Customer Reviews

Ending the Homework Hassle

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book describes the daily/nightly family homework ordeal that traps so many of us. It promises remedies in non-technical, easy to read words. And it delivers on its promise with usable plans and examples in a variety of real life success stories.

Whether we parents were told wrong, as Rosemond blames modern "Parenting Experts," or whether we heard wrong, certainly parenting has become a bigger, more difficult deal, with parents believing more involvement makes us better parents while giving our kids more self-esteem. But this is not working. "Involvement" becomes interference, helping becomes confronting, their homework becomes our homework, their failure becomes our failure- so we will become more involved to avoid failure, because we want to be Good Parents. And so, homework becomes an exhausting no-win battlefield of wills littered with intellectual and emotional casualties. The answer is to back off and give homework responsibilities back to our kids, along with the rewards (pride, self-confidence, experience and privileges) and the consequences (failure, redemption, wisdom and denied privileges) of taking ownership of their own schoolwork. Stop hovering, checking, correcting, signing, protecting, threatening, pleading, promising, dictating, bribing and exasperating in the name of homework. (What is that saying about teaching a pig to talk, or was it to sing? It's a waste of your time and it only annoys the pig?!) Even more importantly, if you change these old ways of all-consuming conflict, you will stop neglecting yourself, your health, your marriage, and your family.

I'm using the book to set up a framework of goals, privileges and consequences for our 10-1/2 year-old fifth grader. The book doesn't cover some specifics in his case, such as trusting him for the 3-1/2 hours he is home alone after school, so we'll have to work out some things as we go along. But already, immediately, I've had two important revelations. First, I've never written down consequences before. I always thought I disciplined using consequences, but now I realize I only talked about them, made them up as we went along, changed them, threatened with them, held them inside and then blew them out of proportion. Until now I've never sat down with our son and his teacher, negotiated, and agreed to attainable goals and consistent consequences. Second, I didn't realize how entrenched I was in parenting by micro-managing until I tried these changes. As much as I agreed with these changes, I still had great difficulty not following our son around the house and not asking, "Did you finish... don't forget to... have you done... when are you going to...?" Even though I smugly read the book and approved of all the back-to-basics techniques, I still had trouble breaking my old habits, supporting these changes in task ownership, and trusting the motivational power of fair, consistent consequences. We shall see... The potential is exciting, and already there has been an immediate lowering of tension. I no longer take bad behavior or schoolwork personally, I don't get furious, and the consequences are established and accepted. It's a start- a flexible, negotiable start.

Among my favorite quotes from this book:

"...if the child fails to do his homework, no one should get upset but the child, and no one should be inconvenienced but the child."

"Kids are smart, but teenagers are clever."

"It is a simple statement of accountability that proposes that parents should never agonize over a child's behavior if the child is perfectly capable of agonizing over it himself."

"It's about coaching from the sidelines, as opposed to getting swept up in the action on the field."

Read, enjoy, learn, implement, then learn more!

(submitted by Larry Borshard)

The basis of this book is to help kids WHO CARE ABOUT THEIR GRADES to get organized. The only "threat" to kids was "if you don't do this, you won't get a good grade". He gave examples of his own children who got very upset at the prospect of a bad grade on a project or paper. The problem at my house was a son who didn't care if he got good grades or not, so this book was no help. After reading several books on this subject, the one I choose to follow was Homework without Tears by Lee Canter. His book told you what to do when they don't care about their grades, "lost" or "forgot" their homework or claimed all semester that everything was done and you only find out differently when the report card comes with a horrible grade.

This book was extremely helpful in working with my 9-year-old. Rather than just tips and tricks for homework hassles with your kid, this book teaches PARENTS how to better guide their children so - methodically in turn - children magically start accepting their responsibilities, which in the end prepares them for responsible adulthood. The more you hound, the more you "hover," the more you check on them, the more you worry for them, the less they do themselves, which progressively makes them more dependent on you and less on themselves. This theory took me by surprise, as I wanted to be extremely involved with my child's work in school. But I had no idea I was actually hindering her growth and understanding of responsibility and accountability. The book also offers help for parents and children with consistent homework problems, attitudes and resistance. Excellent and easy-to-read.

Rosemond is right and we just needed to be reminded. Our parents knew it and we lived it as children. Homework is aimed at teaching children time management and responsibility. Parents have forgotten this and interfered, hovered, and micro managed their children's homework so much that everyone dreads it and the lessons have been lost. Rosemond reminds us how to let homework teach our children the essential skills for success in life while removing the stress for all of us.

My wife picked this book up somewhere, but I was the first to read it. I wasn't optimistic. It starts out great, describing the problem(s) that many parents have, and describing the way things should be. Fine! But how do I go from here to there? Well, he tells you. And whereas his basic method(s) don't necessarily work with all kids, they work great with our main problem kid (6th grade).

