Study: "Parent Help with Homework Does More Harm than Good." What Do You Think?

Being a teacher, this article was just plain ridiculous.

This article was skewed as it focused on test scores and how the parental involvment did not help boost results in higher test scores or grades.

Parental involvement is not about boosting higher scores. It's about knowing what their kids are doing in school and understanding their strengths & weaknesses academically. It shows that a parent has expectations and holds education as an important part of life. I've had parents explain things in a different ways and that helped their student as well I've also seen the opposite affect. I would never tell a parent not to help with homework.

This article holds no merit, therefore, it is mute to me and holds no relevance whatsoever.

You missed the more important study that shows homework has no proven benefit.
The homework, just to be doing homework, which is what most elementary kids have anyway.

I can give an example I remember about my father, an engineer with a degree from a prestigious engineering school, trying to help me with my math homework or study for an upcoming test. He did not have the ability to break the concept down and teach me a relatively simple problem. He made it WAY more complicated than it needed to be. It was awful, I'd go in to school to take the test more confused than ever. He meant well but did more harm than good.

i believe that the current trend of parents being elbow-deep in their kids' homework IS a negative. parental involvement can and should be a factor, but parental hands ought to be light. if you've got one of those kids who won't ask for help, then reviewing the work when it's done is fine, and so is offering tips or suggestions.
but i don't think the parents actively working through each step of the problem or 'helping' the child construct each sentence correctly fosters the confidence and independent skills our world requires.
very unpopular modern viewpoint, i know.
khairete
S.

From my experience, I basically agree with the article.

As far as your question is concerned, I don't think the issue is about "bad homework." First of all, a quality education is not predicated on homework, imo. I'm not a huge believer in giving kids a lot of homework.

I think where parental involvement is helpful is just in their generally being present, and interested in a child's schoolwork, not actually helping them with it.

If the kid requests assistance from his/her parent, then of course the parent should give some assistance. But too much assistance gives the kid the message that s/he can't do it her/himself, and doesn't teach the kid how to tackle challenges.

I agree with the article's statement about reading aloud and talking about college.

"elbow-deep" in their kids' schoolwork. Well put, Suz. And THAT, is the point of the article.

In a perhaps tangential way I think that one's take on homework help tends to be a lot like one's position on spanking. Generally speaking, we each had only ONE experience, it either worked for us individually or didn't, we've made a decision about what to do in our role as parents and we think that that is best based on our own statistically flawed data gathering model.

That being said: I was never helped with my homework K-12. Not once. In 7th grade I found out that a classmates father had helped her build the "castle model" and reported it to the teacher (I was honestly shocked). The teacher told me she had expected that EVERYONE's parents helped them build the model! I dug a bit deeper and found out at that time that many classmates were getting nightly help with assignments. When I brought it up to my mother her response was, "Have you needed help, T.?"

She did intervene when teachers called to say I didn't DO homework by making me do my work at the dining room table before dinner.

DS is in second grade. I have NEVER helped him with an assignment. Never. It's his work. I usually check that it's done... sometimes I just ask what the assignment was and if it's done.

As a middle school math teacher, I assign homework EVERY night. I do NOT expect my students to need (or receive) help from their parents. The homework is to practice what they've done in class. If they can't get through the questions independently, that's a red flag. Sure, there are some students who need some parental support in this process, but they'd be better served by their parents ASKING them what they learned in class and prompting them to using good study skills than trying to RETEACH them at home.

If a child isn't learning enough in class to do the work correctly on their own, the content hasn't been taught to MASTERY.

Man... I thought this was going to be short.

I work with college student is remedial math, so my experiences are a bit skewed. Some of my students can work independently. But many of my students ask for help on just about every problem, want constant reassurance that they are doing the correct steps and want me to check their answer right away. I usually help them with the first one and then tell them to try the next one without my help. Too often, though, my boss will swoop in and help them after I walk away. How are they supposed to learn the material or learn to trust themselves or just learn to figure it out on their own, if he's always swooping in?

Part of what I'm seeing is the the focus on good grades right now, rather than learning the foundation, the study habits, how to figure it out when you don't know, etc., that will help you succeed in the future. My boss swooping in might help them get 100% on that particular assignment, but will they know what they're doing for the Exam? And what about the next class. Will they have the foundational skills to handle the material in the next class? Will they have the determination to figure it out or look through their notes to fine the process?

