When is the best time to do homework?
If you were to ask me this question, I’d laugh and say :
never.
At my house, there’s no ideal time. My children moan and groan about their homework whether it’s a Saturday morning, a Sunday afternoon, or a weekday evening. Before or after dinner? No difference!
But at my friend’s house, everything runs smoothly. She simply asks her daughter to complete all her assignments in one hour on Saturday morning.
One hour a week — and you’re done!
This is a great strategy for my older kids, but it’s impossible to enforce with my two youngest daughters. If I ask them to do all their weekly assignments on a Saturday or Sunday morning, they act like I’ve asked them to write a 400-page dissertation! The work feels insurmountable.
Only one assignment
On weekday evenings, the girls are tired and I quickly get impatient. For the sake of everyone’s sanity, I ask them to do as much homework as possible on the weekend.
This means I need to distribute their assignments over two days.
They “only” need to do one assignment on Saturday morning, one on Saturday evening, one on Sunday morning, and one on Sunday evening. If we plan an outing, the kids “only” need to do two assignments on the weekend and two during the week.
The word “only” is very important in this strategy. We try to avoid saying things like “get it over with,” even if we secretly think it!
Finding time
It took me a while to accept that our kids will never complete all their assignments in an hour on Saturday morning, and that our views on the best time to get it done just don’t match up. Not to mention that the best time is really the best times, plural!
When I finally came to terms with the fact that my kids need more than one sitting to complete their homework, I learned to delegate.
Now, everyone helps out.
My daughters’ homework is supervised by my husband on Saturday mornings, by Grandma on Saturday evenings, and by their big sister on Sunday evenings. Once we started this new routine, my workload became much lighter, and my kids were able to experience other teaching approaches—and levels of patience!
A family affair
What’s more, my daughters have discovered all our unique academic talents.
One of them always asks her older sister for help with social science projects. The other runs to Dad with her science assignments and to Mom with her French essays.
Distributing homework time over several days has its advantages. It’s up to us to turn the situation to our advantage!