School's Back! A Parent's Guide to Surviving the Start of School

As summer rolls to an end, the call of the school bell begins to ring out all over the nation.  Here in Cobb County, students started school last week.  Cherokee County started August 1st, and I know of places elsewhere that start in the next week or two.

And as kids board their school bus, parents begin to panic.  Will my child do well this year?  Will he make friends?  Will she like her teacher? What if the teacher can't teach my child?  What if there is a bully in the classroom?  What if a gunman bursts into the school building and hunts my child down like a rabbit?  What if aliens blow up the school as a sign of their hostility?

There is a commonality among all but one of these questions:  there isn't a thing you can do to prevent the situation.  You cannot hover over your child's shoulder during the school day providing personal tutoring or helping him/her make friends and learn how to like the teacher.  Nor can you screen every person your child will meet during the school day and magically remove anyone who seems like a bully.  As for gunmen and aliens?  Chances are equal for both to show up, and in either case you cannot stop them.

The one situation you have direct control over is your child's teacher.  If your child has the misfortune to actually get a teacher that doesn't work out due to a personality conflict - a rarity in my experience - you can get your child switched to a different classroom.

Everything else is out of your direct control.  But indirectly?

You are the most important influence in your child's life at the moment, from elementary school to somewhere in middle school.  Then, you get downgraded to merely an important influence.  In any case, you can help your child not by trying to pave the road in front of him, but by teaching him how to drive.

I like this particular metaphor because it works on more than one level.  Learning to drive inside the lines equals learning how to act in a social setting.  It is inappropriate for anyone to stuff toilet paper rolls down a toilet and then flood the bathroom by repeatedly flushing the toilet.  It's also inappropriate to run around school naked or half dressed.  These are outside the line behaviors, and the vast majority of kids know this before kindergarten because their parents taught them how to drive inside the lines.

Potholes represent both choices your child has to make and things that happen outside her control.  Your child needs to learn how to make her own decisions and make her own mistakes - the earlier the better because the older your child gets the more severe the consequences.  As parents, we need to start letting kids make their own decisions at an early age without using our power to override their choose.  For example, let your kindergartner pick out which clothes to wear to school. As long as the outfit follows the school dress code, keep your mouth shut about what you think would be a better choice.  I would go so far as to discuss the dress code before the start of school, and then stay out of the way.  If your child wears shorts in the winter and freezes at recess, so be it.  No one died from getting a little cold.  If you live in a place with real snow and cold temperatures (we have neither here), maybe you discuss sending along long pants for outdoor time.  But let your child learn. Sometimes, the best way to learn is to make a mistake and then live with the consequences.

 As for bumpy roads, they represent life events that happen outside you or your child's control, events that they will have to deal with.  See another person getting bullied?  Find a wallet on the ground?  Get a flat tire on the way to school? Witness someone having a temper tantrum?  How have you taught your child to handle these situations?  And I don't necessarily mean what conversations you have with your child (though conversations are valuable).  Parents are the first and foremost role models for children; they will do as we do regardless of what we say.  

I guess this boils down to Uncle Ben's saying:  With great power comes great responsibility.  And as a parent, you have great power in your child's life.  If you panic at the thought of school, your child will panic at the thought of school.  If you belittle the teacher where your child can hear you (and remember, children have BIG ears), then your child will respect the teacher less.  And if you worry about your child passes a grade, your child will question his/her ability to pass the grade.

So use your power wisely.  Everything will work out in the end.  Really and truly.

New High School Graduation Requirements in Georgia

Last week, I received an email inviting me to review the new, proposed high school graduation requirements.  From the accompanying introductory letter, I assume that the current graduation requirements do not satisfy the current legislation (Georgia Code O.C.G.A. § 20-2-140 and 20-2-159.1 through 20-2-159.4).  These will effect anyone entering ninth grade in the 2013-2014 school year and beyond, which translates to both of my children.  After reading the requirements, I had the option to fill out an online survey where I could enter my opinion about the requirements.

After reading the requirements document, I not only filled out the survey, but I also called the office of Pamela Smith to speak with someone.  Why?  Because I have several issues with the proposed graduation requirements, starting with the idea of a "Capstone Project".

Basically, the new requirements include having all seniors do a Capstone Project, which is:

a final and in-depth project that allows a student to synthesize and apply the skills and knowledge acquired from previous educational experiences and academic or career-based course work to demonstrate  achievement, proficiency in written and/or oral communication, financial literacy, workplace skills, and the ability to think critically and creatively to solve real-world problems. This is a rigorous culminating project at the end of a pathway related to a chosen academic, career, technical and agricultural education, fine arts, or world language interest.

