Back to front

 

Hurray, it's homework time

 

Back to school. Old friends. Now styles. Up status. Early mornings, heaps of homework, and Mom controlling the universe when it's time to study.

But it's a new year. The teens are older, more worldly, more able to regulate their own time, and get things done. Right.

It has to be better than last year. Back then, my kids arrived home after sports at 6:30, or later, and after dinner they fell asleep. Or they talked on the phone and then fell asleep.

Their teachers suggest two hours is the average time students should spend on homework every night. Peter averages 45 minutes, and Katy a few more before her lids drop.

What remedies for these snoozing scholars would you suggest? Others who play sports seem to manage. Why is it such a problem for my kids to do their work?

Here's the problem: my kids get up at six every morning, and for eight hours push their brains at school. Then off to pound bodies for two more hours on the field. They arrive home, eat dinner, and are charged to work two more hours before falling into bed. That's a schedule that would cripple many adults, yet we demand it of kids. I feel stressed just thinking about it.

So, I'm sympathetic. And perhaps that's part of the problem. I'm supposed to assume they have Duracell minds and robotic bodies, that they can handle the schedule and the stress. They have to. It's required. So be it.

Now that's settled, how to enforce it?

Good study habits. That's the answer; the experts agree.

Of course, it is. If the kids establish good study habits they'll do the evening study routine without thinking about aching bodies and sagging eyelids. It's automatic: school--soccer--supper--study--sack; school--soccer--supper--study--sack . . .

And, the experts advise us to instill these habits early on, so the routine is in place before the job gets really tough in high school.

By all means. Around sixth grade, John and I set out to teach our kids study habits that we knew would be useful for a lifetime, or at least through college. We read the parenting books, sought advice from teachers, and planned our approach.

First, we set ground rules for school nights: no television and no phone calls during Homework Time, which was scheduled to begin an hour after dinner. We put desks and school supplies in their rooms, and encouraged them to work there, in quiet privacy. We parked ourselves in the family room, suitably available if they needed help.

We even taught them study skills, like how to read or skim different materials, take notes, organize research papers, prepare for math tests, and on and on. But they forgot those lessons the instant they passed in their papers.

As homework cops, we enforced the rules by keeping the TV off, intercepting phone calls, postponing pleasures until work was completed, and staying home most evenings to police the scene and provide help.

Did it work?

Would I be grumbling if it did? I don't know what happened. Continual trampling of the infrastructure wore it out, I suppose.

For the first three years, Peter and Katy ended up working at the dining room table most evenings, claiming they needed our help. We went along with it because we believed they were getting extra help their overloaded teachers didn't have time to provide. But the kids became entangled in their own interactions. Peter made noises while he worked. That annoyed Katy and she made louder noises. They bickered about who had the most work, whose work was harder, and who was smarter.

Now, in high school, they do study in their rooms most of the time. Probably because they each have a phone extension and a stereo there too. So they have privacy, and I have no idea what's going on in there.

Sometimes, on Sunday afternoons, I arrive home to find them together in their ideal study environment. Peter's watching a baseball game on TV, chatting on the phone, and listening to a football game on the radio. On his lap is a list of history questions he answers during the commercial breaks. In the next room, Katy's writing a paper on the computer. She joins Peter's phone conversation with flip comments that Peter relates to his girl friend on the other end. Then Katy complains the TV noise is bothering her, and after the third protest she starts singing, same volume. Around her are pop cans, dishes, candy and gum wrappers. Peter has the same litter, but the stack is lower because he's within sight of a wastebasket and can't resist the three-point shots.

So, with questionable study habits, and parents striving to improve them, what happens next?

We try something else, of course. Since the 7:30 Homework Time failed so miserably with both teens dead tired after sports, the kids and I redesign the system. We invent an early to bed and 4:30 to rise schedule, that actually works pretty well. They like it because it leaves them free to talk on the phone and sleep in the evenings. Getting up is hard, but with Mom serving warm mocha it's not impossible.

Naturally, no teenager in this house ever rose that early all summer, though they may have stayed up once or twice until then. And now, it's a new school year, and perhaps a new system to cope with homework that's arriving soon. Maybe, just maybe, the teens will invent some brilliant plan to make it all happen, and I'll sit back and relax with a warm mug and a good book, how about trig? Right.

Back to front