Autonomy-Supportive Parenting in the Real World: Homework Edition
The Oops Sheet
The first time my second grader came home with the Oops I forgot to complete my homework! sheet, the second week of school, I did my best to remain curious, “Well, that’s new.” As a social scientist, I do not agree with (much) homework in elementary, based on the research. As a parent, I didn’t want to cause problems with a new teacher. So, I wait and see.
I felt a little more defensive with the second Oops sheet, as my son (and us) were still getting the hang of understanding his homework chart, and his seventh birthday landed mid-week. In our world, that took priority over cramming in a spelling activity and math worksheet.
But he hung in there, surprisingly going with the flow of what was adding up to well over the recommended 20 minutes for a second grader. As lifelong learners and valuers of education and all, we diligently checked his homework chart every night, remembered spelling activities even on the weekend, and ensured he filled out a reading log I don’t really believe in for a naturally interested and active reader.
Then the third one came home. And the fourth. Stamped over each day of the reading log missing parent initials? PARENT SIGNATURE. Like an inky blue condemnation of our parenting.
Our son seemed unfazed. We felt like bad kids.
Don’t Send that Email, Don’t Send that Email
Simultaneously, I was furiously writing my first parenting book, Parenting for Autonomy, which among other aims, includes antidotes for over-parenting behaviors. Thus, I’m doing my best to not over-parent in real life. (Hard.) Trust me, the urge was strong to email the teacher and complain about the homework . . . but I followed the “perspective-taking” part of the autonomy-supportive approach and imagined her position - two years into teaching during a pandemic with a class full of seven-year-olds who had barely been in a classroom since kindergarten. I trusted she had good reasons for assigning the homework, and checked my own big feelings.
I understand that many education experts and parents would fully support a decision to simply not to do the homework. Let him play and be a kid! Homework doesn’t matter in elementary school anyways! (The research is actually more nuanced than that.) Truthfully, we did entertain the idea of not insisting on the homework and letting our son do the work if and when he wanted. In some ways, that approach aligned with all I was learning about internal motivation and kids and parenting.
Why Traditional Education Is the Worst . . . for Internal Motivation
One aspect of the theory underpinning my book’s entire premise is how autonomy-supportive parenting strategies strengthen our children’s internal motivation. Greater internal motivation to, say, do well in school, leads to greater outcomes across the board: higher satisfaction and wellbeing in addition to better grades and academic achievement.
The canon of motivation research makes clear how external motivators decrease internal motivation for most children (and us for that matter). Students may do their homework and get all As under strong pressure from parents and teachers, but this often comes at a cost of declining performance over time, low interest in school, and even depression and anxiety symptoms.
Guess what counts as external motivators? Test scores. Teachers. Grades. Parents. Oops sheets. Education is full of external motivators! (And they aren’t going away.)
Even when we know what the science says, it can still feel like driving blind in real life. Life does not follow the black-and-white clearly marked lanes of research articles; it swerves around in search of those lanes, which keep shifting around, sometimes disappearing altogether. It’s simply not as straightforward as “if I don’t make my son do his homework in second grade, he will love school and get a 4.0 in high school.”
For our homework conundrum, I aimed to balance what felt like several competing interests: nurturing my young son’s internal motivation for learning, respecting the teacher’s way of running her class, and coaching my child through what we viewed as important for his temperament and personality (doing things he doesn’t like). How do we achieve all this without homework turning into a daily power struggle?
The Homework Routine: Autonomy-Supportive Style
Fortunately, I was living and breathing autonomy-supportive parenting while writing my book, and could put the theory and science to the test in the real-world parenting challenge of my second-grader’s homework routine. Here's how my husband and I followed the autonomy-supportive parenting framework through the trenches of spelling lists, math worksheets, and reading logs. (For more details on the ten tools of autonomy-supportive parenting, read this.)
Stay curious: We sat back and observed for several weeks rather than rushing into change or challenge the homework expectations. Our son lost his initial “go with the flow” vibe that the novelty of a new school year helped make possible. As feared, the resistance to doing his homework started, and he began making comments about hating math and school. Time for action.
Use empathy and perspective-taking to understand his experience: One night at dinner we had a heart to heart with him about his experience with homework. We asked open-ended questions about what made it hard for him to do it. His answers (“my brain is so tired when I get home from school”) helped us with the next step.