Sometimes I feel like my boss is handicapping them for the next class. I know he means well, but sometimes they need more "tough love."

I didn't read the article, but I'm wondering if that's a bit of what the article is saying. In middle school they might need some assistance here and there, but they really need to be learning to be more independent. Ask for help when they need it, but try on their on first.

No time to read the article, but in general, like most things in life and parenting, I don't think it's an either/or issue.
Like you said, when parents are involved kids do better. I've seen this with my own kids, ESPECIALLY as they got into middle school. Sure, some kids will do all their work without being reminded or followed up with, but MANY, when no one is watching, will slack off. So parents do need to be aware that work is at least being completed and turned in.
Beyond that, I do NOT think kids benefit from sitting down with their parents every night to do homework together. I have always been available if they need help understanding the directions, or if they get stuck on something, but really they should be doing most of it independently. Isn't that the point, independent practice?
Side note: our schools did away with science and other "fair" type events years ago because it was clear many parents were taking over the projects. SAD :-(

Doing the homework for the kids is certainly bad.
The homework gets good grades while the kids can't pass any tests.
(I know a few parents that do this - they aren't doing their kids any favors.)

Helping means going over the work, pointing out which problems are wrong and need to be re-done to get a better answer.
You don't give the correct answer - you help them go through it till THEY get the correct answer.

Our son's in 9th grade and still gets straight A's.
His homework is already beyond where I can help him but he knows how to go over his work himself and he's doing a great job.

It is absolutely detrimental to give "that" kind of help to a child, or a teenager. I mean, do their homework/assignment or get extremely involved in their school work is absolutely negative. Kids need to know their strengths and learn to overcome their weaknesses. Our job as parents is to GUIDE them, and instil the spirit of accountability and independence for life.
It is beneficial for the students that their parents keep themselves actively involved in school as lending a hand in the classroom, volunteering in the cafeteria, library, field trips, etc, but they should not "volunteer" doing the homework or assignment for their kids. These parents are just leading their kids to failure, not just in academics but in life.

I read a long article in The Atlantic Monthly on this topic. Here is my 2 cents:
1) No child is born knowing how to do homework. So when my child was starting school I worked side by side with him to make sure he understood the directions and did "best work". This stage was to lay the groundwork for understanding expectations and developing good work habits.
2) Now in 5th grade, his daily assignments are his to do alone unless he requests help understanding a concept. However, I still help him keep on schedule for his bigger projects. He struggles with writing so either he dictates to me and then he types it or he writes it out and I type it as is for him to edit.
3) His next monthly project, we are moving to the next step. He will design the schedule for completing the project on time and then be accountable to show me the weekly progress.

So I believe homework help is a work in progress. Like anything in raising our kids, they need some guidance and clear expectations from us. But to hover over them in the same way is to deny them chance to grow, make mistakes, and learn from them. It is our job as a parent to find the right combination for our individual child.

I agree with the study and believe that as a general rule, parents should not be "helping" kids with homework content but should instead be making sure that it is getting done and that their children are mastering good habits such as having materials organized and planning and managing their time. But helping with content? No. Homework is an opportunity for children in test out how well they remember and can apply the classroom lesson *on their own* - and if they do poorly, it's a sign that the lesson needs to be re-taught or that the child needs more help with the material. The parent can't take the test with the student, so the student needs to learn the material independently. Other than whether or not homework is being done, it shouldn't be graded (corrected, yes...graded, no). Obviously projects and papers are a different story, which need to be graded, and things such as calling out spelling words to a child who is studying for a spelling test or holding flash cards for kids learning math facts are necessary.

If a child needs more help with material and the parent is qualified to act as a tutor, then it's OK for the parent to provide that extra assistance but the teacher should be 100% aware that tutor-level assistance is needed and that the child is struggling to master material without additional help.