So, passing all of the classes and the standardized testing isn't enough?  Now, we require seniors to do a thesis to get a diploma, with an optional thesis presentation?

Is this because we don't have enough kids dropping out, so we need to up the ante? Or is this because Georgia does poorly overall and in comparison to other states, so instead of fixing the problem we try to prove to everyone how brilliant our students are by making them produce a thesis?

This is not a fix, by the way, because the problem is not senior year of high school.  As far as I can tell, the problem with the Georgia education system comes down to two factors: the extent to which the parent or parents value education and the extent to which the surrounding community values education.  The more the parent and community value education, the more the student values education and therefore more the student works in school.  The less the parent and community value education, the less the student values education and therefore the less the student works in school.

If you want to fix the problem with drop-outs and kids not educated enough, you need to fix the home environment first.  Waiting until a kid gets to their senior year is just a bit too late.

The Mentality of Group Punishment, and Why It Fails to Discipline

Let me present a scenario to you.  Your kids come home from school, bummed and complaining about how much they hate it.  You ask them what happened, as thoughts about bullies or worse flit through you mind.

"I missed recess today!" you hear wailed, righteous indignation ringing through your child's voice. "And I didn't even do anything!  A group of other kids were loud during reading, so the whole class lost recess today!"

At first, you breathe a sigh of relief as visions of therapy sessions float away, but then you start to think about it.  What do you do?  Do you ask the teacher about it?  And if she agrees that is what happened, what do you do then?  Do you tell her you disapprove of group punishment?  Do you ask the teacher for special treatment for your child?  Or do you ask the principal for a different teacher?

I can tell you that asking for a different teacher is generally not the right answer, because almost all teachers use group punishment when too many kids are not behaving.  In fact, I don't think my kids' have had a single teacher that doesn't use group punishment.  To find out why, I have asked several teachers in the past why they use group punishment instead of calling out the inappropriately behaving kids.  The answers vary, but the top four answers run along the lines of:

1. the entire class was misbehaving as far as the teacher could see,
2. they don't have the time to stop and punish only the misbehaving kids, 
3. they don't know which child or children acted with unacceptable behavior,
4. or they are trying to use peer pressure to enforce good behavior.

The first reason is the only one that makes sense to me.  If all but one or two children in a class are misbehaving, I completely understand why a teacher would punish the class.  After all, teachers are human, and it's entirely possible for them to miss seeing the one or two behaving children.

As for the second reason, I have trouble believing that a teacher has time to explain a group punishment, but not the time to discipline problem children.  If  a child is such a problem that the teacher needs to speak with that child too much, it seems to me that the problem falls into a different discipline domain.

Reason three almost makes sense, until you extrapolate the logic into adult life.  If someone hits a parked car and drives away, the police don't remove everyone's driving privileges for the rest of the day.  If someone loses a library book, the librarians don't close down the library.  I can provide more examples, but I assume you get the point.  Just because the teacher doesn't know who did the offense does not give her the right to punish everyone.  

And peer pressure?  We parents spend an extraordinary amount of time and energy trying to make our children resistant to peer pressure, so that they don't do anything simply because someone told them to.  And now you want to use that pressure to enforce discipline?  Besides, to parents reason three sounds as if the teacher is being lazy, trying to pass off the discipline to the other children.  

What I wish teachers knew was how damaging group punishment can be.  To subject a behaving child to group punishment on a regular basis generates feelings of frustration and anger in that child towards the teacher, not towards the misbehaving students.  Children and parents start to view teachers who regularly use group punishment with less respect, since group punishment is not respectful to the behaving students.   Since students view group punishment as inherently unfair, if one kid tries to stop the group punishment by telling the teacher who was misbehaving, the other children tend to gang up against the "tattle-tale" and against the teacher. 

 In the end, if the choice is between punishing everyone or no one, the proper choice is no one.

Fly Away, Flu!

This past week, I received an email from the pediatrician's office, telling me that the flu vaccine is now available and remind me to schedule an appointment for my children.  The email spawned some questions:

• Do I want to schedule an appointment?  
• Do I want my kids to get another vaccine?

I know that vaccines do not directly cause autism, because I read and believe all of the research surrounding thimerosal.  And I have relatives who died or were permanently disabled from polio, so I also believe that vaccines do good.

But I also know that the over use and misuse of antibiotics has created several new super bugs, including new strains of both tuberculosis and gonorrhea that resist almost all available antibiotics. If we get an epidemic of either disease, we would be hard-pressed to respond in any way other than to let the infected die while protecting the healthy.

