How Can I Get Him to Do His Homework?

Carbone II, Steven A. "The Value of Homework: Is Homework an Important Tool for Learning in the Classroom?" Inquiries Journal/Student Pulse, 1(12). Retrieved from http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/a?id=1682

As Boekaerts and Corno pointed out in 2005, although teachers set goals and expectations for homework, students must independently complete homework by practicing self-regulatory and responsibility. Behaviors such as planning, inhibiting distractions, persisting at difficult assignments, organizing the environment, overcoming unwanted emotions, and reflecting on what they have learned are developed in the process of complete an assigned homework. “Children who complete homework outside of school often develop an aptitude for academic work through extra practice and are responsible for regulating their own behavior, making homework a classic form of self-regulated learning” (197). Other researchers such as Zimmerman, Bonner, and Kovach acknowledge that these skills (responsibility and discipline) promote positive behaviors that, in addition to being important for academic pursuits, generalize to other life domains. “Because homework generally requires students to complete tasks with less supervision and under less severe time constraints than is the case in school, home study is said to promote greater self-direction and self-discipline attributes apply to the nonacademic spheres of life as well as the academic” (1). Furthermore, not only does homework instill positive attitudes that would last a life time, it also brings families closer together and strengthens team work amongst them. In Hoover Dempsey’s article titled The Motivational Benefits of Homework, “teachers can use homework to increase parents' appreciation of and involvement in schooling” (2).

When in the course of life events, their comes a time in a student’s life where he/she can no longer manage all their homework assignments given to them by their teacher. As a student gets older they begin to have a harder time in concentrating in their school needs. This becomes worse if one is involved in any academic or athletic programs after or before school.

In high school, many students put minimal effort into their assignments and still excelled above their classmates. Studying and completing homework ahead of time was a non-issue for them. Commonly, these students were convinced

This mindset turns assignments from an educational experience to a task that only warrants the minimum amount of effort to complete. This mentality focuses on, “how little the student must learn rather than how much the student can learn” (Henderson) which significantly degrades the quality of the education by limiting effort. It’s reasonable for students to limit their time on assignments to make room for others, but it’s the issue of students limiting their efforts as a whole. Viewing the results of an education as more important than the education itself presents it as another task to accomplish when it should be viewed as more of a journey. Education allows for a person to not only learn, but also change and develop as a person. Students who are willing to embrace the education rather than the end goal receive a more thorough education and experience compared to those putting forward the bare minimum

However, because of the extensive amount of homework students are given, emotional health can become an unobtainable goal. When stressed from time constraints due to the demands placed on students from the amount of homework they’re given today, this can lead to issues with family and social bonds. Based on interviews a professor at Boston College had with two-dozen families, he suggests, "the demands of homework disrupts…family relationships". Bonds with parents can be strained, with parents not comprehending the stresses the students may place upon themselves. Children can become argumentative, rebellious, withdrawn, and an overall frustration can be created between parent and child that leads to damaging results. Considering the turmoil between students and their parents because of homework, “arguments may damage the relationships within the family and affect the child’s emotional development”. The lack of confidence that a child may feel in losing the support of parents can result in runaways, drug abuse, separation, anxiety, and other emotional disorders that hinder the development of a child into adulthood. Regarding social relationships, many of the same results can be seen, oftentimes a child can develop a need to be accepted which can lead down a dark and ugly path. In choosing acceptance, over the stresses that they face daily, a child may give in to a bad element without realizing or thinking of the consequences. Beyond poor decision making created from the stress, a child may shut out those close to them, and eventually become recluse and socially awkward. Creating a personality that is hard to accept by others, and eventually leads to a life without promise, hope, or

Most kids in school play a sport or does an afterschool activities. Right after school they go to their program and when that program is done they go home. Now, the hours those kids go home could be around 5 to 8. When those kids get home they’re not thinking about homework. They’re thinking about eat and then sleep. Homework doesn’t even come to their mind. Homework comes to their mind when it’s time to go to school and by then it’s already too late to do homework. Kids just don’t have the time to do homework. Coming home after a long day of practice, the kids going to be tired, and the kid has responsibility. The kid has to do his chores, clean his room, fix the bed and after all that he has to help his little sister or brother with their homework and that’s going to take another hour. By the time the kid has time to himself it’s time for him to go to the bed and he can’t go to bed because he has to do his homework and his homework is going to take another hour. That kid is probably going to bed around 10 or 11. He’s not going to sleep. After that he has to repeat the same process all over again. This routine is going to have a huge effect on the kid. This routine is going to affected him in his school work. He didn’t get enough sleep so when his in class he’s going to be sleeping and when his doing his work, he’s not going to be focus and well activate because his brain isn’t awake yet. These are all the effects homework will have on these kids. My friend told me this story about her cousin. She told me has an after school activities and after the after school activities he has to help his little sister and she says ‘’He’s being falling behind on his work because he doesn’t have time to do his homework.’’ I don’t blame him. Teachers love to give a lot of homework and teachers believe kids have time to do all that homework when they actually

Larry Harris claims in his writing that homework motivates students to enhance their ability in time-management and work prioritization, and provides necessary means to replace the non-beneficial leisure activities. On the other hand, Mark Barnes in his writing offered a contrasting view; he claims that homework does not reflect the ability of individual students and it is common that students who accomplished the task of learning fails the class or standardized tests because of the burden of homework, which is said to provide no

Kralovec, author of The End of Homework argues that doing homework during high school has little or no effect on successful study skills of students in college. College students have only a few hours of class a week and lots of daytime hours in which to study. She says the college schedule is nowhere as grueling as in high school. In addition, the average adult does not return home from the office with three or more hours of work to complete (Kralovec). When "busy work" assignments are given carelessly and frequently, it causes students to lose interest in the subject. Negative results can also occur when a student is not able to complete his or her homework. Many times they will resort to copying homework, having others do their assignments, or cheating on tests. Bad habits such as these are likely to follow kids through their lives and have an effect on their moral judgment. With no consequences to these actions students will almost always take the easy way out when it comes to homework

This quote is of one teacher explaining how she is letting her students get away with having absolutely no homework. This is shown by, “The difference is that I am no longer making it a tedious struggle each night. My students are enjoying school and enjoying their time each evening. To me,this is all that matters” (Strauss). One may argue that this perspective is incorrect because students aren 't reinforcing anything that they learned in school or practicing it at home. If there is no homework assigned at night, students won’t always remember what they learned in class. To add on to the fact the homework is beneficial “Practice homework, the most common type, is assigned to reinforce material presented in the classroom and to help students master individual skills” (What Research Says about the Value of Homework). This proves that homework can be more important than having fun sometimes. It is better to get homework out of the way first, then students can go have fun. This way, they will not have to worry about getting homework done later when they do not have energy to focus on it. Sometimes students need to set fun activities aside to focus on enhancing their academic skills so they can get good grades in school and ultimately pass their