Six Degrees of Homework

I hate homework. Okay, technically, I don't really HAVE any homework in the traditional sense, seeing as how I haven't set foot in a classroom since the Reagan administration. However, as soon as one of my kids enters the house with a homework assignment, it somehow becomes mine by proxy.


My oldest will be the first to tell you that in his younger grades, I helped him (a lot) with his homework. (I seem to recall a killer report I did for him in the fourth grade on some explorer, that should have raised any competent teacher's suspicions what with its complex word usage and high tech graphics.) I knew that in many ways, I was hurting him by doing the work, but in some respects it came down to getting it done so that he could get some sleep, or dinner, or at least one bath a week. Fortunately, when he started high school, some new part of his brain grew in and he has done great all by himself. He still takes a long time to get his work done, partly because he is just a 16 bit processor in a 64 bit world, and partly because he is a perfectionist. I take comfort in knowing that the work is getting done and turned in on time as evidenced by his spectacular grade point average, but I do miss seeing him aside from meals and mornings on the way out, because he is ALWAYS doing homework.


My 14 year-old is in his first year of high school and is handling things pretty well. Much to the annoyance of his big brother, he can whip a stack of regular homework pretty quickly most of the time and seldom (if ever) cracks a book to really study for tests (and yet he still makes really good grades). However, he does have a bad habit of procrastinating on the big things. Give this boy two weeks for a project and count on him being up until midnight the night before it is due, cramming to finish. I threaten him within an inch of his life every time he does it, and I guess I should just let him take his lumps, but most of the time, he slides by and gets away with it. In the meantime, I can just feel my ulcer starting to bleed.



My sixth grade daughter is a little better, though her downfall lately has been all of the distractions around here, particularly her baby brother and her BFF who she has to talk to on the phone every afternoon despite the fact that they have just spent the better part of the day together. The trick is (1) getting her started and (2) keeping her focused. Unlike the 14 year-old, she is a little more receptive to the procrastination being a bad idea doctrine. Not to say that she doesn't procrastinate, but she truly feels bad when she does.



Then there are the little girls, the third and first graders. My third grader is a con man. She ALWAYS has an answer, an angle, an excuse. Trying to to get her in a routine concerning her homework is akin to trying to nail Jello to a wall. She always wiggles out of it. She who has the example of three older siblings doing their homework on any given afternoon, just doesn't care. The really irritating thing is that this child is so bright and so inquisitive, but I fear that she will be overlooked because of her blase' attitude about her homework. She does do well on her classwork, but I worry about the days (probably 4th grade) when she starts really getting graded on that work. I think it will be make or break time.


The first grader gets a homework sheet, every Friday, covering the weeks assignments for the week beginning on Monday. Does she get a head start on it over the weekend? (And keep in mind that it usually consists of writing the week's spelling words 3 times and perhaps a math sheet. She resists my futile attempts to get it done early in the week, mainly by going to sleep on the way home from school and then being carried into the house only to sleep until bedtime when her hungry tummy wakes her. Needless to say, guess what she and I are doing on Thursday nights. Yep, that's right. I am pushing her to do her homework and she is tired and cranky and maybe even crying for effect.

I keep reminding myself that they have all gone through these periods and that they are all perfectly capable of doing their work. It's just that I feel responsible. I want them to do better than I did. I was the queen of procratination in my day and if I had done my homework on a timely basis instead of late at night the day before it was due, who knows where I would be now. Okay, I'd probably be right here, but at least I would have had better grades.