A friend of mine one time went to her child's school and told them to stop giving the child homework. At that particular point in time, I was also battling back to back homework with my daughter and I understood perfectly the actions that my friend took. I have nothing against homeworks which is now referred to as home school connections in my part of the world.
The only challenge I had back then was joggling the incessant demand from my job and still making out time to solve homework with my daughter. It became even more annoying when I found myself teaching my daughter instead of guiding her. Basically the purpose of homework is to confirm that the child understood all that was taught by the teacher in the classroom. Of course there are rooms for a little confusion which is where the parents comes in as a guide.
The thing is, I don't have to start teaching my daughter why 1+1=2. I don't also have to start explaining to her the use of verbs and consonants because that's the teachers job. Where I believe I come in is correcting minor errors and mistakes that my child might encounter during the course of attending to her assignment. Unfortunately some teachers just want to dump their duty on the parents. You'll be doing homework with your child and you'll see them visibly struggling. You find yourself trying to impact knowledge at a professional level which you might not possess such skills because you are not trained.
Regardless of how the situation might pan out to be, homeworks should remain because it's highly beneficial to the child.
I remember few years back when I had a very demanding job and could not effectively study with my daughter. Every time she comes home with assignments, she takes it back to school undone. Some time's I'd ask her to do it but I'm barely paying attention to what she's doing. Thus, she was always failing and struggling to catch up in school. This led to her teacher reporting me to the school authority and I was called in for a meeting.
The meeting ended in my favour as I absorbeed myself from all the blame and pinned it on the teacher for failing to do her job. But in my victory, my daughter paid the price. At the end of the academic session, her result was barely on an average grade point. I was really disappointed and that experience served as a wake up call for me. I knew that I do not only have to sit up as a parent but the job had to go.
A new session began and it was me following up aggressively on my daughter's academics. I made sure to check her bag for any homework and when I don't find any, I'm the one calling the teacher to ask what went wrong.
Soon, I started seeing my daughter pick up on her academics and sometimes as we do her a homework together, she would be the one correcting me on an error. And when I'd call the teacher for confirmation, it will turn out that my daughter was right.
Seeing how much my daughter improved academically was a thing of joy for me. It was even more exciting working harmoniously with her teacher to ensure that she excels.
Surprisingly, at the end of the academic session, my daughter came out the second best in her class. From my experience, I'm team Homework and in all honesty, no matter how demanding it gets, my stand as an advocate for homework for children remains.