My guess is that by middle school and certainly high school, most parents are not qualified to tutor their own kids who need that level of support. Tutoring isn't "helping" with homework...it's a process of leading the student to use his or her materials correctly. When I do academic tutoring, I'm trained on strategies such as having the student re-read a piece of text and explain it in his or her own words, or teach the lesson she or he is struggling with to me ("student as teacher"), walking them through organizational strategies for writing (spider charts, t-charts, traditional outlines), reviewing the missed questions from a recent exam or the feedback from a paper or project, etc. It's guided feedback and coaching, not "help," and goal is for the student to internalize these best practices and be able to use them independently. I've done my job with a student when I'm out of a job.

The point is that we don't agree or disagree with a study. The authors studied longitudinal surveys (apparently 25,000) collected over a period of 30 years. They measured 63 parameters assessing parental involvement on academic achievement (including - not exclusively - test scores). This sort of long term, large sample size research is done because anecdotal impressions (whether you or I personally know 1 or 3 kids that we believe were helped by parental involvement) are OFTEN SIMPLY WRONG.

I am fairly sure we are all commenting based upon a synopsis of the report as it looks to be fairly long and not available (beyond the abstract) online.

We can of course note limitations of a study like this (were their sample sizes adequate, did they use appropriate statistical analyses, were their populations skewed in some way, etc). But simply discounting research because we don't think the results are congruent with personal experience is wrong.

LOTS of things that seemed perfectly obvious to people (the sun revolving around the earth, PSA testing preventing prostate cancer deaths) have turned out to be wrong.

ETA: The longer summary in the Atlantic states that PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT DOES NOT IMPROVE STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT. Homework was just 1 of 63 measures used to assess parental involvement. The only exceptions were reading to small children and discussing college as a goal/expectation - these 2 parameters were associated with improved outcomes. The article has nothing to do with whether the homework is 'good homework' or busy work or how the parents assist in it. It simply concludes (very unexpectedly) that parental involvement IS NOT IMPORTANT in student achievement.

If you glean the article for the O. nugget cited by the study, it says parental help is "mostly inconsequential, and sometimes can even hurt."
I would imagine "inconsequential" (which is mostly) is because the kid already knows it and it's been shown time and time again that homework has no added benefit when the kid knows the material.
I would imagine "sometimes hurts" means the kid is unclear and the parent isn't familiar with it or cannot teach it clearly or appropriately.
This isn't rocket science.
So....if my kid (middle schooler) knows it, he does it.
If he doesn't, we look at his material, the online resources from school, and try to explain it and if he's still unclear? He puts a question mark so the teacher knows it's unclear.
I don't think this article is saying "don't help." It's saying " help appropriately."

I wish parents would follow the lead for their child. If a child can sit down and do their homework on their own and the child is happy with it, leave it alone. Allow the child to get the grade they earned.

I NEVER, not even once ever had our daughter correct her homework, UNLESS she requested I look it over and to tell her if anything was wrong with it. She knew I would, if she asked. And I did look, but I did not correct it.

If the child asks for help, help the child figure out the solution.

If the child is realizing that they are missing a lot of the answers by getting them incorrect, ask the child if you can help them. Start off by looking at the completed work or a few problems, or few sentences and then tell them. "I see 2 incorrect answers from here to here, see if YOU can figure out where they are." If the child cannot figure it out, help them "find" the mistake. If she could not find a mistake, we together would go through the page, till she figured it out.

I completely understand it is very time consuming and working parents really struggle to get everyone home, dinner prepared and served, then ready for the next day. It is easy to fall in the trap of just let me show you, this is how it is done... But a child must learn to correct their own work. My mom was a divorced parent working full time and did not get home until 6:00. I have lived that life.

Yes, there are children that do need their parents to sit with them so that the child can stay focused, but with straightforward and consistent expectations, the child will gain confidence and an understanding of expectation with their homework.

If the child can learn to sit in class and pay attention in class, they should certainly be expected to do the same thing at home.

Class projects is what took our daughter a while to get the hang of, time wise. Hearing it was not due for a week, was too abstract in the beginning. So we worked on that for a few years.

I recall in 3rd grade she came to me with a request to go to the craft store on Sunday late afternoon and I told her, nope, sorry. We are in for the night, use what we have. She seemed so shocked I would not jump in the car. I told her she had over a week to get this project done. I had asked her when the project was originally assigned what would she need to complete the project? She said she would let me know and I told her, do not wait until it is last minute. She never did that again.

