Calmly Completing Homework When Your Young Child Feels Anxious – Part 2 (10 Practical Ideas)

Calm Parent – Calm Child – Calm Home

“The Essentialist looks ahead. She plans. She prepares for different contingencies. She expects the unexpected. She creates a buffer to prepare for the unforeseen, thus giving herself some wiggle room when things come up . . .”

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, by Greg McKeown (chapter 15 – page 187)

Please Note This post was originally published in 2023 as part of a two-part series. Edits were made to this post in April 2024 to reflect the fact that the series has now been re-blogged as a six-part series to ensure ease of reference for readers.

This blog post is Part 2 of a 6-Part Series about how you can calmly complete homework with your young children.

In this blog post, I will outline the 10 Practical Ideas to help with the completion of individual pieces of homework that we will be discussing for the remainder of this blog series. I will also explain the underlying themes that link all 10 of these ideas.

I will conclude this blog post by discussing “Idea 1” in detail: Namely, how familiarising yourself with the school’s expectations for homework is an important and very helpful step towards becoming thoroughly prepared for supervising homework.

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I believe it is important to put this post’s practical topics into context. Therefore, If you have not yet read Part 1 of this series, I would highly recommend taking the time to visit and read it before continuing with this post. This will help you to gain the full benefit from the practical ideas discussed in this post and the remainder of the series (Click Here for Part 1).

In summary, in Part 1 of this series, we considered a number of overriding issues that can impact your homework experience with your child. We talked about how to create a “Good Homework Culture” in your home in preparation for the calm completion of homework tasks.

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10 Ideas to Help Complete Individual Pieces Of Homework

Here is a summary of the 10 ideas we will be discussing in more detail throughout the remainder of this blog series. For ease of reference, links to the relevant parts of this blog series for each idea are provided.

Please note the idea listed in bold text (Idea 1) is the idea that is discussed in detail in this blog post : –

1. Familiarise yourself with the school’s expectations for homework (Read on Below).
2. Identify the best time of day and the best days each week to do homework with your child (Part 3).
3. Prepare your home environment for each homework session (Part 3).
4. Mentally prepare yourself for each homework session (Part 4).
5. Reduce anxiety by separating the process of choosing which task to do from actually completing the task (Part 4).
6. Be clear as to whether the task is “Time Limited” or “Task Limited” (Part 5).
7. Identify your child’s favourite subjects and their preferred learning style. Use your knowledge of their preferences to your advantage when approaching homework (Part 5).
8. Identify the underlying learning purpose (or learning objective) behind the task and be clear about what the teacher wants your child to learn before starting the task (Part 5).
9. If you think it will be helpful to prepare some modified resources to help your child complete their homework more independently, get those resources organised before you and your child sit down at the homework table (Part 6).
10. Use your imagination to make things more fun, if necessary, by completing the homework in an innovative way (Part 6).

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General Considerations When Putting These 10 Ideas into Practice and the Underlying Themes That Link All 10 Ideas

If you have read Part 1 of this blog series, you will hopefully have a clear idea of what a “Good Homework Culture” looks like for your family. You will therefore have an overview of your overriding considerations and priorities when planning to complete homework with your young child.

Having taken the time to consider those theoretical and general considerations you should be ready to use the 10 Practical Ideas I have outlined above to create an approach to homework that is unique to your child and your family.

If you have read my post about calmly getting ready for school in the morning you will already be aware that I am strongly in favour of families designing their own unique routines and systems that take into account the particular needs of those in their family. The same applies to creating appropriate homework systems, methods and routines.

I believe a uniquely designed routine will achieve much better results than strictly following a list of tips prepared by someone else.

When considering the 10 practical ideas I am sharing in this series, please remember these are simply ideas that have worked for my family’s particular needs and circumstances. Not all of the ideas shared will apply to you and your child. Each idea can be amended to make it more appropriate to your needs. Nothing is set in stone. It is important to be flexible and willing to give a number of different things a try in order to find your own successful approach. There is bound to be an element of trial and error, to begin with.

However, there are two general underlying themes that link all 10 of these ideas. The themes are preparation and a focus on factors solely within your own control.

If you keep these two themes in mind as you consider how to use these 10 ideas for your family, the themes should keep you focused on the purpose behind each idea and guide you toward the best practical action to take in relation to your own child’s homework.

Preparation

When designing my 10 practical ideas I always kept in mind a general theme I read about in Greg McKeown’s book “Essentialism”*. That theme was “extreme and early preparation“(Essentialism, page 187).

