Sending your kids to school entails a lot of responsibilities with it. Apart from preparing their breakfast and a healthy snack, making sure they have complete school supplies or providing safe transportation to school, you also need to be able to guide and assist them in doing their homework. Making kids love doing homework may be easy for some parents but not for many.
Here are some tips that may help you get your kids to look forward to doing every homework:
Create a nice study space
Doing homework on the kitchen counter, living room or dining table may not be that beneficial for your child. Having distractions around them like television, food, people and certain home decors may take away their attention from doing and finishing their homework. Get them a nice study table where they can put their school stuff on and have enough table space for their books and other materials they need when doing their homework. Make sure that it also has a comfortable chair to go with it. Having his/her own study space will not only motivate him to attack that homework but also keep him/her away from the distractions in other areas of the house.
Make sure all resource materials are available at home
As we are now in a very modern age, gadgets are the first choice for all research needs. Kids these days are given their own computer, tablets, iPads or cellphones. Yes, these may be the easiest and most convenient tools that we can give them for their homework needs but it is also good to equip your kids with encyclopedias, magazines, craft materials and other books. Having these available in your own home, we no longer need to rush to the library or worry about not having that needed materials for their arts and crafts. Kids need to learn that not everything is instant. Sure they can print out pictures from the net or just copy and paste something from an article online. They can use these other materials and also be creative with homework.
Make it a fun and interactive activity
Kids do not like doing homework because it is boring. You can easily turn math homework into a game like using items it home for arithmetic solutions. You may also use creative flashcards or visual aids to turn word problems into something more engaging. You may use vocabulary words into sentences which they can easily relate to like, funny moments at home instead of plainly reading the meaning of the words from a dictionary.
Praising or rewarding your child
Kids love getting a reward for a job well done. Make sure that you recognize that they finish their homework. It is exciting for kids to announce that they have done their homework so, make sure you praise them or reward them for it and not simply brush it off. They will learn to appreciate the value of doing homework and not identify it as an imposed responsibility.
Be engaged and not be forceful
It can be very irritating when it takes some time before your kid understands a certain lesson. Make sure that you are engaged and show that you are persistent until your kid finally understands the topic. Some parents may lose their temper especially if the topic is just a really easy one. This may result in yelling or threatening the kid and this will not help at all to motivate them to love their homework.
Always remember to make your kids understand the benefits of homework. They are actually the summary or review of what they have learned in school. This way you will be able to identify if they are having a hard time in certain areas and be able to help them catch up. Also, you have to let them understand the consequences of not doing their homework. Our responsibility as parents is to motivate them and not hate school or schoolwork.