I do recall some projects that were VERY obviously done by the parents. A Japanese zen garden project. Ours looked like our daughter had designed it and put it together. Some of the projects looked like professional florist had designed them. So embarrassed for the parents. The long 8 foot tables were lined up in the hallways and parents were saying they wondered if the parents were pleased with THEIR grades..

What grade do you teach? I didn't see that in your post... unless I missed it.

I work in middle school, I tend to agree that parents don't need to be helping by then. The kids should know what's going on by then, and the parent wasn't in the classroom to get the details or hear the expectations firsthand. Definitely at that level homework is given with the expectation that it can be done entirely without parental intervention.

That's not to say that parents at that level shouldn't pay any attention at all- I think they should be aware of when the kid has homework and whether it gets completed or not. But I think that's all the involvement they should have at that age.

My son is in 5th grade. We do not help him with his homework at all. We " check in" every evening at dinner, he tells us what is homework was & if he has any questions. If he has any questions, we either help him or he texts his teacher. He has had two teachers this year ( 1st teacher was promoted) & they both support this.
In the future, his academic success will be his responsibility. If I'm contsantly hovering over him , I will never have a good idea what he's strugglin with & he won't have confidence in his own ability to problem solve / ask for help when he needs it.

Interesting question.

My son is nearly seven, in first grade. I'm working under the assumption that my job is to support, help when asked, and to review his work. Sometimes that means he does his homework with zero input from me, other than making sure he has a quiet, no-distractions place to work. Other times, he might need a little clarification to get started, or I may offer a tool (number line, counters) for math problems without doing the work for him. I do review his work, which is mostly math and spelling, check for errors, and have HIM figure out the correct answers/corrections to be made.

My son has a vision disability: ocular motor dysfunction; one of the hallmarks of this is being easily distracted by activity in the periphery. Many kids with ocular motor dysfunction are misidentified as possible ADD/ADHD... the eye prefers to focus on things beyond 6-10 feet away or more; it is more restful for the eyes while closer work requires more concentration and effort. We did a lot of eye therapy to help Kiddo strengthen his eye muscles and to know how to best use his eyes, but he is young still and is needing support in developing the discipline of concentrating on homework.

I figure that, for now, it's my job to help my easily-distracted little guy with some gentle guidance and problem-solving help. Sometimes it's simply a case of "do you need me to close the curtains?" or asking him "where do you think you want to get this work done"? The other week he chose to write out his spelling list in the big cardboard box with a flashlight! Heck, no, I don't worry about 'bad homework' at this age.

That said, as he gets older, I envision reviewing assignments with him, step by step, when he receives them, and having him learn to take a list of questions back to the teacher for clarification. As he gets older, I'm going to put more responsibility on him to figure out, with the teacher, what needs to be done instead of me walking him through it. Right now, I'm just working on helping him learn HOW to be in 'homework mode' and to choose study/homework habits which work best for his situation.

ETA: You know, I really agree with not checking a child's work for errors as they get older. For my son's math work, I know the teacher doesn't really use the homework as a marker... she doesn't correct it at all. So, I do check it and have him do the correction because I want to ensure that he does understand the concept. His teacher largely assess his abilities through evaluations/assessments, so I figure that it's my job to just follow-through on the at-home stuff in that regard.

An even better article is the piece in the Atlantic this month about how we are destroying critical thinking and creating anxiety prone children by the ways we overprotect them. Being knee deep in their homework is overprotecting, if you ask me.

But I free range. I unschool. My kid never sit down and do "work," nor will they ever. Learning happens, and the world is the curriculum. My toddlers play outside by themselves ( in a fenced in yard), and they go down the big tube slide by 2. By themselves.

The evidence does not even support homework. So it wasn't surprising that parental involvement just makes it worse. As someone who use to teach at the college level, I know first hand that you can't make another learn. I also knew which students depended on mom and dad and which didn't. The only person truly responsible for his own learning is the person himself. By holding kids hands, we remove that responsibility from them. Hell, we are basically saying, " oh small minded one, you aren't even capable of reading the instructions by yourself." We are truly creating generations of young adults that need their hands held. It's sad.

