Ending the Homework Hassle Paperback – Bargain Price, January 1, 1990

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.

I bought this book for my daughter to use with her kids. Several years ago I bought many copies to give to parents when I was working as a school counselor.

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.

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.