So I wonder, do vaccines exasperate the problem?

After research, my answer is no, vaccines do not exasperate the super bug problem.  In fact, by removing certain viruses from the living population, vaccines help us eradicate certain diseases, creating a stronger populations.

I then looked at arguments against the flu vaccine, or vaccines in general:

1. Vaccines hurt the immune system, as evidenced by the sudden expansion of auto-immune diseases.
2. The flu vaccine doesn't work because the scientists merely guess what to put into it.
3. We don't know that vaccines are effective.
4. My child is not in an at-risk group, and therefore does not need the flu vaccine.
5. Vaccines use thimerosal, which causes mercury poisoning.

More research ensued, and this is what I learned.

1. Auto-immune disease, such as arthritis, have been documented for centuries, and there really is no "sudden expansion" in the area.  In fact, vaccines help to exercise the immune system in a world filled with antibacterial soap and obsession with cleaning products.
2. Okay, the scientists are guessing what flu will emerge each winter.  But the amount of hard work put into that "guess" outweighs the amount of fancy or fantasy in it.  
3. Proving a positive is quite difficult in science.  But circumstantial evidence solidly and strongly supports the effectiveness of vaccines.
4. In the beginning, the medical community recommended the flu vaccine only for at-risk groups (such as people with weakened immune systems or with respiratory problems, like asthma).  But these days, everyone is eligible for the flu vaccine because it is better for everyone if no one gets the flu.
5. Thimerosal is a preservative for multi-dose vaccines that helps to prevent deaths from vaccines gone bad.  In 1928, 12 children died from a staphylococcus infection given to them through a vaccine without preservatives.  Several groups researched thimerosal after someone supposedly linked it to autism, but no one has credibly supported that link.  In response to public opinion, the CDC removed thimerosal from almost all vaccines.  The flu vaccine is an exception, and still contains a small amount of thimerosal, but there is a non-thimerosal version available if you ask for it.

In the end, I would rather my kids not get the flu, so I will be taking them to get the flu vaccine in the next week or so.  My husband and I will also be getting the flu vaccine.  The question now is, will you?

* The video is a song about the flu, composed and sung by the amazing Tom Lehrer.

Wordless Wednesday: English...

In honor of the first week of school, here in Cobb County, a new take on English...

with an older Wordless Wednesday.

Welcome Back to School!!!

The 2012-2013 school year begins today in Cobb County.  Curiosity and trepidation fill the school buses as kids start a new grade.

Will I like my teacher?  
Will I have too much homework?  
Will I have friends in my class or classes?
What will happen this year???

Parents have just as many questions, wondering if they (the parents) will like the teacher, if their child/children will do well academically and socially, and if they will be able to afford all the related expenses (PTA, school supplies, foundations, new clothes, more school supplies,...)

Though I have said this before, I will say it again - talk to your child's teacher.

Teachers really are human, too, and will not either send you to detention or hate your child because you want to talk to her (or him).  So ask the teacher how she wants to communicate, either email, notes from home, or phone calls, and then treat her as a participant in your child's life.  I make a point of asking what is the teacher's preferred method of communication, even if the teacher says that all methods are acceptable.  Why?  Because the teacher either have 20-30 parents to communicate with (in elementary school) or hundreds of parents (in middle and high school), while I only have 1-8 teachers on my end.

Remember, opening the lines of communication now will help the rest of the year flow more smoothly.

It's The End of the World As We Know It....

It's the last day of the 2011 - 2012 school year!  That means in less than 2 hours, I will have a fifth grader and an eighth grader - woot!!!  One more year, I will no longer be an elementary school mom.  One more year, and I will become a high school mom.

Something about today makes me feel as though this is the end of the world as we know it.  Both of my kids keep growing up, gaining faith in themselves as they expand their world.  Both kids now have the run of the neighborhood and the surrounding areas on their bikes; they can bike to the library, to Target, to the swimming pool, and to the bike shop.  Both kids want to learn how to cook more meals, so we already started on menus.
My daughter knows how to solder, and has two or three projects just waiting for her to have the time.  My son loves paintball - luckily the field is close by.  And both kids love science - can you say homemade liquid nitrogen?

The most exciting part of the summer, though, is called Camp Terry.  My son, Terry, decided to run a week long summer camp for a neighborhood boy (a six-year old friend of the family).  Terry planned out activities to do every day, including a field trip, and even offered to watch this kid overnight.  When my daughter, Rachel, asked what she could do, Terry offered to hire her as a camp assistant.   So everyone is now happy and looking forward to having the best week of the summer. :-)

As for me, I need to balance writing, programming, and spending time having fun with my kids.  I love doing science experiments, doing large art projects, and exploring areas of Georgia.  Mostly, though, I just like hanging out and discussing life, liberty, and the universe.