*Please see the end of this post for the full book reference.

You will recall that I referred to McKeown’s work about becoming an Essentialist in part 1 of this blog series. I would highly recommend this book to you for inspiration.

The principles I learned from McKeown’s book were important and influential when I set about designing a “Good Homework Culture” for our family.

Please refer back to part 1 of this blog series to remind yourself about McKeown’s work and why I found reading his book helpful research when considering the topic of managing our family’s overriding approach to homework Click Here for Part 1.

I found chapter 15 of McKeown’s book particularly helpful when I moved on to consider the more practical steps required to complete homework tasks. In that chapter, McKeown talks about one particular method an Essentialist would practice when approaching a situation, task or goal. It is a method McKeown calls the practice of “extreme and early preparation“. (Essentialism, page 187).

If you refer to the quote from McKeown that I have included at the beginning of this post, it summarises Mckeown’s description of what he means by “extreme and early preparation“. You can see it involves preparing for the unexpected and creating a buffer.

My aim when sharing my 10 ideas, is to provide you with some helpful suggestions so that you can be truly prepared for your homework sessions with your child. I hope to encourage you to learn to expect the unexpected, be prepared for different scenarios and create a buffer for those inevitable hiccups when they arise. This will, hopefully, prepare the way for calmer and more enjoyable homework sessions in the future.

Concentrate on Factors Solely in your own Control

The second principle that I have applied to all of my 10 ideas is the principle that, even though you may have noticed that your child has certain emotions, feelings, attitudes and unhelpful mindset patterns in relation to approaching homework, you are NOT focusing on trying to change or control how your child feels or thinks about homework. It is important to respect your child’s feelings and let them feel all their emotions.

Instead, you will concentrate on matters that are completely within your own control. You are NOT expecting your child to come to the homework session more prepared than before. It is you as the parent alone who will undertake the preparation for the session.

The preparations will all be practical steps completely within your control as a parent. All of the 10 ideas I am suggesting can be implemented without your children having to change anything for themselves at all. The steps are all designed to be considered or completed in advance of the homework session. It is hoped that this early preparation will create a calmer homework session once your child is present and ready to start the task.

The theory is that, if these practical ideas help you as the parent to remain calm during homework sessions, you will model that calmness for your child and hopefully over time your child will enjoy the homework process more and come to realise (of their own accord) how rewarding a calm homework session can be.

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One final reminder before we get started with the detailed discussion of the 10 practical ideas:

In Part 1 of this series, I emphasised the importance of remembering that:

“It’s NOT your homework, it’s your child’s homework”.

At this stage, I think it is important to emphasise a second reminder:

“You are a parent supervising homework that has been set by your child’s teacher. You are NOT their teacher”.

There is a big difference between being your child’s actual teacher and being the parent responsible for overseeing homework. They are two separate and very different jobs. Therefore, it is very important to check in with yourself and make sure that the expectations you have of yourself are not too high.

You are most likely not a qualified teacher and the tasks sent home by the school should be clear enough for you to merely supervise the task. You should not feel as though you are having to teach a lesson as if you were a teacher in school.

Always leave the option open to return to the school and ask questions about the task set if it is unclear.

If you take the pressure off of yourself, you are much more likely to remain calm at the homework table.

With all that being said, we are now ready to discuss “Practical Idea Number 1” in detail.

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1. Familiarise yourself with the school’s expectations for homework.

Schools generally set out their expectations for homework at the beginning of the new school year or the beginning of a new school term. The start of a new year or term is, therefore, a good time to pause and re-evaluate the information and guidance the school has provided about homework expectations.

However, you do not need to wait for a new school year or new term to get started. Now is always the best time to start. It is good to develop the habit of keeping the information constantly under review so that you can make changes to your approach to homework as and when it is necessary or appropriate.

The school’s expectations normally set out the subjects and tasks they will expect children to complete at home each week and how and when the teacher will keep track of the learning that has been completed at home.

For example, the school may ask children to read 3 times a week at home. The school may have a system in place for your child to select an appropriate book from the school library to carry home each evening to read. You (or your child as they get older) may be asked to record the days when they have read and the number of pages completed in a reading diary. The school may use a reward system so that your child earns a reward each time they complete their 3 reading sessions in a week. The school may ask for reading diaries to be handed in at class every Monday to check the child is on target with their reading at home.

Gain a Full and Detailed Understanding of Homework Expectations

As a parent who wishes to be fully prepared for homework sessions each week, it is extremely important to read fully all of the information provided by the school about their homework expectations. Having done so, if the expectations are not clear, the first very important step is to seek clarification from the teacher.