But I believe in freedom, and in letting our children explore, play and grow, without silly things like worksheets. These are for adults. They have nothing to do with actual learning. For more information on this subject, John holt is a great place to start.

There's helping, and there's DOING. They are probably referring to parents that practically do entire assignments, and that does a lot of harm. I'm sure you've seen the projects where it's completely obvious that the parent did EVERYTHING. They are handicapping their children by not having them to their own work. Who's going to work for them when they leave home? That's the issue.

My school-aged kiddos are in K & 3rd. We sit down & do homework together. I like to know what they are learning & I like to know if they 'get it'. I don't do it for them, but check/correct when necessary.

If they're talking about state testing scores, then who cares?

But if we're talking about students' actual performance in school, that's a different story. I was never extremely involved in homework. It was my kids' work to do. In elementary, I might have had them show me what they had for homework and ask them to tell me what the directions were, but they did the work on their own. Any time I looked over there work, if there were corrections to be made, I had them make those correction on separate paper, so that the teacher could see that the first time around, they got 6 of the 10 problems wrong.

With certain things, if we don't know how the teacher has taught them to do a certain type of work, then it isn't helpful for us to show them something else. I've had students come in with notes from parents, "I tried to help Kaitlyn with her math problems, but she told me that I was explaining it wrong" I've seen students come in with math sheets clearly done with a calculator (no carrying or borrowing). I've seen projects both in the elementary where I work, and when my kids were in elementary, that were clearly done or heavily assisted by parents. My kids' projects looked like a kid their age did them.

At what age do you stop? In the elementary where I work, I know of teachers who sit with and help their HS kids with their homework. Seriously? My kids are freshmen in HS and college. I would rather my HS'er get a 70 on work that he did than a 90 on work that I did. This is why college admissions officers call the new students "teacups." They're fragile, they are not independent, they cannot do anything for themselves. If your HS'er can't do his geometry or Spanish HW by himself, how is he going to manage add/drop forms, scheduling meetings with his advisor, putting in his housing application for the following year, or typing up their labs on their own?

And here's the thing - at school, kids are typically NOT working with somebody on a one to one basis. The teacher leads the lesson. The kids work independently. The teacher circulates. They correct the work as a group. So working one to one on homework with a child is not mimicking what they are doing in school. They should not be dependent on an adult to complete all assignments.

I would also like to see more studies that support this idea that parents shouldn't help. Is it really that parents shouldn't help or that parents should understand their limitations? IMO, it depends on the "help". There were many times when the sks' homework was beyond us. If they needed help, it may not have come from us. We couldn't do SS's calculus. So he sought tutoring. But SD and I think the same way and I could sometimes explain a concept to her better than she understood in class. Or the sks would write their own essays, and we would review them for clarity, content and grammar. But we would not write essays for the kid or do the research for them. When SD built a model for class, she did 99% of the work. I only painted the moat the night before because she was so tired and she had done all the other work required. A little paint would not affect her grade. She learned a ton from that project because SHE did it.

If the parent is DOING THE WORK vs just helping, then that is a different problem. I figure the teacher doesn't want to see what I did and if DD can't spell that or understand that, the teacher needs to see where DD is. Not where "we" are. DD needs to take pride in her own work. My DD's homework is not onerous. She can do it all in one night if she wanted to, and we usually complete it in three (we are given 4) easily. When the sks were older, they also had Honors and AP courses which by nature have a lot of work to do. They had to learn time management, especially if they wanted to do a sport or club.

I think HW itself is fine. If the child cannot consistently complete it in the time allotted, then the parent can contact the teacher to discuss the expectations, if the child is having trouble with concepts, etc. I make sure that my DD understands the process with the work, and I supervise, but she does it. She is like her sister that even having someone in the room motivates her to buckle down and work. If I left her by herself, she'd get distracted. What works for one kid doesn't always work for another. Their brother was always more independent and self motivated.

