Is Too Much Homework A Bad Thing?

Have you ever asked a teacher to give your child more homework? What would your child say? Well, that happened to one family. This family had a daughter in the third grade, and the husband asked the teacher at a parent-teacher conference if she would give his daughter more homework. He didn’t feel like she was being challenged enough. You see, the mother was working nights and it was up to the husband to oversee the homework. This mother was impressed because she knew that her husband was paying attention to what the kids were doing.

This raises a question: Is there such a thing as too much homework? I guess it depends on who you ask. What does the child think? To answer this question you have to look at the reasons why you are asking. Is there not enough time in the day or week to complete it? Is the due date too soon after assigning the work? Is your child struggling to understand the subject?

Put everything into perspective. If your child doesn’t have enough time to do their homework, why is that? Could it be that the child needs to focus more on the homework? You see, some families have obligations some nights, and they have to go fulfill these obligations. On nights where there is an obligation, the children must do their homework immediately after school, instead of watching TV or playing video games or playing with their friends.

And, this isn't hard for the children. I know of some families that have spiritual meetings a couple of nights a week, and their children do their homework when they get home from school with no problem. In fact, some of them are excelling in school. It really depends on their attitude. Some kids get upset if they have to do just one homework problem.

One the other hand, if the teacher is truly not giving a reasonable amount of time to complete the homework assignment, make sure you know when it was really assigned. Your child may not be telling you the full story. He/she might be telling you a later date because they forgot or have put off doing the work. Now, if it is really an unreasonable amount of time, talk to the teacher and explain the problem. They might think the assignment was easier than it really is, or that it didn’t require as much research. Your child might also have misunderstood the assignment and is making it more difficult.

Sometimes children struggle with a certain topic. What you need to do here is find them some help for their homework and see if you can get more time to finish it. If you can’t provide the help, find a tutor or someone else that can help them.