If you are a parent of a college student, you know what goes through his/her head when doing homework. It is the necessary evil that they must be a part of, and they don’t like it one bit. That’s when you try to help them with their homework, but the problem is, you don’t recall the lessons as good as you did when you were a college student yourself. No matter how much you want to help your child, tackling his/her homework proves to be an uphill battle.
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Parents feel inclined to help their children in every possible way, and that includes helping them with their homework. Even if you are not an expert on the subject, you will want to learn about it so that you can lend a helping hand no matter how small your contribution is. As a parent, you will feel for your child when he/she is stuck while doing homework, but if you are not sure about the subject, what should be your duty to ensure they finish their homework on time? Here’s what you should do:
Be a guide, not a critique
Children will falter when they are doing their homework. Colleges don’t show mercy on the number of homework they give to students. You will often notice that your child is failing to meet the deadlines. Your job will be to encourage your child to work harder to learn the subjects well. You shouldn’t criticise them for not finishing homework on time. Your child may be weak in mathematics, but that doesn’t mean he/she is not trying. If you want to help, be their guide to ensure that they try all the problems and finish them within the deadline. There will be mistakes, but that is for the teacher to rectify.
Seek online help
If you are one of those parents who is hell-bent on understanding the subjects of your college kid so you can help with his/her homework, you should start practicing some of the lessons that they are learning. However, it is not easy to start studying after you have been out of practice for long. Moreover, if you already know the topic but you need to brush on a few parts, you will need an explanation on the topics.
For example, if you learned about bar graphs and pie charts in college, but the way it is taught now is different from what you were taught earlier, consider hiring online homework help services. You will not only learn about the topic but also the most effective techniques to help your kid finish the homework and fully understand it as well. It's best to work with homework services that pair you up with real experts. Assignment Expert, for one, features a team of professionals from various college courses, so you can rest assured that you'll receive assistance from someone who's a master of the topic.
Ask them to find similar problems in their book
Be it mathematics, physics, chemistry, or any other subject, college professors usually don’t give homework whose answers are not available in the textbook. This gives you a window of opportunity to ask your child to investigate similar questions or problems that are already there in the book. If related questions were discussed in class, your child would be able to recall them by reading the notes.
Encouraging your child to look into examples from the book will also allow them to become familiar with similar questions. They will be more enthusiastic about solving the problems on their own and will follow the same technique the next time they are stuck with a difficult topic. This way, even if you don’t know the subject, you will be supportive enough for your child. Children may not be aware of the right place to find an answer, but if you guide them in the right direction, they will follow that path the next time.
Use a timer to best effect
College students are frightened of homework. This leads to procrastination, and they have a negative vibe that demoralises them to finish even a simple homework on time. As a parent, you can help your children to focus on their homework for small periods. You should start using a timer so that they don’t get distracted. It will be even better if you can lure your child to doing homework by promising to allow them a small break if they can study for 15 minutes without getting up.
Set a timer for 15 minutes and sit in front of them to ensure that they are attentive to their homework. You can slowly increase the time to 30 minutes and then slightly longer to improve their concentration levels. This is a simple trick that does wonders for completing their homework. Again, this is another way in which your subject expertise is not required to finish your child’s homework.
Set up a rewarding program
Children love rewards when they do something good. As a parent, this will be your trump card, especially when you see that your child has a long homework to finish in a short deadline. Your child will be grumpy and demoralised from the beginning because of the lack of time. But you shouldn’t allow them to procrastinate further. Promise them that if they can finish the homework, you will reward them with a dinner to their favorite restaurant or buy them a magazine that they longed to collect.
This is almost similar to using the timer, but since there is a reward involved, your child will be more enthusiastic about finishing the homework. Ask them to outline a homework routine so that they can follow that every day. This will make it easier to understand the amount of homework left and your child will also count their days backward to wait to see the gift.
Helping your child with homework doesn’t necessarily mean you will take up the pen and notebook to write for your child. You need to allow your children to do most of the homework. Your job will be to continually encourage them by following the tips above to make sure they finish the homework within the given deadline. But if push comes to shove and you also find yourself stuck, follow the tips above to ensure that both you and your kid progresses with the homework.