I hope you have a wonderful summer, wherever you are.

Cobb County School District Budget

Warning:  This is a rant.

Yesterday, the Cobb County School Board passes the budget for the 2012 - 2013 school year, and to be quite honest the entire budget process rests upon the belief that we should NEVER raise the property taxes in the county.

Why?

What is so wrong with paying a little more money to provide for better education?  Are we so greedy and self-centered that we begrudge the school district a mere $50 more per household?  Is the future of our society too "distant" for us to at least attempt to plan for it?

Children are our future.  Period.  End of discussion. Cats and dogs, while wonderful pets, cannot maintain society after we are too old to work.  Flowers and perfectly cut green lawns are really only decorations.  HDTVs will eventually break down.  Computers and the Internet provide a modicum of companionship, but no face-to-face, hand-holding comfort.

But in our greed and arrogance, we refuse to acknowledge that children need help, need money to get a decent education so that they, the children, have a chance at a decent future as well.

I live in East Cobb, where people have money.  To compensate for the lack of funds from the school district, the parents in most of the local elementary school form school foundations.  These foundations not only raise money for the school, but several of them have professional grant writers as parents.  These parents write grants, thereby securing even more funds for the local schools to use.

But what about the rest of the entire county?  Why should East Cobb students have such a monetary advantage?

Our Founding Fathers did not fight the British to avoid paying taxes.  They understood that we need to pay taxes to maintain a healthy, growing society.  They simply wanted a say in what money was collected, and where that money was spent.

Where did that bit of common sense go?

Children and Multiple Intelligences: A Short Aside

After posting Part 1, I realized that schools and school systems who have good test scores might be hesitant to implement any new teaching methodology or techniques.  Why?  After all, doesn't the present of good test scores mean that the schools use cutting edge ideas?

No, on the contrary, schools with good test scores only use the tried and true methods, because no one wants to be responsible for lowering the test scores.  Instead, it is the Title 1 schools and the schools with low test scores that feel free to try new teaching techniques, since they can theoretically only get better.

And people wonder why I never liked "No Child Left Behind".

Children and Multiple Intelligences, Part 1

Lately I've been contemplating and researching the various types of intelligence.  In case you are wondering, "What are types of intelligence?", I made a list of the nine generally accepted types of intelligence:

1. Naturalist Intelligence (“Nature Smart”) 
2. Musical Intelligence (“Musical Smart”) 
3. Logical-Mathematical Intelligence (Number/Reasoning Smart) 
4. Existential Intelligence 
5. Interpersonal Intelligence (People Smart”) 
6. Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence (“Body Smart”) 
7. Linguistic Intelligence (Word Smart) 
8. Intra-personal Intelligence (Self Smart”)
9. Spatial Intelligence (“Picture Smart”)

(For more information about the types of intelligence, see http://skyview.vansd.org/lschmidt/Projects/The%20Nine%20Types%20of%20Intelligence.htm)

I actually knew about the various types of intelligence when my kids were invited into the elementary school target program.  The Target teachers explained that all children have these types of intelligence, and that the Target program works to engage the children in more that linguistic or logical-mathematical intelligences.

Of course, my first thought was, "Why aren't regular teacher attempting to use this information in their teaching?" 

The answer is quite simple - teachers are given the materials they use to teach.  Teachers are not allowed to deviate from the script, figuratively speaking, because that might lead to lower test scores.  And the school systems practically worship test scores at the moment, thanks to No Child Left Behind.  

But I wonder if the children would learn better if the school system allowed the schools and teachers to explore various teaching techniques that utilized all nine type of intelligence.   Or what would happen if we allowed students to explore their strengths and weaknesses instead of expecting all students to fit into a mold?

Online Resources for Students

Whether you have a kindergartner or a senior, at some point you or your child will need to go online, either to research a school project or to get extra help in a specific subject.  The question then becomes, where do you head?

The very first place I (and my kids) go is to the associated teacher’s blog.   I currently have children in Murdock Elementary School and Dodgen Middle School, and I completely love the teachers at both school!!!  On top of being knowledgeable and friendly, these teachers maintain wonderful lists on their blogs of website pertinent to either the grade or the class.  From math facts to typing to social studies and science, I find interesting links to everything.

If I need to look further, I admit that I use my Google fu to search the Internet.  I spent and continue to spend time with my children online, teaching them how to search Google for information.  By the way, the basic secret for searching on Google is to type in your question exactly like you would ask a librarian.  Google automatically throws out simple words, such as “the”, and generally performs the search you want.

