Helping kids with homework
By margeryann
@margeryann (1845)
United States
January 31, 2011 1:29am CST
Helping my son with homework is real hard. He is in special ed and it is hard each day that he has it. I don't want to do it for him so he can learn how to do it himself. He doesn't know how to hardly do anything himself when it comes to homework. I tell him the directions then when it comes time to do it. I ask him what do you do with that and see if he can figure it out if he can't I say you do it like this and this is why so maybe he can learn how to do it himself sometime and if it is math I tell him the steps over and over again and ask him what is the next step if he doesn't figure it out then I tell him this is the step you do and then ask him how do you get the answer.
Some of his work I even have a hard time figuring out. It can be real hard when I'm busy doing something else and be wore out doing it then I have to help with homework.
I had problems with his special ed teacher a little bit this year because he was bringing his math home and he did a lot of it at school and all of it was wrong and I would help him do it over because I felt he couldn't learn how to do it if he just got all of them wrong and didn't know the steps and the teacher called me one day and told me that she won't send math for homework no more what he did there and didn't finish is what she would grade because she would notice all of what he did at school would be wrong and then he would bring it back and all of it would be right she didn't want me to help him at all at home but she did continue to bring it home but all of it that he did at school was wrong.I had a hard time with that so I ended up writing her later on because I couldn't get myself to get over him not knowing how to do it I felt that he couldn't figure how to do it if he wasn't told the steps on figuring it out and couldn't learn them. I said that I was going to continue to help him. I'm not doing it for him. I'm just helping him. She still didn't help him she wrote back and said that he already knew the steps he just doesn't do it. I test him and it doesn't . So later on I told her again and then she started helping him more.I just feel that he is in special ed to try to get him closer to his grade level that he is supposed to be and I think not showing him how to do it he won't ever get close to it.
Do you think it is hard to help your kids with their homework or what do you think?
2 people like this
7 responses
@JenInTN (27514)
• United States
1 Feb 11
It can really be a challenge and if you have a child that has a "better way" of learning something it can be even harder because the teacher says this way and you are showing him the way he understands. Sometimes teachers can be very hard to deal with...they are not always the sweet and wonderful people that we want teaching our kids.
I hope that she listened to you and realizes how lucky she is to have some support from a parent. Parents can be a challenge for them as well.
Keep on doing what you do because if he is learning..that is the important thing.
@JenInTN (27514)
• United States
1 Feb 11
My son actually has a horrible time in school very early and it made hime hate school. It was the teachers that he had too. I can't even begin to tell you the things that poor kid had to deal with. I was at the school almost everyday. Over crazy stuff..then I started to see it wasn't so much him. He did have two wonderful teachers right in a row that turned him around somewhat. He never felt the same way about school again though. That's what you need to watch out for. Once he gets it in his mind that school is a "bad" thing..he will be miserable the rest of the time he is in there.
@margeryann (1845)
• United States
15 Feb 11
I know he is getting that way too. I think what doesn't help is being in special ed he deals with the same teachers every year. He goes to the regular class some of the day but most of the day he has the same teachers.I hope things get better for him.Thank you for your experiences.
@margeryann (1845)
• United States
1 Feb 11
Thank you for commenting. He at first was getting so frustrated since they didn't want to help him that he wasn't wanted to learn at all when before that he was getting to where he wanted to learn. In class when he would get them wrong and they wouldn't help him they would get mad and have him do it over and over and all that did was make him made because he didn't know how to do it is why it was wrong every time.
I know parents can definitely be a challenge for them having to deal with parents that don't want to support there kids and not care how their behavior is at school and parents that want the teachers to do things that they don't feel like doing.
Have a good day and thank you for caring!
@Farside604 (870)
• Canada
1 Feb 11
Hey margeryann
I'm currently putting myself thought university by working as a tutor and I can't tell you how many times I've seen this. I really want the kids to find he solution on their own but what seems exceeding obvious to us is not always clear to them. What is often the case is that there is some mathematical concept that has been glaze over and the kids simply go on with a hole in their math knowledge. So what I do is I go back and back and back until I find out what concept they either never learnt or weren'f comfortable with. It's sort of like that analogy of building a ouse on solid ground rather than shaky sand. This one time I ended up going as far back as teaching a grade 12 math student how to properly multiply fractions. In highschool my teacher told me math will be one of the easiest subjects to fall behind in.
