Homework: From Headache to Harmony
Before you became a parent, fantasies of parenting life may have included dreamy bedtime stories and giggle-filled bathtimes. Fast forward to reality: reading the same book for the 1000th time does not feel dreamy, and bathtime mostly revolves around begging a slippery child to put their head underwater.
In another exposure of my nerd-dom, one of my pre-parenting fantasies was helping with homework. As you may guess, when homework finally made an appearance in our family life, a harmonious celebration of learning did not ensue.
When my oldest was in second grade, we encountered “the homework routine” for the first time. I sat down with her at the kitchen table placing the math worksheet in front of us with her little fingers grasping a newly sharpened pencil. I felt a rush of excitement about supporting my daughter’s love of math and lifetime love of school.
Cut to scene: tears streamed and a pencil flew through the air as the math worksheet sat on the table, woefully empty. My worries about her future work ethic pushed me to push her, even if I tried to do so with compassion and encouragement. My daughter still experienced my “encouragement” as pressure, which she communicated in no uncertain terms was too much for her (as evidenced by the projectile pencil).
Weeks later at her parent-teacher conference, the teacher spent forty minutes showing us stacks of work from the trimester. The teacher told us our daughter would write for hours if she could, needing reminders to stop for lunch. It hit me hard: she had an amazing work ethic at school, and she was tired by the time she got home. She was 8.
Homework time can turn into power struggle time—an eruption of emotion and conflict that leaves us questioning if homework is worth it. And it may or may not be.
Should Homework Even Exist?
The “homework routine” can take a toll on the parent-child relationship. I have counseled many families with a dynamic that may be familiar to you: high-achieving, educationally oriented parents with a child who either practices every delay tactic in the book to stretch out the homework hour way beyond a reasonable amount of time or more directly rebels by arguing, crying, and refusing; or both. This is not fun. It can destroy the evening and lead to daily dread of the “homework routine,” which is not worth the stack of tear-stained math worksheets and word journals.
You may have come across headlines about how homework is pointless and should be abandoned. It is true that some research shows that homework may not help all kids academically as much as we assume, but it may not be as universally useless as some argue. Although one big analysis found that homework had no effect on grades, a more fine-tuned examination of this analysis clarified that results depended on the age of the child (older children did benefit from homework) and how the homework was used. When its purpose was to practice rather than teach new concepts, homework did improve children’s grasp of material.
Homework is yet another example of how important it is to consider context when making a decision about what’s best for your child. For example, a young child with ADHD may use a tremendous amount of energy throughout their day to pay attention to boring things and restrain impulses to avoid getting in trouble. When this child gets home, they have put in twice the work of a child without weak attention and impulse control. Expecting them to sit down and read for 20 minutes will feel like torture for everyone involved. However, maybe you have a fifth grader on the precipice of middle school where homework demands will multiply and you want them to be prepared by practicing some work after school each day.
The Solution: Our Motivation for Their Autonomy
No matter our personal opinion about the utility of homework, our child will likely come home with some version of schoolwork at home, and we have to decide how to approach it. Some parents may simply email the teacher and state, “We’re not doing homework in this household.” For those of us either on the fence about the value of homework or pro-homework, approaching it within the autonomy-supportive framework can help us all thrive rather than barely survive.
A 2018 study looking at how parents can address the problem that “children do not like homework” found that parents’ motivation for supporting their child’s autonomy positively affected the child’s engagement and self-efficacy (belief in their abilities). These two factors related to greater internal motivation. In other words, the more parents felt motivated to support their child’s autonomy around homework, the more likely their child was engaged, confident, and motivated with homework. The common-sense conclusion is that a child who is more engaged, confident, motivated, and self-sufficient while doing homework means it’s a less stressful, time-consuming process for everyone involved.
Okay, I can hear some of you saying, “supporting my child’s autonomy would mean not making them do homework!” This is the tricky part of autonomy-supportive parenting: how do we support autonomy within behavioral expectations children do not love and would opt out of? To help bring this idea to life, I’m sharing an excerpt from my book:
Homework Scenario: “My Brain Hurts!”
Your newly minted second grader comes home with a daily homework log, including nightly reading, spelling, and math. He is a naturally avid reader and has always loved math but is starting to make statements like, “I hate math.” He is having more meltdowns and is complaining about homework and school. How can you preserve his love of learning and support his budding confidence in doing schoolwork while also communicating the value of education and hard work?
Controlling Responses:
Invalidate his perspective and experience with directive language: “We have to do this homework no matter what. It’s what your teacher expects of you.”
Impose external structure without their input: “You will do your homework when you get home from school until it’s finished. No TV or iPad time until it’s all done.”
Engage in intrusive behaviors: “This is taking forever. I’m just going to tell you the rest of the answers.”
Make shaming comments: “This is so easy. Why can’t you do it faster?”
Autonomy-Supportive Responses:
Express interest in his perspective: “You seem overwhelmed by homework this year, which is really different from first grade!”
Show empathy and warmth: “We know you are working so hard, and it can be tiring. We are really proud of all you are learning this year.”
Provide rationale: “Practicing this work at home helps you learn more quickly at school, so it all feels easier.”
Involve in decision-making around a homework routine, including helping him tune in to his own needs: “When do you feel like it’s easiest for your brain to do homework?”
Use flexible language: “What do you think about fitting in your math after Legos, before you watch a show?”
Encourage independence and sense of competence: “It seems like you understand how to do this, but let me know if you get stuck.”
This scenario comes straight from my household, so I can share how it played out in real life. After a few weeks of observing our son’s meltdowns and negative statements about school because of his new homework demands, my husband and I had a heart-to-heart talk with him during dinner. In response to open-ended questions, he shared helpful insights: “I’m just so tired after school. It hurts my brain to do my homework.” We asked him about his ideas for getting homework done, and he explained his brain felt better in the mornings. He is an early riser and gets ready quickly, so this was a realistic strategy.
Although the scenario’s controlling approach offers consistency through the predictable structure of a homework routine, it does not address other barriers to homework—namely, the child’s lack of internal motivation. Ignoring the child’s homework experience and their sense of agency pressures the child and works against their love of learning, adding fuel to the fire of homework power struggles instead of extinguishing it.
Alternatively, the combination of autonomy-supportive strategies my husband and I used—understanding our son’s experience, involving him in problem-solving, maintaining the behavioral expectation of doing the homework, and using flexible language with him each day—resulted in greater intrinsic motivation.
My strong-willed, spirited, yet easily overwhelmed child found his groove. He developed a routine of coming home and doing his twenty minutes of reading while eating a snack right away, partially because he enjoys reading. Then he felt some ownership around alternating relaxing and work activities until he felt satisfied with what he accomplished, sometimes saving work for the next morning but not always. I think even knowing that completing his homework was a choice increased his confidence. The best part? No tears and flying pencils.
**You can order Autonomy-Supportive Parenting: Reduce Parental Burnout and Raise Competent, Confident Children on Amazon and Bookshop and wherever books are sold!