The American HomeworkWars : Homes Divided

I'm done with homework. I'm done arguing with my child. I'm done torturing my child. it's time to take a stand. Who will I choose? The school system or my child? Who will I fail if I choose wrong? I'm not going to fail a school system. The school's homework system is already failing. It is failing my child. If I do not stand by my child who will? If I do not stand up for my child I too will fail my child.

Now I like so many other parents just recently became very upset with my daughter due to homework. She has ADHD. She can get very forgetful and unorganized. If someone is not right there on top of her assignments wont get done. So just the other night another homework battle resulted in my daughter being punished. We took all her new toys given to her over these holidays. I was at my whits end trying to be at the same time a good mother but a stern one too. The Entire 4th grade year she's been told to use her homework log. She's suppose to write down her assignments, bring the log home so I will know what her homework assignments are and so I can sign it. Yet this has not happened. Most the time not I nor she have any idea what her homework is for each class. At one point the homework log disappeared entirely. Only recently having been found again its still not being used despite my emails to the teachers and repeating it to my daughter. Yesterday it came to light that she had buried in her locker a few homework assignments due in December and she was suppose to have me sign a violin practice log every week since the beginning of school and it was now January when I accidentally discovered the sheet dated Dec 4th. I blew. This was hard to take in especially since we just caught her up from being behind a month in reading logs.

My child is not a vindictive child. She isn't one of those children who seem to want to start trouble. She's a child who dearly wants affection and your approval. She doesn't lack in intelligence by any means. After taking away every single toy given to her for Christmas and Three Kings Day she acted beyond her years. She quietly handed us an article printed in Time for kids. On the cover was a picture of a tombstone reading "here lies homework" and on another page it read "the homework debate". She quietly said it would make for good reading and walked away. I being upset at the time didn't look at it until the next day. Now If my child can put together what this article said and the problems that we are having at home my child is without a doubt intelligent.

The problem is with this country's outlook on homework. Not with my child! It is time to stand up for our children. I have to admit at first I too was blind sided and confused with emotions on where to stand and what was the correct view on homework. Should I follow my crying breaking heart which is screaming no more home work! Let my child be a happy kid. Or do I follow this forced upon us theory that we should ram as much info into those little sponge like minds? Well I have a meeting tomorrow. The whole time I was thinking I'm going to go in there and admit my frustrations with my daughter. What I was thinking was not nice about my own child. I was thinking I was going to go in and complain about how she does nothing that I want her to do for school. How the whole time this school year I've been on her case telling her to do her assignments and she doesn't finish them. I asked her to do her homework logs and she doesn't do them. I ask her to do her reading log and she doesn't do them. After reading the article I realized I was putting the entire blame on my daughter. Yet how much of it was her own fault? What about the adults in her life? What were we really doing? What ever happened to my daughters 504 plan at school? I realized no was following it. I also realize plan or no plan, with or without special needs the homework pressure is too much for any child.

My daughter is beautiful, smart sweet fun and loving. Yet this homework system had me thinking that there was something wrong with my daughter. Wake up parents! It isn't our children. It's the ridiculous emphasis on homework in elementary school. Our children are trying to speak us. Its time we listen to them. If they're having trouble in school. If they can't keep up with the homework. It isn't the child. It is the homework activity. It is the amounts of homework they're trying to put on our children. In this article in this Time magazine For Children there is a chart which shows first graders in America get an average of four hours of homework. By the time they're in third grade it's 4 hours and 24 minutes. It keeps going up. By the time they reach 7th grade it is 5 hours. Towards the end of high school they'll be doing 8 hours of homework. They don't get a life. They don't get to be children. Most demanding this still studies show homework during the elementary years does nothing to improve grades or test scores. Find the magazine TIME for Kids November 3rd 2017 volume 8 number 8 edition 3 to 4. You'll see we're not helping our children. It's a proven fact that in elementary school children do not need homework. Children do not need homework until middle school. The magazine is child reading but there are several other articles online to back the theory. Google Finland and homework for example.

What are we doing to our children? We're stressing them out! We wonder why they get depressed? We wonder why children kill themselves? We have to intervene early. We need to start when they are in elementary. Today I stopped and began to ponder just how often I or homework stressed my daughter out. I wondered how was this affecting her. I began to think about a few things she as said to me since our last homework argument. My thoughts and conclusions were shocking to me. Now stop and ask yourself as I did. How many times has my child come up to me complaining "Mommy (or Daddy) I have a headache." "Mommy (or Daddy) my tummy hurts." "Mommy (or Daddy) I can't sleep." How many of these occurrences happened when your child had no known illness? How many were after a rough homework struggle, a scolding from you do to a school assignment or before a school assignment was due? Stress signs in an elementary child? It very well can be. It happens to adults why or how can little innocent children be any stronger than us not get symptoms?