Before starting any homework tasks at all, it is very important that you fully understand what your child needs to focus on, what the goalposts are and when the deadline is.

A good example of an expectation that you might need to clarify is whether the homework set by the school is “Time Limited” or “Task Limited”.

In other words, does the school expect your child to spend a certain amount of time each week on a specific homework task (regardless of whether it is “finished” or not), or is it a defined task that needs to be completed each week (regardless of the length of time that takes). It is very important that you are clear about this expectation so that you can communicate this clearly to your child during homework sessions.

Such clarity will allow your child to know when their homework is finished. It will enable them to be satisfied and content that they have done enough and have met the expectations of their teacher.

If we return to our example of reading at home, you will see that, in that example, reading is a “Time Limited” task. The school wishes your child to read 3 times a week. The children are not required to finish a certain number of pages or books during the week. The reading homework is about taking the time to practice reading regularly and consistently.

This concept of “Time Limited” versus “Task Limited” is quite an important one, so it will be discussed in more detail under its own separate heading in Part 5 of this blog series.

There are many things to consider when assessing the school’s homework expectations. Therefore, I have created a list of questions to ask myself when I am trying to establish what the homework expectations are for each week and each task:

1. What subjects need to be studied at home each week?
2. Which tasks are compulsory and which are voluntary or optional?
3. On which day of each week will the homework be set?
4. What resources or materials are required to complete the homework?
5. When is the deadline for each piece of homework?
6. Is the homework “Time Limited” or “Task Limited”?
7. How is the completion of the homework supervised by the school?
8. What is the learning objective behind each piece of homework set?

I have included my own list of questions purely as a guide. You may need to make your own unique list of questions to check the expectations for your own particular child and your own particular school.

Check-In With Your Child

Once you feel you have gained a full and detailed understanding of the school’s expectations for your child’s homework, I would recommend speaking with your child to establish whether they have the same understanding of the expectations for their homework.

This checking-in process will avoid tension and conflict at a later date if you discover that your child has understood things differently from you.

If you discover that your child does have a different view of their homework expectations than you do, I would recommend approaching the teacher together with your child. This will enable the teacher to clarify the instructions to both of you together and, hopefully, avoid any confusion in the long run.

For example, you may understand that reading each week is a “Time Limited” piece of homework. Your child, on the other hand, may think it is a “Task Limited” piece of homework that requires them to finish reading a whole book at every sitting. In that situation, I would recommend taking your child to see their teacher to allow the teacher to clarify this with you and your child together.

This clarification will enable your child to feel content to stop reading before they have finished a book, knowing they have met their teacher’s expectations. As a result, reading will feel less overwhelming for them each evening.

You might be surprised how often a child becomes unable to start or overly stressed by a homework task simply because they think they have to do more than they are actually required to do!! This clarification alone can lead to a calmer homework session.

Completing the Homework so that it Aligns with Your “Good Family Homework Culture“

Once you are clear that both you and your child have fully understood the school’s homework expectations, you can then work out how you are going to approach completing the homework in your home.

At this stage, you can refer back to the “Good Family Homework Culture” framework that you hopefully designed after reading Part 1 of this series.

Aligning your approach to homework with your agreed “Good Family Homework Culture” framework will allow you to ensure that you are honouring your own family’s priorities as well as meeting the school’s expectations.

As an example, we can look again at the reading homework scenario that we have been referencing above. To help you understand how this process works, I have outlined below how my family would approach the reading homework to ensure that it both aligns with our family’s “Good Homework Culture” and meets the school’s expectations:

• I would decide which 3 days of the week are the best days for us to commit to reading.
• I would decide which time of day is best for us.
• I would discuss this reading routine with my child and communicate the need to read regularly for school.
• I would be consistent and remind my child to read on those allocated days. I may even make a visual aid to display in the house to remind us all of the reading schedule.
• During each reading session, I would encourage my child to enjoy their time reading. However, I would only require my child to read a minimal amount at each session (perhaps 1 page or 1 paragraph). If my child wished to read more than the minimum that would be fantastic, but I would not feel pressured to encourage my child to read for too long or worry about the number of words or pages read.
• After each session, I would record the amount read accurately and honestly in my child’s reading diary (e.g. “on Tuesday my child read the 1st paragraph of page 5”).
• My aim would be to ensure that both myself and my child remained calm during the reading session and that we were both content that we had met the school’s expectations for reading.
• We would focus on practicing the process of reading consistently and willingly rather than placing any focus on the quantity of reading accomplished during the session.

