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Do not ask for your child's homework in the school parents' chat: more than doing him good, you harm him

Year after year, the whatsapp groups of parents at school are filled with messages asking about the homework that children have to do at home : “my son has not written it down in the agenda, can you tell me which pages to do? ” , ” My daughter hasn’t found out, what exactly do they have to do?” , ” he has left the books in class and we need a photo of the pages he has to study, can someone send it to me?”… Whatever the reason, the mother or father is there to solve the problem at their son.

However, becoming our children’s assistants is very detrimental to their development and emotional health, so we should eradicate this practice without any benefit to the child.

We explain the consequences of asking for your child’s homework through the school’s parent chat, and how we should approach this situation in a positive and educational way.

Homework is the responsibility of the children, not the parents

Promoting the autonomy of our children from a young age is key for them to learn to do things for themselves, and become independent children, with self-confidence and self-confidence.

In general, parents try to promote this autonomy in daily tasks such as cleaning, dressing or certain household tasks, but we often forget how important it is to promote autonomy in school matters .

In fact, certain school routines, such as homework, become a wonderful opportunity to enhance aspects of their development , such as the sense of responsibility, independence and organization.

But our children will not be able to develop any of these skills and competencies if parents do not allow them to assume their school obligations autonomously.

And the fact is that although the fact of asking other parents for their homework may seem like something of little importance (and we can even think that we are helping our child), by doing so we are interfering with various processes that bring great benefits to the child (we analyze it next).

How it hurts your child if you ask other parents for their homework

If your child does not know what homework to do at home , either because he has not found out, he has not written it down or he has forgotten to take the necessary material to undertake his tasks, rescuing him from the situation affects him in the following ways:

We do not allow you to benefit from the positive aspects of being autonomous

Autonomy is not only trained at home , but also outside of it. Our children spend many hours at school, so this scenario becomes one of the most important to grow and develop as autonomous people.

In this sense, when the teacher announces in class the homework that must be done at home, the child must be responsible for writing it down in his agenda, taking the relevant material to work outside of school, checking his agenda when he gets home and undertaking his homework . This chain of obligations and responsibilities greatly promotes their autonomy and has important benefits for their emotional development.

And it is that feeling capable of doing things for yourself , has a direct impact on self-esteem and happiness, apart from helping you more easily identify what you need and how you can organize yourself to obtain what you need.

We don’t let you learn (and take responsibility) for your mistakes

When the child makes a mistake that prevents him from fulfilling his obligation to do his homework , it is essential that he learns from it to do things differently the next time.

For example : “when the teacher is saying the homework that has to be done, I must write it down immediately in the agenda so as not to forget” ; “I wrote down the homework wrong because I was talking to my partner at the time” ; “Before leaving school, I have to check my backpack to make sure I have everything I need to do my homework at home”

However, if instead of taking advantage of that mistake in a positive way to educate our child in responsibility, autonomy and problem solving, we parents save the situation, the child will never understand the consequences of their actions and will be unable to assume responsibility.

We are helping to forge a negative self-concept of oneself

If every time the child makes a mistake, his parents are there to pave the way for him without giving him the opportunity to solve it for himself and learn for the future, it is easy for him to end up feeling insecure and believing that he is not capable of doing things on his own. itself.

But in addition to forging a negative self – concept of himself , it is normal that he even stops making an effort or taking responsibility for his things ; Total, “why would I make an effort to do it myself, if my parents always end up doing it for me?” .

And if my son gets sick and misses class: should he ask for his homework?

Another very common situation is to ask for homework through the parents’ chat when the child is sick and has missed class. In general, we should also avoid it , because by doing so we are interfering with different processes.

On the one hand, we are depriving the child of the opportunity to take responsibility for the homework that has been assigned during his absence (this is something that he could perfectly do by himself when he joins class, either by asking his classmates or the teachers). But in addition, it is necessary to understand that the important thing is not that the child “catch up with his homework” , but that he understands and consolidates the contents explained during his absence.

That is why in these cases it is usually advisable not to interfere and let the teachers guide the child, offering guidelines to recover the rhythm in the most effective way. However, in case of doubt we should always talk to the child’s guardian so that they can tell us how to proceed.

So, parents shouldn’t help our children with their homework?

Of course, children may need the help of parents at any given time or our supervision. But helping is not synonymous with doing things for them .

In this sense, if we believe that our son is absent-minded with his homework, we can put reminders in his agenda that help him keep in mind what he must do, such as post-it, markers or motivating messages that remind him how valuable he is. and what it is capable of.

If he still systematically forgets to write down what he has to do or makes any other mistake that prevents him from carrying out his task, we should talk to him to help him identify where the problem is, and thus be able to solve it.

In short, homework is the exclusive responsibility of our children, from the moment they write it down in their agenda and until they finish it at home. For this reason, we must avoid saying phrases like “we have to do homework” (as if it were a task for both of us), correct their mistakes and oversights, or sit down with them daily to do their homework.

Cover photo | pexels

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