Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Do you make your kids do all their homework?

We had the same situation this year. I asked and asked for different books. Finally, at report card time I wrote a letter to the teacher requesting more challenging books. It was a formal letter - as I'm a business person -- not a schmaltzy-touchy-feely type of person. Well after a few weeks we were invited to a meeting to "discuss." Oh good lord, the meeting included not only the reading resource teacher and the 1st grade teacher, but the guidance counselor AND the principal!!! They thought I was all mad because I sent a letter that was straight to the point, and not touchy-feely.

The good thing is that at least the reading resource teacher acknowledge that DD6 hit the ceiling of the reading test (grade 4). But they will keep her and 2nd grade level books so she can develop a "deeper understanding" of these books ---

Well at least one grade level ahead is something --- I'll keep fighting

I sometimes have trouble figuring out my son's homework and have to bite my tongue when he says it's "stupid"-- because it is.

Argh! Sad, but so true!

At first, we stopped ds7 from saying the homework is "stupid". After a while, I am saying the same word about his homework. Not a very good example to set, but I had a worksheet came home from school last week about odd and even numbers, when ds is already doing multiplication, division and beginning algebra.

Arg, hate that!


Why, why, why??

And I bet it was even single digit numbers

The short answer- YES. I make him do all his homework

The long answer is that his teacher doesn't believe in homework... or reading in school... or teaching to his level or... I could go on. (In an unrelated story, she took a book away from him during free choice because there is no reading allowed during free time) So I give him homework every Monday. When the packet is done, he can play video games on a school night. If it's not done, no video games! No discussion from me, it's just on the table Monday when he gets home from school. Some weeks he does it willingly, some weeks he does one a day, some weeks he grumbles on Thursday about missing his Wii and does it all before dinner.

Each packet has 4-5 parts- usually a math worksheet at his level or a math game, a writing worksheet (starting this week- a writing prompt), some sort of craft activity to improve his fine motor skill and a science experiment or website to check out.

I'm probably a really mean mom...

Or a really conscientious one who loves her son!

(In an unrelated story, she took a book away from him during free choice because there is no reading allowed during free time)

I don't know how to do the fancy little box to put this quote in... but can I just say that I blew Diet Mountain Dew out of my nose when I read this line? ROFL!

OK in my world, FREE choice means you have FREEDOM to choose what you want to do! Now if she's using free time to have kids work on social skills and his reading would interfere with that, it should be called Social Skills time and not Free time.