For those who want to set up bookmarks on your home computer to quality educational sites, I have a few suggestions for you:

• My Homework Hotline:  Sponsored by Public Broadcasting Atlanta’s E-learning Cyber Center and the Atlanta Public Schools, My Homework Hotline offers students real people answering phone calls and online help requests.  Georgia Tech even provides the math tutors.  
• Phone Number:  678-553-3029
• Online Request Form
• Available Monday through Thursday on normal school days
• Grades K-5 can get help from 3:00pm - 5:00pm
• Grades 6-12  can get help  from 5:00pm - 9:00pm
• Khan Academy:  From developmental math (e.g. what is a whole number) to calculus, the Khan Academy covers every math subject from kindergarten to twelfth grade.   If your child doesn’t quite understand a math lesson, pull up this website and watch the video.   Khan Academy also offers video lessons on science, history, and computer science.   No registration is required to watch the videos, but you will need to register if you want to use their online math practice.
• e-Learning for Kids:   This particular website contains information and lessons for kindergarten through sixth grade inclusively, in the following subject areas:
• Math
• Language Arts
• Science
• Computer
• Environmental Skills
• Life Skills
• Health
• English as a second language

How To Be Your Child's Advocate

It is the job of every parent to be an advocate for their child or children - this message comes across in society through media and adult peer pressure.  But rarely does the message contain how to be an advocate.  Do you stand up for your child in every circumstance, always believing every word your child reports to you?  Do you stand next to the teacher, never believing what your child tells you?  What exactly does "being your child's advocate" really mean?

As a mother who has had a child in Cobb County schools for a combined total of 19 years, I learned how to be an advocate for my children the hard way, through trial and error, blood, sweat, and tears.  This is what I learned, in a nutshell.

For 180 days, you, your child, and your child's teacher work as a team with the goal being a happy and productive school year for your child.  That means that if a problem arises, all three of you need to work together to fix the problem.  The team works the best when no one is trying to assign blame to another team member, but everyone accepts responsibility for their own actions.  You will need to role model accepting responsibility for your child, since you are one of the biggest, most important role models in your child's life.

For 180 days, this team exists.  But only you and your child move on to form a new team next year.  This means that you are the only adult continuously on this team, privy to knowledge both of your child and past history at the school.  This is why you are your child’s advocate.

Now, what I’m about to tell you is the secret for being an advocate - the knowledge that most of us had to learn the hard way.  The crucial job as your child’s advocate is to communicate with the teacher and the school both proactively and reactively, and to not stop communicating if an issue is not settled to your satisfaction.

That’s it.  It really is that simple.  But let’s go over two examples of being your child’s advocate.

First, proactively communicating with the teachers.  One of my children learns spelling words by either saying the letters out loud, or singing the letters.  So at the beginning of every year, I always sit down with the teacher and explain this.   Every year, my child’s spelling homework changes to accommodate her learning style.  

Second, reactively communicating with the teachers.  Let’s say your son comes home and declares, “My teacher hates me!  She picked on me in the hallway for talking and completely ignored everyone else talking!”  First you must discount what your child tells you.  Or as a teacher friend of mine says, “I promise not to believe everything your child says about home, if you promise not to believe everything he says about school.”  

Children, especially young children, see the world from a very me-centric viewpoint.  That means that your child can tell you the absolute truth from his perspective and still leave out important information.  If your child ever comes home and says something outrageous,  question him for more details if you are worried.  Personally, I would worry about this situation, because regardless of the teacher’s behavior, your child may not feel safe in the classroom. Feeling safe is important for your child’s success, so I would call the teacher and talk to her.  

Let her know that you merely wanted another perspective on the situation.  Chances are there has been a miscommunication somewhere, or your child misunderstood what was happening.  By communicating with the teacher, not only can you clear up this particular situation, but may prevent future problems as you, your child, and his teacher get a better understanding of each other.

99% of the time, when you speak with the teacher, you’ll discover that your son was yelling, or that she did tell everyone to stop talking.  99% of the time you’ll be happy after a phone call or email with the teacher.  Then you can sit down with your son, explain what happened, and work it out.

But that leaves the 1% of the time that you are not happy.  The teacher might start harping on how loud your son is, raising an internal warning flag.  Or the teacher might blow off the incident, saying your son needs to just be quiet and not worry about the other children.  (Note:  This might sound logical, but it does not exist in reality.  Everyone worries about themselves in relation to others.)  Here is where the tough part of being an advocate kicks in.  You need to schedule a parent/teacher conference with the teacher to further discuss the situation.  If you cannot resolve it with the teacher after a conference, then and only then do you escalate to the administration.  

