No kids here but…
I have zero recollection of my parents helping me with my homework. Mom may have bought me items for a project or something but all the work was done by me with absolutely no input from my parents at all. Maybe they asked if I did it or told me to do it but that was it.
These days, are parents expected to help kids with their homework? If so, why?
I’m not expected to help my kids with their homework. I check it over when they are done, if they want, and help with some concepts they don’t quite get, but that’s it. I don’t do their projects for them, or anything like that.
I monitor their grades to make sure they are on the right track and such, as well.
You’re not required to help. I think teachers just want parents aware that the kid needs to this at home. If you’re having to do the kids work, there’s a problem. Talk to the teacher.
I tried to give my kids guidance if they needed it. My daughter really sucked at math. I’d try to walk her through a problem and she’d start crying. I would tell her “Crying will only get your paper wet and wrinkled. If you want to get this done, you need to think it through.” My parents didn’t help me because I always claimed that I didn’t have any homework. For some reason they never called me on it.
Didn’t get help at home either ( 1970s ) and that was fine with me. Mother and her 2nd husband ( and step-parent ) were not simpletons by any means but not exactly the academic type, especially when it came to mathematics. They were agog at how crazy all this “new math” was.
Hated it all ( except for some books we had to read ) but I did it because it had to be done.
I have enough stress in my life without the added stress of my kids’ homework assignments. Generally, they were on their own, and I think important lessons can be learned that way.
However, one kid had real struggles with math in High School, to the extent that the extra help available at school would not have been sufficient. She was literally failing Algebra, despite being a good student in all other classes (with good work habits) We carved out time every day to go over what she was doing and working together on her homework. She made it through, and we had some nice bonding time (and some terrible frustrating times).
My parents rarely helped with homework, largely because they themselves didn’t understand it. In fact, I remember Mom writing a strongly-worded letter to District 186 asking how they expected 8th-graders to understand something that a 30-something adult couldn’t understand.*
*In this particular case it had to do with a math assignment involving “factor trees.” Mom thought the whole thing ridiculous and asked why they didn’t just leave well-enough alone when it came to multiplication/division. Or something.
Define “help”. Seriously. I didn’t do my kids homework for them and I didn’t do their projects for them. But that didn’t mean that when they were building whatever out of popsicle sticks I didn’t suggest that a glue gun might be better than Elmer’s or vice versa , or that when they had to write an essay I didn’t help them come up with an idea or that I didn’t help them with a concept they had difficulty with. My parents( specifically my mother) helped me when I was a kid, but not as much - in large part because I didn’t have as many of those damn projects to do.
My parents, who were both quite good at math, helped me with it by oh-so-patiently working me through each step in a problem. I still couldn’t learn it. I never need any help in any other homework. Once in awhile the teacher would tell everyone in the class to bring a note that their parent had checked over that day’s assignment.
This was my experience.
My parents are not unintelligent, my father was a pharmacist, but my homework was already beyond them by the time I was in middle school.
Yeah I don’t have kids, but I wouldn’t have been able to help them with any math beyond the most rudimentary of arithmetic.
Addition to Post 6 above. I was good at math 40 years ago, but of course didn’t remember enough to be much help. I actually had to learn along with the kid to figure it out. She would teach me what she could and we’d figure the rest out together.
My kids passed me in 3rd grade. The multiplication tables are something I never learned. I think we moved 3 times that year. But luckily by the time I got in highschool calculators were acceptable.
I agree with those damned ‘projects’, it seems like every week the lil’wrekker was bringing home a new list of stuff for a project. Or a book to read for a report.
Mr.Wrekker tells of the time his mother was gonna help him for a whole semester in History. Every Night they read and did a worksheet. He made a ‘F’ that semester. After that he was left to his own devices.
I got absolutely zero help with my homework. It was my responsibility; all my parents did was to ask whether it was done, or demand that it be done.
My parents never helped with homework - as others have said, it was really beyond them.
My kids - its been expected that you help with homework. Or get your kids a tutor. Or something. If they fall behind in Algebra, its your job to fix it and get it caught up. If your kids paper wasn’t properly proofread, during conferences it was made clear that the expectation was you would read it and help them write coherent sentences. It is certainly not the teachers problem to fix.
(yes, I was aghast when this was first pointed out to me when my kids were young. And just as shocked when they were telling me it was my problem when my kids were Seniors in high school).
My parents didn’t; I did help my brothers. But it wasn’t in the “do homework with them” kind of way: it was either an occasional “explain something he just isn’t getting” five-minute session (which counts more as help with studying than help with homework) or the occasional Socratic question.
Mom, who has a teaching degree and whose focus is on the “humanities” side of teaching, would sometimes decide to “help” one of my brothers with whatever (verbal conjugations most commonly) but Og help me, the woman can’t teach a hyperactive puppy how to get out of a drenched paper bag. Apparently the Normal school didn’t explain that the first step of tutoring should be figuring out which are the actual weak points: she’d just high-handedly pontificate and berate, none of which are terribly helpful to a kid who’s having problems understanding the logic behind Spanish verbal forms.
Yesterday I was watching a chapter of Arrow in which Felicity helps William with quadratic equations. They are talking about “solving for x” as something which comes years after “doing the binomials”: while that may have been random word soup from the writers, it certainly is the complete opposite of how my own generation went about it (we learned about binomials three years after learning to solve quadratic equations). The first thing I did whenever I tutored whomever was figure out what their teacher’s expectations were and what specific parts the student was having problems with. I used to have to do it when helping people my age who were studying the same material as me but with a different teacher and I definitely would have to do it now in order to tutor The Nephews.
My parents didn’t help. They’re perfectly intelligent, but Dad left school at 14, Mum at 16 having been to 13 schools (she was an RAF rat), and both their educations were interrupted by WW2 and evacuation. I think chemical equations passed them by!
It’s amazing, all things considered, how nice their handwriting is.
My parents didn’t really help me much when I was a kid, except for anything that had to do with art (poster, diorama, etc.). Mostly because they were too busy, but also because they weren’t that interested. My dad would help me with math if I didn’t understand something, every once in awhile. They were both artistic, though, and enjoyed that part of my schoolwork, so they always had a lot of suggestions.
I sometimes help my kids with managing a project - I’ll talk through with them how to break it up into smaller parts, set deadlines, etc. The one time I really helped was for a 3rd grade assignment my oldest had. He was given a map of the state and had to color all the counties in different colors. It took him hours and was really tough for him - he’s a lefty and coloring was always difficult for him. He did a great job and turned it in and the teacher sent it back. She wanted him to redo it in colored pencil. The second map was a family affair - we all helped, including his little brother. We got an A.
I help mine in practically every subject. But what I do is explain why something is being taught and then expand on the subject. For example if it’s math we might learn the principle and then try to prove why. If it’s history we’ll discuss the chapter then watch some YouTube videos on the subject.
My parents usually helped when I had projects rather than the standard worksheets, problem sets and essays. Things that required materials, cooking, designing, etc. I’d still do the work, though, they’d make sure I had what I needed and walk through the steps with me.
For more standard homework, by the time it reached the level where I was having to work to wrap my head around it (Physics / Calculus), it was also well outside their spheres.
For my son, I help him a lot with English (as a second language), as well as math whenever he hits a snag.