"Our" Homework

Yes, we all wish homework either didn't exist, or could be done magically!
Comic by Bill Watterson

I have six wonderful children.  Three have already graduated from high school, and one graduates this year.  That leaves me with one in junior high and one in elementary school.  I have had at least one child in school for almost twenty years, and yet it wasn't until this last year that I realized their homework isn't "our" homework -- it is theirs.  Perhaps it took this long because a lot of my kids are self motivated, and have done a good job of taking care of their work without me having to do anything but help when I was asked.

Las year I found myself telling Jake, or Dan, "It is time for us to do our homework".  My boys do not really like to do homework, and I felt like if I didn't step in it wouldn't get done.  It felt like my homework! Unfortunately, by calling it our homework instead of their homework, I was taking away some of the responsibility that should be theirs.  It is their grade.  It is their homework.  I went to school for a lot of years, and I already did my homework, and I turned it in on time too! (Yay me!)

They do need encouragement, and often they need help, but they also need to be responsible for their own work and their own grade!  I do not want them to get to college and not know how to keep track of what work they need to do, and when to turn it in!  Now the trick is to find a way to help them actually care about their homework, and the consequences of not doing it or not turning it in on time! We're working on that!