I hope that you never get to the place where you must involve the principal.  But if you do, make notes and take them with you about the situation.  Schedule an appointment with the principal including the teacher, and present your concerns.  If possible, present what you feel are reasonable solutions to your concerns.  If the situation gets resolved, wonderful.  But if you still are not happy, do not let up.  Even if it gets to the point where you want your child moved to a different classroom, you need to keep going.  

To be honest, this is an extreme case.  In my experience here in Cobb County,I have only had to move a child once.  And the vast majority of my friends never had to go that far.  A simple conversation with a teacher covers almost any situation 99% of the time.  But as your child’s advocate, you need to be willing to go as far as needed.  

Here is the second secret about being your child’s advocate - parents wield immense power in the school system.  You have several rights and responsibilities.  According to the Board Administrative handbook (available http://www.cobbk12.org/), the school is responsible  for “...Providing particular attention to situations in which the educational welfare of  students may be jeopardized.”   Emotional security is an intangible part of the classroom  environment, but without it a child will not succeed.  So if you feel that the school administration will not listen to you, pull out the handbook and force the issue.  

I can tell you that I have never had to push the local school administration to handle a problem.  

Never. Ever.  

The school administration wants everyone to be satisfied with the solution, because in the end that will lead to more success for the student.

That is the nutshell version of how to be your child’s advocate.  Please let me know if you have any questions, and I will try to answer them.

How You Can Help Your Child With Homework

     Now that you have a good environment ready for your child to do homework, the question arises as to how to help your child with her homework.  Before you begin,  I have one word of advice.  

You are a parent, not a teacher.  

     Even if you are a teacher, you are a parent first when helping your child with homework. This means:  

• You do not correct the homework, unless you have specific instructions from the teacher.  
• If your child misses the majority of the problems, send a note to the teacher and let her handle it.  
• If your child is struggling and doesn’t want your help, stand back and let your child handle it.  
• If your child struggles for too long, stop her, send a note to the teacher, and let the teacher handle it..

    Homework lets the teacher know if a student understands what’s being taught, but only if you, the parent, don’t correct the homework yourself.  In other words:

• Your job is to make sure the homework gets complete and to communicate to the teacher about any problems.  
• Your teacher’s job is to correct the homework and work on any comprehension problems with your child.  
• Your child’s job is to do the homework to the best of his or her ability and ask for help when appropriate.

Before Homework...

    Before your child begins homework, you need to ensure that he has enough emotional energy to actually do the work.  That means your child needs to be neither too hungry nor too tired, since    either condition lessens your child’s ability to cope.  

     For a child who exits the school bus looking to consume any and everything in his path, afternoon snacks are a must.  Peanut butter with either apple slices or graham crackers, cheese toast, and yogurt with granola are a few of the favorite afternoon snacks at my house.  The actual foods don’t matter as long as you have some protein and some carbohydrates.  You can even turn afternoon snacks into subtle nutrition, math, and finance lessons by letting your child help out.  Menu planning requires discussion on nutrition, figuring out how much to buy requires some math, and shopping for the ingredients involves money.

     As for sleep, I admit that  you can’t do anything about a child who is too tired in the afternoon.  Children need a regular sleep schedule.  If you notice your child has circles under her eyes or seems unable to focus or stay on task, then you need to consider moving your child’s bedtime forward.  Even a change of 15 minutes has been shown to help children perform better in school.

During Homework...

    Children need various things from you while doing their homework.  Younger children might need you to sit next to them, for confidence and to answer the occasional question.  Older children might need you to play music, or keep the area quiet.  Sometimes children need help on projects; sometimes they want you to go away and let them handle it themselves.  Whatever the particular situation, there are a few rules for you to follow:

1. You should only do what your child cannot.  

When both of my children went to kindergarten, we had family art projects once a month.  Even though these projects were family oriented, I let my child lead each project and make the important decisions. For example, my daughter needed to create a family snowman for December.  She picked out a tartan to represent our Scottish heritage and  a coat of arms for our German heritage, among other decorations.  I printed out the images and cut them to the appropriate size, but my daughter glued everything to the snowman and did the rest of the decorating herself.  By splitting the work up that way, she felt ownership for the snowman.

2. Offer help when your child asks for it or seems lost...

Okay, okay, I know I said that it’s the teacher’s job to help your child with comprehension problems.  But sometimes a child gets stuck, or needs reassurance that she’s doing the problem correctly.  That’s where you come it.  