My kids are not to middle school yet, and they are both smart. I can see myself naturally pulling back and instead of actively quizzing them on vocab words just checking to see that assignments are done, and discussing with them what they are learning about, without actually sitting down and trying to solve calculus problems.

if they were stuck and needed help, I would try, and the internet is now a source of reference, I would also refer them to a classmate if I wasn't clear on the work. or tell them to try and send them back to the teacher. I wouldn't insist that something was right if the kid and I were in disagreement about it, we would look for an alternate source of help. I've always told my kids that home work and tests are to see what the teacher might need to go back and explain to you a different way if you didn't get it in the first place. so getting something wrong isn't BAD its just diagnosing what you need more help with.

Now if my kids were slower and weren't motivated, I could see some negative power struggles being set up by the adult trying to help in an intrusive condescending way. but that's behavior not necessarily the product.

I can also see an uneducated parent confusing a child/teen by trying to explain problems differently than how it is being taught. so in that case I kind of get what the author of this study is saying. and maybe that could result in poor quality work.

I would want more details on the parents education and income levels and how that correlates to their help having a negative impact.

At the end of the article the author is saying rich parents have more successful kids because kids "see" other adults in there social circles who have gotten an education and been successful and that THAT is more powerful than helping with homework. which just makes it sound hopless if you are a working class family. I think those high expectations and showing you value the education and school work are important and this article is trying to take that away. but you need to look at what income level it isn't working for, AND They would need to offer something attainable that would work.

I think it's sad that more teachers depend on kids doing work at home because they don't have class time to teach them.

Kids are kids. They do not need to be in "school" 9-10 hours per day. Even movie stars in Hollywood that are under age aren't allowed to "work" more than a few hours per day. Our kids are in class all day, from 8-3:15, that's over 7 hours already.

My grandson used to come home, in 4th grade, with so much homework he would never let up except to eat and he'd still be working on it at 11pm. No one, not kids anyway, should be spending that much time doing "school" work.

Kids need time to play, how much of learning comes from play? They need time to run amok, ride their bikes, play games on the computer, veg out in front of the TV, they need to have down time.

If a teacher is doing their job then there should be no need for homework at all. None.

The kids school last year didn't do a ton of homework. Our girl had homework a couple of times per week.

This year, in a different school, her test scores in math and reading have gone up. She is in 5th grade and yesterday at teachers meeting her math scores are 5.9 and her reading is 6.7

I think she's doing better because she has no homework at all. She reads because she enjoys reading and it's not a job to do, it's for fun. She has become a voracious reader. When it was required she read half an hour each evening we had to fight to get a book in her hand. Now...no homework, no forced doing anything, she's doing it because she loves it and wants to do it.

I will not help kids with homework. I do not have the skills to do so. I will probably not force them to do a bunch of busy work that they should be doing in school. If they have a science project or some other out of class project I will help them find the resources and supplies they need.

I have a sixth grade student. I don't check homework because I want the teacher to see what she is struggling with. I also want her to seek help when she needs it. I will direct her to resources when she asks me. I will also quiz her when she asks me. I think it creates a crutch for a kid who thinks someone has to do homework with them, and that all homework has to be perfect when turned in. The don't build self confidence by getting "helped and guided" through every little thing. They need to win and fail on their own, and get back up and do it again.

Hi, Persimmon:

That article is all about socialism. Getting parents out of a child's life and promoting the idea of higher economic folks surround their child with better environment that's why they do better.

The article is scape goating economically poor children. Look at our country back in the day we were founded. We were all poor. We all worked to better ourselves. America: the land of opportunity. Then the government has stepped in, welfare is rampant, women having babies and not married, government housing. In Richmond today, the Senate is making a decision to add Medicaid expansion to Obamacare law.

The problem in America today is: pleasure seeking and no discipline of many parents and children.

God save our country.
D.

i think that , typically, you are going to get two different answers, the parents who are teachers or administrators arent going to have a problem with helping their child , but are going to have a problem with the other kids in their kids classes getting help with their homework from parents. if you dont want your kids playing on a level field, then you shouldnt be surprised when the other parents, who arent teachers or administrators , do the same thing you are doing . kids and parents alike, pick up on double dealing, quickly, and then act accordingly. K. h.,..donna does have a valid point, poor children are typically simply expected to not do as well in the classroom as their "better off" peers, when a poor kid tests well, the teacher by and large, suspects the kid cheated, rather then deal with the potentially scary ideal that the kid might be a better student then some of their "better off" peers.