ABCnews encourages parents to encourage kids struggling with homework.
Joanna Schaffhausen writes (excerpt):
When kids struggle in school, parents may be tempted to help them do their homework, or withhold privileges until their grades go up. But these controlling and punitive strategies can actually make an underperforming child do more poorly, new research finds.
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Explains Jay Reeve, a senior psychologist in the Children’s Inpatient Unit at Bradley Hospital in Providence, R.I., “Children should be given help and encouragement, including such structure as a specific homework time during which no other activities are allowed. But parents should make clear from a fairly young age that homework is the child’s job, and that they are expected to either do it on their own, or request help. The aim is for the child to feel some ownership of the process, not as if they have to do it to please or displease their parents.”
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Modeling good behavior for children is also important. “If the parents are watching television when the child is to be doing homework, or if the parents never read or do other academic tasks, the child will be likely to do the same,” warns Myers-Walls.