Involve him in problem-solving: We brainstormed with our son how to approach the homework routine in a way that felt better to him. He offered to do his math in the mornings when his brain feels sharper, and read after school since he enjoys reading. Within this collaborative problem-solving, we used another key ingredient for autonomy-supportive parenting and building internal motivation: choices. He may not have a choice about whether he does his homework, but he can choose when, where, and with what incentives (eg, play date when he’s done).
Expect independence, with scaffolding: Know thy child, and what they can and cannot yet to independently. Our son is young for his grade, but we know he is capable of doing his work without our help. What he struggles with is getting started, so we are there to help him get set up with a good snack and us nearby, and maybe set a timer so the idea of an end point helps him get going. We let him know we will help him with the material if he asks. Otherwise, he’s got it.
Maintain behavior expectation, with a rationale: Children need clear limits and structure, and part of growing up is learning to do less enjoyable activities. Homework clearly counts as a less enjoyable activity for many children. But using some autonomy-supportive strategies can optimize these less desirable activities as learning and growth experiences for any child. In our case, we explained to our son how homework helps him practice what he’s learning so the hard stuff gets easier faster, and he’s even more ready for third grade.
Values: A fundamental goal of autonomy-supportive parenting, raising children who behave in alignment with their values, means we need to explicitly discuss our values and how they are tied to behaviors. Not only do we value learning and education in our family, but we value respect for his teacher and her expectations. Doing his homework aligns with both of these values.
Not Just Him, or Us
Contrary to what many parenting approaches may convey at times, we do not parent in a vacuum. Our environments interact with us and our families to affect parenting. When discussing homework, each school has its own culture. Sometimes each classroom has its own culture, as we discovered this school year with more homework expectations than we have had in six years of having three children at the same school. In short, we cannot fully address our homework routine at home without involving our son’s teacher.
We used our fall parent-teacher conference to communicate with the teacher about our concerns regarding the impact of the Oops sheets, and what we were observing at home during the homework routine. We clarified her intentions and expectations, and collaborated with her around prioritizing tasks (eg, he has no problem reading daily, but recording it in the log was where the conflict erupted, so we agreed as long as he was reading and on track, we wouldn’t sweat the reading log). She was open, kind and appeared genuinely receptive to our feedback.
“The homework harmony was now as off-key as my fourth grader’s saxophone sounds coming from her room.”
So, What Actually Happened??
Any loyal reader knows I have a complicated relationship with the general culture of parenting guidance. One of my pet peeves is getting to the part of the book or blog post or article where the expert claims that this parenting epiphany/strategy/approach changed everything for their child. Now they sleep perfectly! We haven’t had a tantrum since! My teenager and I have never gotten along better!
So, I’m not going to do that. I’m going to include the most vital word in all of parenting: Flexibility.
After our dinner heart-to-heart with empathy, perspective-taking, and collaborative problem-solving, combined with our teacher conference, we established a smoother routine with much greater calm and cooperation. Our son came home each day, got a snack, and settled into the kitchen counter with a book to start his 20 minutes of reading. We then looked at other tasks and he picked when to do them, including the next morning. Mission accomplished!
Until.
The inevitable micro-shifts in the tenuous tectonic plates that make up our family life altered the flow. Days off school. Holidays. More play dates made possible by vaccinations for 5-12-year-olds. The homework harmony was now as off-key as my fourth grader’s saxophone sounds coming from her room.
My son’s personality does best with very clear limits and structure, and we see the importance of him confronting tasks he dislikes as an important growth point for this same personality. We had to flex our parenting to match our son’s needs (we didn’t need to be as rigid with his two older sisters). Honestly, it was tempting to just drop it and give up on the homework once school resumed in January. But, I didn’t feel good about that for his growth, and for values I hoped to teach him.
As of writing this post-Spring Break, he reads daily, racing through multiple series, like Bad Guys, Captain Underpants, and the Wings of Fire. The reading logs remain empty. He has not developed a love of math, but he has mastered the skills, and will do it with support from external structure. He has his moments of refusal and complaining, but we stick with the expectation and points of choice, and he does it much more quickly and calmly than in the past.
No More Oops Sheets
On reflection, my greatest gripe was the Oops sheet. It felt like a negative way to promote a behavior, which is not only less effective in general, but worked to make me feel like a bad parent when I was trying really hard! Fortunately, our son’s lovely teacher took in our observations and concerns, and we haven’t seen an Oops sheet since our fall conference. Maybe that helped us feel more internally motivated to support our son in the great homework routine. Wait – was she autonomy-supporting US? Well, it worked.
**You can pre-order my book Autonomy-Supportive Parenting: Reduce Parental Burnout and Raise Competent, Confident Children on Amazon and Bookshop.