Helping Your Kid With Homework Probably Isn't Benefiting Them Like You Think It Is



For many parents, making sure kids eat their vegetables and go to bed on time goes hand in hand with helping young children with their schoolwork. You do it to give your kids the finest possible start in life.

But among all the advantages that this time spent together might provide, improving those grades is probably not one of them.

Researchers from the US found no connection between parental assistance with homework and a child's performance in arithmetic or reading across two national datasets that included pupils in both public and private elementary schools.

No matter how intelligent the adult or child, or how wealthy they are, the time spent slogging through algebra with them is unlikely to have a major impact on the academic performance of the learner.

The authors state that their findings "call into doubt decades of support for parental involvement with and control over schoolwork."

Academics have previously disagreed on the issue of how much homework assistance parents should provide their children. A positive outlook may inspire a love of learning in kids. A lot of involvement could actually hurt rather than benefit test scores.

It's possible that parents don't always enjoy their work. According to research, parents may view homework as a burdensome task, which may lead to stress and pressure at home.

When time is limited, parents may choose to just give their children the solutions.

Children in elementary school are at a particularly crucial stage of development where homework could have a significantly stronger impact, either negatively or positively. The majority of these research focused on middle school and high school-aged children.

Researchers have so sought to understand how younger kids, in grades 1 through 5, respond to parental assistance with their homework.

The authors did this using 2011 and national datasets from 1997 to 1998. In contrast to other research, they also considered factors like socioeconomic position and parental education when assessing their findings.

The research team found no impact, even after accounting for the quantity and quality of parental homework assistance.

The reason for this is unclear to the authors, however they do have a few theories.

For instance, it's possible that family stress makes learning difficult. Or maybe it's because parents are doing the bulk of the work rather than educating their children to think for themselves.

After all, parents are not prepared to teach reading and math to the next generation the way teachers are.

According to Pennsylvania State University researcher Katerina Bodovski, "the youngsters don't get to experience struggle."

"Elementary education is about the growth of a child's abilities and habits, more so than in their knowledge."

High standards might also hinder a child's ability to learn. A youngster may experience needless pressure if they believe their parent is breathing down their neck. Meanwhile, a teacher who is occupied with other students is less likely to intimidate.

Given that the study did not distinguish between different kinds of parent assistance and merely focused on its effect on academic achievement, this does not necessarily imply that assisting kids with their homework has no advantages at all. For instance, it might in some circumstances result in parents spending more time with their kids, which might be advantageous for things other than academics, like their mental health.

The team emphasizes the necessity to differentiate between various forms of parental homework assistance because reports from children's perspectives have revealed that parental confidence and support are linked with higher accomplishment.

Although the authors' findings seem to indicate that parental assistance with homework does not result with improved grades, they recognize that they did not look at learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Help at home was undoubtedly a crucial component of successful remote learning in the year 2020, when teaching duty suddenly became a peculiar balance between the teacher and the parent.

According to Bodovski, COVID forced parents who might have been involved in their children's education to use homeschooling.

When a child attends a conventional school, parental homework assistance is considerably different from that.

However, the authors advise educators and decision-makers to reconsider their recommendations for homework in the future. The greatest method to teach the next generation might not be to ask the parents for assistance.

Journal of Research in Childhood Education 

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