Motivate child homework

Homework: how to procced?

My opinion is that you should help your child solve each of the problems proposed in the work sent home from school. Now, let us be clear on this: you should help solve, not do it for him/her.

We agree that s/he cannot afford to lose an entire year with a low performance; but s/he can't remain totally dependent on you either, because s/he will have to be able to perform well on her own in the classroom.

Depending on child's level, you will not be able to instantly help him. You'll have to study with her and s/he will advance, updating her knowledge. It'll be a cooperative task and can work if there is an exchange of experiences and mutual involvement to show which learning strategies works for whom. In this process, both you and your child come out as winners, as long as challenges are overcome and solutions are found.

I remember updating my knowledge in math as I accompanied my children's various academic challenges closely. In this sense, you will have to get involved with the means that will lead to success, that is, to learning. Learning together stimulates and motivates both the parent and the child; it gives meaning to the effort employed. For it consists in partnership and cooperation. Once your child sees and witnesses how you build your knowledge on a certain subject, s/he is free to try without fear of making mistakes. S/he will enjoy showing that s/he too is capable of learning.

The final result of learning to solve the proposed problems, a product of the entire process must be attributed to your child's effort and celebrated as thus. S/he must be conscious that s/he's advanced; for this, you have to organize yourself to be available as many times as your child needs. There will be a moment when s/he'll take creative initiatives on his/her own and this is the best family moment: the moment in which the child shows that s/he's achieved self-sufficiency. It is that moment where all of your efforts to help her results in progress.

With this in mind, observe your child's qualitative changes carefully and wait for him to ask for your help. Help him teaching him how to proceed and give him time to build his knowledge based on solid structures and on valid, trustworthy information. Help your child understand if his homework is beyond his capacity, and help him prepare himself to overcome his own limitations. There will be a moment in which your child will have to overcome these, winning several difficulty levels quantitatively until s/he's able to give a qualitative response, thus becoming more apt to do his homework.

It is along these lines that I advise parents to oberve and closely accompany the challenges that can be proposed in their children´s homework. The student who cannot advance in the accomplishement of his/her homework goes to school with an unfinished product that places him at a disadvantage in comparison to his peers. In this case, his/her self-esteem is compromised and s/he will be a candidate for failure.

Help your child win over the barriers that come in the shape of simple homework! Your task, that of being a parent is a challenge as well, and not an easy one at that. It requires affectionate, responsible involvement. What is most recommended is that you make an opportunity to create a game out of the challenge. Within such an enjoyable experience, the child will become capable of learning more content than what is being asked for in the homework.

For each subject, provide your child with a creative task. If the subject is Biology, or Geography, an example of this can be staging a play about ecological balance.

Or maybe you can suggest that s/he create a story about a historical figure if the subject is History, or biographies in English class. If the theme is computers, stimulate him/her to brainstorm about a different machine or software that would feature brand-new, useful functions.

Finally, any concept that surpasses the child's capacity at a given moment, has to be treated as a new opportunity for the child to, first assimilate; and second, adapt and accomodate. The new content has to be learned by the child, once given to him/her the opportunity to make the impossible possible. Each new piece of knowledge had to be created by her in her inner world. We teach; but only her can learn according to her intrinsic ability to construct the new.

2010 Motivate child homework