Well take my daughters school load and my own mistakes I have made as an example of how over homeworking is stressful. The 4 years (9 months each year if you include summer school) Cecilia has argued fought against cried failed to do her reading log on her own with or without my guidance. Its been a mix of not understanding how to do the reading log or being able to focus on the paper is the paper has too much "happening" on it. For 4 years they keep changing the reading log. There is not one continuous reading log throughout the elementary schools. So each year she has to learn a new one. This reading log seems to be a continuous arguing problem for us. One year I simplified it and she loved it. The sheet was a quick easy Breeze. For the first time she was able to do the work on her own. What did the teacher do? Would she accept it? No the teacher refused to accept the simplified version that I made for my daughter. So you tell me what is a parent to do in an unfair failing homework system.

My daughter reads. I've told the teachers this year after year. Why does my word not count for anything? Why if I am already signing a simple homework log (prior to this year) stating she did the reading along with other various assignments do we have to fill out a second log when she clearly has problems doing it. They rather torture her and keep the cycle of parent and daughter arguing. I have explained endlessly to the school she reads 2 to 3 times to amount of any other child. Every time she has missed a log she has been made to re-read and fill the log. This year whole time from September to January I punished her. I made her re-read a whole month worth of reading. At first for 20 minutes each day missed. Then as the year has gone by they raise the time from 20 to 25. Now it is up to 30 mins each day. Every day of the month she has forgotten to fill out her reading log she has had to redo each reading requirement and fill out the paper. Despite this punishment it doesn't sink in for her that she needs to fill out her log. Scolding, timeouts, grounding, toys being taken and yes even the rewards method has been tried. The reward system has worked for a short period but when she is released to do it on her owe she forgets to do the assignment.

So that's just reading. There are other subjects. For example math. They get some math problems that leave you scratching your head wondering how the heck you as a parent or a grown-up got through college math. I have seen math take her any where from 30 mins to an hour. When math is finally done guess what the school system wants my child to do next... Something called XtraMath. They claim it's only supposed to take 5 minutes but does it take 5. If we are lucky 20. If we're even luckier there is spelling! Oh lovely spelling. The drilling of repeating words over and over again. Riding our children. Repeatedly taunting your child with no that's incorrect and then of course they get tested on it and if they fail well guess what they're told? I guess you didn't try hard enough! It happened to us! Really we didn't try hard enough? You mean studying the darn words at the kitchen table at every meal, in the bathtub, and on the way to the bus stop for days on end wasn't trying hard enough?

To think I kept asking myself what is wrong with my child? I should have been asking what is wrong with me? Here I am packing her toys and putting them in the basement. Punishing her for being her. For trying to live in a system that isn't fair to Elementary children. She's taking on a load of work far harder than any adult could probably handle. I don't think any adult can handle 8 hours of work and then to come home to 4 to 5 hours of extra work, plus the regular home chores and any extra curricular activities that may be thrown in there such as learning to play an instrument. To think certain people (her teacher being one of them) have indicated that my child might be socially immature or socially awkward. Well of course she is what time does she have to socially interact with friends or play? It is ridiculous. She doesn't have a chance to mature on a social ground if she's wrapped up in this homework activity day in and day out.

Forget play time! It no longer exist in America. Children no longer have freedom in America because they are enslaved by homework and doomed to become depressed before they ever finish Elementary School. I'm a parent and I hate these Elementary years. That's not right and the homework load is not going to get better. Sadly I am watching my son going down this same path of sadness. Its Deja vu! He is only six now but the homework arguments started at the age of 5 the same as it had with my daughter. Its not fair! I hate watching either one of my kids break down in tears. Seeing my littlest break into tears lately over not wanting to do homework and telling me "Mommy I'm tired of work. I want to Play" through tears and little stomps of his feet pulls at my mommy internal instincts just as it had with my daughter when she was his age. Deep down inside I knew my heart was right then and my heart is still correct. I didn't really need an article or google to tell me what I was already witnessing for myself when it came to homework. However it did help me be able to finally voice it and put my own foot down. Today I changed homework at home. Slowly to try it first. My son was sat on a lap and read to instead of sitting him at a table and forcing him to struggle through the words. Then he was shooed away to go play. You should have seen the beautiful joyous armament on his face! I cut my daughters reading down to 20 mins and with a timer set. Whatever she did she did. Then for her written homework I had her set to timer to 15 mins. I told her what ever she got done she got done and that would be the end of it. Next I did violin practice with her. I read the notes with her and surprisingly I thought her a new song! She's definitely will be getting some of her toys back today and more as we go on this week.

As parents we are supposed to be enjoying these precious beginning years with our children because we're not going to get this time back. Children should play. Children should come home to your open arms. They should be receiving your hugs and kisses. They need your quality time. Home should be there sanctuary. They don't need to come home to a drill sergeant racing them to get to the table and to get there homework done. Yet the school's homework system is not only sucking the life out of our children but out of our parent and child relationship. The American Homework wars need to come to an end! The homework wars are dividing homes and crushing the American family.