Hopefully, this approach would lead to an enjoyable reading session for my child, and eventually, at some point in the future, they will be willing to complete their school reading independently.

If my child refused to read on any given occasion, I would do my best to calmly encourage them to do their reading. However, I would not be too persistent or demanding and would avoid causing an unnecessary amount of tension.

The school has a reward system in place to encourage the children to complete their reading each week. If my child did not complete the reading for whatever reason I would simply not record any reading for that occasion in the reading diary. If my child was obviously overtired or unwell, I would record that fact in the diary instead. If my child simply did not read, with no explanation, I would remind my child that they may not receive their reward for reading from school that week and leave the reading diary blank. I would then allow my child to experience the natural consequences of not completing their reading.

If, at the end of the week, my child was upset that they did not receive the reading reward, I would simply remind my child that nobody does everything perfectly all of the time and that is OK. I would explain that we cannot always receive all of the rewards. However, going forward, I would explain to my child that they will need to do all of the reading in order to receive the reward each week.

My final action, if my child repeatedly refused to read on multiple occasions, would be to think about whether there is some hidden or particular reason why my child is now reluctant to read.

There might be all sorts of reasons:

• Their reading ability may have improved and the teacher might have moved them onto more complicated books. These books might be thicker and have more pages. They might have smaller text. Your child might feel extremely uneasy, overwhelmed or doubt their ability to read such a book.
• They might not like the subject matter of the book. It might be a story that makes them feel worried or sad and they might not wish to find out how it ends. Therefore, this particular book may make them feel anxious every time they think about reading.
• The days/times we have chosen to read may no longer be appropriate for my child. They may be too tired by the time we start reading. We may be trying to read on an inappropriate evening (e.g. on a particular evening each week when my child repeatedly seems to come home particularly exhausted or unhappy).

Your child may not communicate these worries and concerns to you directly. However, if you allow them the opportunity to talk to you about the book they are supposed to be reading or how they feel when the time to read at home approaches, you may discover the reason they are not keen to read. Once you know the reason, you can work out the appropriate way to overcome the problem.

As the parent, if you allow yourself the space and time to think and be flexible you may be able to identify the problem and come up with a solution.

Perhaps you need to abandon the current book and pick a different one to read. You may need to speak to the child’s teacher about your child’s concerns surrounding the topic of the book and ask for advice about what to do. You may need to implement an alternative home reading routine and perhaps read earlier in the evening or on a different, more appropriate night.

Pausing and creating the space and time to step back and analyse what is going on will hopefully allow you to return to calm and positive reading sessions in the future.

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I hope from reading this outline you can see how we try to balance meeting the school’s expectations and aligning homework with the overriding general principle and specific aims of our “Good Homework Culture”.

As well as adhering to the school’s expectations, our approach aims to respect our wish to treat primary school as a training ground for future good study habits. It allows us to work towards our aim of calm and relaxed homework sessions (focusing on the process and not the outcome). It teaches our child independence and responsibility for their own homework. It encourages them to gradually discover their own interests and learning preferences.

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The information I have shared above hopefully contains some helpful practical suggestions.

In addition, my overriding aim in this section was to demonstrate how spending the time upfront to familiarise yourself in detail with the school’s homework expectations is an invaluable foundation step to creating your own unique homework routine for your family.

This detailed understanding will allow you to feel confident that your routine both meets the school’s expectations and aligns with your family’s priorities, hopes and aims for homework.

Therefore, I would go as far as to say that if you were only going to choose one of the 10 ideas to try from this blog post series, this first step of detailed familiarisation would be the one I would recommend.

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The 9 practical suggestions that follow in parts 2-6 of this blog series, will provide additional and more targeted help to you when fully designing your unique homework routine. They will help you to approach individual pieces of homework as calmly as possible.

In Part 3 we will consider how you can identify the best time of day and the best days each week to do homework with your children. We also discussed how you can prepare your home environment for each homework session (Click here to read Part 3 now).

Thank you for reading.

Clare

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Whilst reading this series, please bear in mind that I am not an expert in education or home learning. What I share here is simply based on my own experiences with my own family (along with some very helpful advice from my dad who was a teacher).

If in doubt, I would always recommend liaising with your own child’s teacher and school or another qualified professional.

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Resources

Book

Essentialism, The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown, 2014 (Ebury, Penguin Randomhouse Group)

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