Mum 4 Real Celebrating Parenthood
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Helping out with my son’s homework could be very frustrating. Sometimes, he is in the mood and finishes before I say Jack and other days, we can be there as loooooooooooong as he wants even till Monday morning.
I have tried different techniques to make this journey a smooth ride for both of us but with time, I have discovered that I am on my own. As I am typing this on my pad now, I am also going through some serious ‘4th World War’ negotiation of how we can complete this weekend task. It is a serious something (lol!)
Many a time, I wonder why school authority give us parents home work and not the child. I remember when I was still with my sister and I had to help our with my nephew’s homework; hmmmmmm, it took me time to convince the fish seller that I am neither a herbalist nor using the scale of fish I was about to collect for ritual. Guess what the assignment was for my 2 and half year old? Coverings of some animals; scale for fish, feather for chicken, wool for Sheep. Just that 3 animals but the first two took me to the market. I can’t forget the experience in a long time.
With this experience and a few I had here and there with my son and my ‘many children’ all over, I have been able to come up with these DON’Ts regarding homework
1. DON’T delegate to lesson teacher/nannies – the school authority is not wicked, they have just given us another opportunity to BOND with our little ones
2. DON’T leave the children out of it – doing the work ourselves will make the task easy and fast but it is not good for the child. Homework help the child to develop his/her PROBLEM SOLVING SKILL. Remember, it’s there homework and not yours. My role is to supervise.
3. DON’T beat the child for getting it all wrong – learning does not start and end in school, therfore, we should be part of teaching process. If you don’t know it, you have 3 life-line just like the famous who want to be a millionaire game (lol). You either ask Google or call the teacher or ask a friend.
4. DON’T rush your child – because I have deadlines doesn’t mean I have to subject my toddler to rush. Start early, like Friday evening instead of getting worked up on Monday morning. Understand his/her learning pace and go with that.
5. DON’T insist on your own way of doing it, you might be ‘old school’. During our time, we only know our alphabets as alphabets. There was nothing like sound until we got to secondary school during Oral English but now, it is ah, ba, ca… Am I saying the truth?
6. DON’T condemn, simply correct with love – using words like ‘you wrote rubbish, shame on you for not doing that simple thing, you are a dumb…’ will affect the child’s morale/esteem. There is a slang we always use when he gets it write or wrong, and that is, ‘who is mum’s super hero?’, this always fuel his motivation to continue (although it is not a magical word that works all the time😜)
7. DON’T neglect the homework diary/communication book – you need to express your observation and let the class teacher know whatever challenge you’ve encountered
With these few points of mine, I believe that homework time is a time to look forward to (hahahaha). Looking forward to your comments for more DON’T. Thank you.
