“… — How do your parents — or, perhaps, a tutor or older sibling — help you with schoolwork? Do they read over or edit your essays? When you’re stuck on a math problem, do they get involved? Do they work with you on projects or help you study for tests? Do they help you in other ways, too, by making sure you are organized or reminding you not to procrastinate?” …
Student opinion.
How about a teacher opinion…from me.
We got the best advice from our older kids third grade teacher. She told us…stop doing homework with your kid. Make sure there is a quiet place and time for homework to get done. Check to see that it is completed.
BUT she told us point blank NOT to help the kid make corrections. Her gist was that she needed to see his errors to help instruct him best on how NOT to make them. If all she saw was corrected by parents homework, it didn’t help her teach the kids.
I think this is excellent advice.
I teach math and my husband teaches English. It’s VERY rare that our kids will ask us for help at all.
On the other hand, if it’s just marked wrong by the teacher, it’s not very helpful, so it’s better to go over graded homework and fix mistakes.
My kid built a pyramid by using marshmallows and toothpicks (I think she ate most of marshmallows). A kid turned in a pyramid with (colorful) ceramic tiles.
I always figured their homework was just that…their homework. If they needed guidance, sure. But I didn’t correct it, only checked to make sure it was done, and that was only in elementary school. In high school, my D would occasionally ask me to read a paper or help with grammar but other than that…again, their homework.
I think it depends. Sometimes the teacher is incompetent - if they can’t write - or don’t have the time to make useful comments on structuring a paper - it makes sense for the parent to give advice. Sometimes I put notes on the homework, “My kid did not seem to have picked up how to do this in class, so I taught him to do it.” Sometimes after he’d been at it for an hour, I might write “My kid has been working for an hour, so I told him that was enough.” This was in elementary school.
In high school it gets trickier because you don’t want parent work to be getting kids into colleges they aren’t ready for. I never looked at any homework except research papers in high school. I looked for typos and made sure things made sense. My kids were such procrastinators I never gave as much help as I might have been tempted to!
We never helped with schoolwork. We also never checked their work for any errors nor did we offer advice.
For me if varies. For instance in lower grades I had no problem going over math facts and spelling words as we walked 10 minutes back/forth to school because my kids liked that over studying alone at home and it worked well for them.
I have a 9th grader and college freshman. Now I might quiz my high schooler on facts for a quiz/test like vocabulary. I might proofread a paper if asked. If my daughter has a basic question for math or science she knows she can ask my husband for help or to check something. If a math problem is confusing her my husband may do one problem with her which may be all she needs to independently do the rest correctly but if she needs more intensive help she is encouraged to talk to her teacher. I would say the biggest thing I do is encourage/suggest starting work earlier but she still believes procrastination is better.
Ha! After a certain grade level, many parents (ok, me) have little to offer in terms of HW help.
Apparently none of the parents here had a kid like my Kid2, who didn’t know what the homework was, didn’t have the right book, couldn’t do whatever it was, didn’t know what the teacher was looking for, was sure whatever he did would be wrong, not in the required format, the wrong day, the wrong procedure, could not be convinced that whatever he did would be acceptable, okay, enough. Did I ever cross a line in helping with homework? Yeah I did. And have any of my efforts made adult life easier for him? No. But really, you tell me what would.
Homework made his life a living hell. In retrospect I should have said, no, we’re not doing this. But I was weak and I didn’t. And he suffered. And still suffers.
I also had a kid who could do her homework with one hand tied behind her back. She was a bright and shining light of the academic world. And what do we do with the other kind of kid?
I should add that the kid with the homework issues tested too high on standardized tests to be considered by the school for any extra help or coaching. The problem was all ours to solve and we never did.
When my kids were in 1st grade, I think they were supposed to do 10 minutes of homework per night. One would finish in 4 minutes if it meant she could go read and didn’t have to do math. The other? She hadn’t even started in 10 minutes. She needed the right pencil, to have a snack, to go to the bathroom and wash her hands. She needed a different pencil, to ask 5 questions about the 5 questions she was supposed to answer. She’d still be there if I didn’t help.
As life went on, the ‘4 minute kid’ continued to do 4 minutes of homework and the other continued to take much longer than any other kid to do the homework.
On the other hand, they did show up in 4th grade with the ‘Pilgrim’s Village’ project they’d made themselves with milk cartons covered with pine needles and sticks while another kid had houses with mitered corners and some professional looking artwork. I think the teacher knew who had done the work at our house and who had done the work at Becca’s house.
My kid did a science fair project using Excel - I’m sure everyone thought I did it. Nope. He’d been programming on computers for years and learned the basics of Excel in 2nd grade. His handwriting was terrible.
“some professional looking artwork”
Surprisingly, sometimes that excellent artwork is done by the child. I had one of those kids and kiddo’s artistic skills and creativity even in 4th grade were superior to many adults. Yes, parents involvement is often noticeable but not always. Of course, the teachers knew about this kid’s strengths so I doubt they questioned it. Teachers know who can do what.
I have a story about artwork. Both of my kids always insisted on doing the creative projects by themselves with no help. So their projects always looked “perfectly imperfect” next to the obviously parent done projects. Then when D was in 5th grade, I showed up a bit early to a program her class was putting on and was looking over some classroom done posters. I noticed that two posters were much nicer than the others- one done by a child who is very talented artistically and (you know where this is going), the other done by D. 
My daughter almost never did typical homework at home. Always got it done at school. But where projects were involved, she did them at home, and she often asked for her father to help with certain things such as power drilling holes in pipes for a science project, spray painting a statue for a history project, or burning the edge of a drawn map to make it look old, etc. They were her projects, and she had her vision, but liked help when power tools and fire were involved.
D1 was failing introductory physics in 5th grade, so I decided to step in. It was so painful later on all I had to do was to offer my help and she would magically start doing better in the class. But I have to say she did ace the class and later on became a STEM student - all to my credit.
My kids never liked my help with their homework.
I read the link and answered yes to many of the questions. This is definitely a case of where context matters. Since we homeschool and rarely outsource (meaning I am the primary teacher), if the answers had been no, I would be negligent. But, I also have a completely different view toward education.
If I had a student struggling in a class or with homework, I cannot relate to not teaching them what they need to know to complete their work/assignment. That is distinct from doing it for them. So if that meant teaching them the concepts behind the math they are doing or discussing techniques that would their strengthen writing, yes, I would. Would I do it for them? No. It is no different than I what I do with them every single day now, and my kids are all strong independent learners.
What is the objective? For me, educational objectives can pretty much be summarized as knowing how to learn and master concepts. I am completely invested in ensuring that my kids succeed in possessing those skills. If my child was not mastering those in school, I would make sure they were at home by providing them the necessary supports.
This is the key takeaway from the article. Do I help with homework? Yes, when asked. However, that help means that I either guide my kids to come to their own conclusions by asking a series of questions or I do very basic copyedits. I never rewrite essays and I never try to take their voices away.
The article mentioned the world “henceforth” which I know was the subject of another thread here. Using the word, “henceforth,” isn’t the issue in and of itself. For some students, that may be a common word. However, when the teacher knows the student doesn’t have the word in his vernacular and it suddenly shows up in an essay, it becomes obvious that the student didn’t write the essay.