In a nutshell, his teachers sign off on a checklist each day indicating whether or not his did all his homework, behaved, and completed his seatwork. It's his job to get the sign off. Any No's, and his loses priviledges (TV, phone, computer) for the evening. No's on as many as 3 days in a week means he loses priviledges for the week-end as well. If he get's all Yes's, then he has his priviledges, and we in no way bug him about homework. All we care about is the daily checklist. No excuses are accepted.

This kid never seemed to care what grades he got, and 'lost' or 'forgot' homework all the time. We wasted way to much effort trying to get him to behave responsibly. And all we had to do was put together a form, discuss the new rules with him, and talk to his teachers about it. It has worked great and his teachers are thrilled with his turnaround: not just on his homework but on his attitude and behavior.

My only gripe with the book is that the author, while giving lip service to the fact that there are as many kids that are below average as there are above average, nevertheless used almost exclusively examples of kids who basic IQ is well above average.

It seems so obvious once you read it, we are trying to help our children with homework but end up doing it all for them. Homework becomes a ghastly focus of tension for the entire family.This book tells you its OK to let them do it alone, that it is the child's work, not the parents.It puts homework back into perspective. Teachers need to read this too, some of their expectations are not realistic. This has certainly helped to stop me agonising about how I was doing their homework.

I wanted to rate this 3.5 stars

This book will probably work well for you if you are the typical parent whose kids have too many "privileges" such as their own TV, own phone, own computer, lots of social time with friends, etc. to take away and restore, which is probably why your children are having homework problems in the first place.

On the other hand, if your homework-challenged child does not have a lot in terms of things to take away, this book doesn't offer much in terms of remedies. Not every parent wishes to or can afford to give their child a computer, or a TV--or maybe the child is a voracious reader and could care less about being confined to quarters. Are you going to take away all of a child's books for failing to do homework (much of which is pointless anyway, to be honest here, and smart children know this)? Somehow I doubt it.

As to his checklists that he wants the teacher to sign off on, well, good luck. Not only do teachers have more and more admin work these days, the schools in many cases are trying to push the daily signing off nonsense onto the parents with those unnecessary student planners. Either the work is done, or it isn't. Daily check-off sheets are just an annoyance to the adults who have to deal with them.

What is most valuable about this book, is the way he explains how the responsibility for homework completion should be on the child, and that it is not your job to be teaching concepts, helping with homework and signing off on checklists.

Unfortunately, the schools have brainwashed parents into actually doing homework and projects with and for their children under the guise of "being involved" --to the point of textbooks and worksheets assigning homework telling parents to do flashcard practice, or other drill work!!

These days, you really have to stand firm when you tell the teacher (at the beginning of the school year) that you expect your child to be assigned homework that does NOT involve you (other than perhaps to purchase needed supplies or drive to the library), and that you expect your child to be graded accordingly because he/she is doing his/her own work. Yes, you are an interested parent, you go to the Open Houses and Parent Conferences, but you are firm in your resolve that school is your child's responsibility, or "job", if you'd like to think of it in those terms.

I feel this book needs to be revised somewhat (it is from the early '90s), because he does not address how bad this shoving off of responsibility from the teacher/school to the parent has become of late.

Before I read this book, I planned and spent my afternoons and evenings around my daughter's elementary school homework, keeping me from having time with the rest of my family. I spend countless hours asking her study questions, definitions, and checking her work. I hovered to make sure she "got it right". I used the Internet to brush up on concepts and topics that SHE was to be learning. Now I realize that by taking control of her homework, I was not allowing her to be responsible for it; I was sending the message that she couldn't handle the responsiblity on her own. Boy was I wrong! Now, although her grades are not perfect, they are HERS alone and she has earned them. Talk about boosting self-esteem! And I am now free to spend time with my family instead of re-learing mode, median and range! Thank you Mr. Rosemond!

John Rosemond came to our Educator's Conference to speak. His straightforward, common-sense approach caught my attention, so I bought his book and subscribed to his web site. Now, I recommend his book to my parents as a simple, common-sense way of dealing with the hassles of homework.

As the saying goes, "common sense isn't so common anymore". I find that to be true. John Rosemond takes a very straightforward, "the way grandma used to do it" approach to dealing with this important topic. Read it. Use it. You'll LIKE it!

I read ENDING THE HOMEWORK HASSLE at my sister's house while on vacation. As an 8th grade English teacher who gives lots of homework, I was delighted to see in print what I have been saying to parents who ask me "How can I get her to do her homework?" I'm buying copies for each of the counselors at our school, and the parent of one particular boy whose father is in a major power struggle with him over homework.