Let’s say your child is doing a math worksheet, and comes to you stuck on a problem.  Is it the first problem?  If yes, find out how stuck she is.  If she has no clue, skip the worksheet and send a note to the teachers.  If she thinks she knows what to do, but she’s just learning the math concept (such as long division), then watch her go through the steps.  It’s very possible that your presence and reassurance are all that she needs.  If the problem is halfway through the homework, look at the rest of the answers.  If she got everything right, then helping her get over one problem is no big deal.  If she got every other answer wrong, then stop her and send a note to the teacher, because you really do not want her to learn how to do math the incorrect way.

3. But stand back if your child doesn’t want help.

Remember, you want your child to learn responsibility for his or her own homework.  That means if your child wants to continue without your help, you have to bite the bullet and stand down.  If your child asks for help, but then says that he can do it alone, let him.  If he seems frustrated but says he can figure it out, let him.  If he works on a problem for too long, ask him if he needs help, but be prepared to honor a “no” answer as much as you would a “yes” answer.

I know from experience that it is very difficult to stand by and let your child struggle with homework, especially if you know a shortcut to help out or if it is one of your strong subjects.  But children need to learn how to stand on their own.  Period.  As their parent, you need to support this.  A child who overcomes his own struggles will learn to persevere, which is what we ultimately want our children to learn.

4. Create your own example problems to avoid doing your child’s homework.

Your child is doing long division for the first time, and asks you to help explain the steps involved before she starts working.  This situation sets up what I consider a classic homework quandary for parents - how to help out without doing any of the homework yourself.

The answer to this quandary is simple - create a brand-new, not in her homework problem for the two of you to work out.  If your child is multiplying two digit numbers, pick two new number and walk through the multiplication.  If your child is doing long division, reminder her that “Dirty Monkeys Smell Bad” (divide, multiply, subtract, bring down) and create a new different problem to practice on.  If your child does not seem to understand after one or two practice problems, stop the math homework and send a note to the teacher.  Be happy that you tried, and even more happy that you didn’t inadvertently do any homework problems.

5. Dance!  Do Jumping Jacks!  Wiggle! (after each assignment, that is.)

Recent work in neurology shows that the part of the brain responsible for processing motion and movement also processing learning.  That means a quick way to re-energize your child’s brain in the middle of homework is movement.  Put on a dance tune and boogie with your child.  Do some jumping jacks together, or wiggle around for a few minutes between homework assignments or after 15 minutes of concentration.  Not only will this help your child focus better, but it’s a great activity to do together.

6. Praise your child for attempting each problem.

Children need to be praised for attempting problems, regardless of the outcome or the correctness of the answer.  

7. Stop all homework when your child hits burnout.

Homework is helpful up to the point of burnout.  By burnout, I mean that a child is out of mental and emotional energy.  Burnout leaves a child tired, angry, and out of internal coping resources.  Every homework study I’ve read warns about burnout, because not only does it hurt homework for the night, but children who hit burnout also do poorly  the next day at school.  If you notice your child is heading to burnout, stop him immediately and send a note to the teacher.  

8. Establish the habit that homework is not done until it’s back in the backpack.

It is far too easy for a child to finish all of the problems on a worksheet and then leave the worksheet on the kitchen table.  Then you spend the evening chasing your child down, admonishing him to put his homework away.  You can avoid this scenario completely if you establish from the get-go that homework does not count as “complete” until it is return to the backpack, along with any notes for or from the teacher and every other item needed for school the next day.

9. Remember, Cobb County has a 10-minute per grade level homework policy.

If your child routinely has more than 10-minutes per grade level worth of homework, you need to schedule a parent-teacher conference to understand why and fix the situation.  I assume that Cobb County based it’s homework policy on national standards and homework studies that show too much homework creates burnout.  It is your job, as a parent, to enforce this standard for your child.

After Homework...

    Congratulations!  You and your child made it all the way through homework.  I don’t have any routine activities to perform after homework, but about once every week or two I check on the homework supplies.  Do we still have enough sharpened pencils?  Erasers?  If you put effort into reviewing your homework supplies proactively, you can avoid the “But I can’t find scissors!” situation.

Next week, I’ll discuss how to be your child’s advocate.     


    

Homework, Homework, Everywhere...

As the school year progresses, the dread of homework creeps upon us.  I am certain that you’ve heard (or will hear) whining and complaining along the lines of, “This is too hard!” or “I don’t want to do homework!” So how can you help your child do homework without starting a knock-down, drag-out fight over it?

