your evening up against.

If you're well over that most nights, you're not failing to manage your child. Something about the work, or how much of it she understood, needs looking at. And at least now you've got a number to say out loud when you talk to the teacher.

Sometimes she can't start, she isn't refusing

Watch what she actually does when she sits down.

Opens the maths book. Looks at it. Sharpens a pencil. Asks for water. Suddenly remembers something extremely important about a girl in her class.

Looks like avoiding. Half the time she just doesn't know how to begin.

So instead of telling her to start for the fourth time, sit down for two minutes and ask her what the question is asking her to do. If she can tell you, leave her to try the first one on her own. If she can't, read it through together. Then get up and go, because you're only getting her past the first line, not doing it with her.

If it's a long one, break it up. Four questions, a break, then the rest.

And have a look at where she's sitting. She doesn't need a study room, but the end of the dining table with everything cleared off beats the sitting room with the TV on and her brothers running past.

Be realistic about a Nigerian evening

Homework is one item in an evening that already has traffic, cooking, uniforms, baths and chores in it. If you've got more than one child, one needs reading practice while the other has maths, and they both want you at the same time.

Which is why copying somebody else's timetable never works.

Work with the evening you've actually got. If she gets in late, pick one window and protect it instead of trying to squeeze work into every gap you can find. If you're cooking, put her at the kitchen table with something she can manage, so you can answer a question without stopping.

And look at the homework diary in the morning rather than at seven at night. If you already know what's coming you can plan for it before you're tired.

When moving the time isn't enough

If you've changed the slot, fed her first, broken the work up, and you're still fighting every night, stop adjusting the clock and look at the work itself.

Is it every subject or just one? A child who'll happily read or draw for an hour and then falls apart the minute she has to write might be struggling with the writing rather than with homework.

And a child who keeps saying she doesn't understand the question might genuinely not have understood it in class.

Change one thing

Next time it starts, stop before you ask her the third time, and run through three questions.

Change one of them. Just one, for a week.

Homework is supposed to back up what she's learning at school. It shouldn't be the worst part of her evening and yours.

And honestly, more often than not, what fixes it isn't a stricter rule or one more reminder. It's doing it at a different time.