@margeryann (1845)
• United States
1 Feb 11
Thank you for commenting.I have a college student son too and he struggled in math. I wished that they had free tutors through the school that he is going to but they didn't that would've helped a lot.
I am so happy for you for being so good at math.That is a very good subject to be good at because a lot of people struggle in that subject. The subject books for math doesn't explain the steps in math very good so it is hard for students to figure it out and sometimes they don't know anyone to show them how either because even when my college son was in high school he couldn't figure out algebra and I told the teacher and asked if there was a way she could show him some example steps of some of his problems so he could figure it out and she said the examples are in the book. I could never get him to get help.When the examples in the book aren't very clear.
I could have used you lots of times. LOL.
When he was in the later part of elementary close to middle school I told him that he needed to ask for help because there was going to be a day that I wouldn't be able to help him and that day definitely did come because I don't know that harder
math. That son could figure out things better with math then my younger son though . You could show him the steps and he would figure them out, but that harder math I couldn't show him how to do it because it was too hard for me.
@gabs8513 (48686)
• United Kingdom
31 Jan 11
Yes it used to be but in your Case I think it is wrong for the Teacher to say that you are not to help him and she should be showing him till he does understand it that is her Job
I am glad that you contacted her and told her and I hope next time she will go through it with him till he knows how to do it
@margeryann (1845)
• United States
31 Jan 11
Thank you for commenting. When, I went to help my son after the teacher told me that he would tell me don't help me the teacher said if you help me that she would count them all wrong and I would get into trouble. That is the day that I wrote the letter because I told my son I'm helping you anyways because you got all of these wrong and you need help so you can learn how to do them. I didn't tell him what I wrote the teacher because I didn't want him to get an attitude with her.
@margeryann (1845)
• United States
1 Feb 11
Thank you for commenting. You definitely do need lots of patience because it can be frustrating at times to get the kids into knowing what to do as your trying to show them what to do. Sometimes kids need one on one help and they can't get it at school,definitely not when they are in regular class since their is more kids in there, at my sons school anyways. There isn't much special ed students in a class so more help could be giving. That is the point of being in special ed.
I always felt even when there is lots of kids in class and in regular class that teachers need to walk around the classroom quite a bit of times just to catch kids struggling so you can show them how to do it.My other son was in regular class and sometimes he struggled and the teachers said that he needed to raise his hand when he had a problem but he was bashful and didn't want to look stupid asking a question in front of everyone.
@Lance26 (956)
• Philippines
31 Jan 11
With my nephew? Indeed hard to teach him his homework. He's a slow learner, I tell him now he couldn't remember afterwards. He's having a hard time reading English words. He mixes the letters of the alphabet and mispronounces the words. I need to repeat all and in step by step for him to understand the subject. However I am so glad that he's on average level when it comes to Math.
@margeryann (1845)
• United States
31 Jan 11
Thank you for commenting. That's how my son is he is a real slow learner. He is in the 4th grade and I've tried teaching him how to tie his shoes since before kindergarten and do it every year and he still doesn't know how to tie his shoes. He just started learning how to read last year, after trying to teach him how to do it since kindergarten. The only subject he is real good at is spelling. He does really good at that. Which , is an improvement because he wasn't very good at that either.All I can do is pray and hope that he gets better at the other subjects too. He hates it in special ed because he feels different then the other kids. He only has around 3 classes in the regular class.
@margeryann (1845)
• United States
31 Jan 11
Thank you for commenting. Sometimes I feel the parents are more the teachers then the teachers. I know that there is good teachers out there but they don't help as much as us parents that do help anyways.
@margeryann (1845)
• United States
31 Jan 11
Thank you for commenting. It is real hard, takes lots of patience and very time consuming.