I’ve written a series of articles on homework based on research in neurology, how the brain learns, and personal experience.  The articles cover:

• How much should you help
• How to set up a homework friendly environment
• How to help your child without doing the homework yourself
• Where to find online resources for both you and your child
• How to be your child’s advocate over homework

The first thing you must determine is how much help your child truly needs.  Like most things in childhood, the younger the child, the more you need to be involved hands on.  This means that in general, younger children need more parental involvement that older children.

Kindergarten through First Grade:  You’ll need to sit next to your child during homework, giving her instructions such as “Write your name at the top of the paper” every night and offering encouragement.  Plan on doing homework at approximately the same time every afternoon, to teach your child the habit.

Second and Third Grade:  At the beginning of the year, you will still need to sit down with your child.  But within the first few weeks, stop sitting down and let you child tackle his homework on his own.  Just be available during homework to answer any questions and give encouragement.  

I suggest you still sit down and go over the homework with your child in second grade in detail.  But by third grade, a quick question of “So how much homework do you have?” will suffice.   The point of either activity isn’t to give you an idea of the homework, but to give your child an idea of how much he has at the end of the day.  This step moves him along the path to independently done homework.  

Fourth and Fifth Grade:  You finally reached the point where you can say, “Okay, it’s time to start your homework.”  Your child now knows:

• How to do homework,
• Where to do homework,
• Where you keep supplies,
• How to gauge the amount of homework, and
• When to do homework.

You will need to teach your child how to schedule projects, since most school do not hand out big at-home projects before fourth grade.  I suggest you pull out a calendar and discuss how to divide the amount of work reasonably over the available time period.  Then have your child write down the results so that she can track them independently.  

Sixth Grade and Up:  Here’s where the rubber meets the road.  Sometime during your child’s middle school years, you need to stand back and stop doing homework.  Stop asking your child how much homework he has, stop arranging time for his homework (unless he requests the time), stop everything.  This is the moment you’ve been waiting for (or dreading) - your child now can independently do his homework.

At the beginning of my son’s sixth grade year, we gave him a choice.  Either we would still schedule his homework for him and sometimes check his work for completion, or he could take over and be responsible for his homework.  He choose the latter; that meant that he needed to manage his own time after school to get his homework done.  

How did that experiment turn out?  

Wonderfully!  My son ran into trouble a few times, as he learned how to manage his time.  But we kept our noses out of his homework, and he made honor roll twice in sixth grade, and remained in his advanced classes for seventh grade.  

Was it easy for me to give up control?

No!!  While I told my son that I had every confidence in his capability to handle homework, inside I feared the nightmare  - a report card full of Ds and F with a child who learned nothing.  I feared behavior problems, arguments over computers and chores springing up randomly, meteors falling out of the sky onto our house, heavy rains of cats and dogs, earthquakes splitting the ground open to form a volcano in downtown Marietta...

But none of that happened.  To forestall any arguments over video games, we gave my son a timer and a set amount of computer time per day.  He can use the time whenever he wants, so long as he does not go over his allotment.  Not only did arguments over chores not appear, he now chooses to take out the garbage over starting homework - an unforeseen bonus that leaves my house smelling that much cleaner.  As for the cataclysms?  There is still a dearth of active volcanoes in our area.

I know that someone out there reading this will think, “But my child isn’t ready for the responsibility.” Let me tell you a little story.  Back in the mid-1990s, some parenting experts started recommending that no one potty trains their children until the ages of 4 ½ or 5.  The experts said that waiting allowed the parents to have more meaningful conversations with their children on the subject.  Sounds logical, right?

Wrong.  Waiting on potty training taught the children to pee and poo in their pants.  Children’s brains are wired to learn certain activities at certain ages, and you don’t have much of a choice about it.  A child will walk when he’s ready, talk when he’s ready, learn to read when he’s ready, and learn to use a toilet when he’s ready.

Your child also learns responsibility at a certain age.  She learns to dress herself, feed herself, pick up her toys, put her dishes in the dishwasher,...  Learning to be responsible for homework is just another stepping stone on the trip from infant to independent adult.

I know several parents who gave up the reins of homework, and enjoyed their children’s school years more because of it.  I also know several parents who did not hand over the responsibility, and these people paid for it in middle school and  high school.  Their children had learned not to be responsible for their own homework, not to think about it or schedule for it.  Epic battles occurred in their homes over homework, and nobody won.

One final note to my story - I still help my son when he asks for help.  Sometimes he gets a big project and needs help figuring out the schedule.  Sometimes he needs unusual school supplies.  And sometimes, he needs to be excused from a family activity.  The message here is that I still support my son.  But I let him tell me what he needs instead of my butting-in and looking for what I can do.