What should be the atmosphere of home lessons, and how should it differ from school? Primarily, homework should be free from school stress, the child can stand up and move as he wants. The parent in the role of teacher does not grade. At home, you can not know, not be able to, not understand, not have time, make mistakes — no one will put a deuce, will not make an entry in the diary.
Valuelessness gives rise to an atmosphere of freedom, tranquility, creativity, security, in which you can learn new things in a situation of support and faith in success, rather than stress. It is in such an atmosphere that the child develops and intensifies interest in new knowledge and skills, and not the desire to get a good grade at any cost.
Another plus: homework can be organized taking into account the individual characteristics of the child’s performance. Some children are characterized by the so-called episodic performance, in which the child can keep his attention on learning tasks for 7-10 minutes, and then get distracted, giving his nervous system time to recover. A five-minute break for rest — and the student is ready to continue studying. At school, there is no way to provide such breaks for each student, and at home, parents for their own child can organize an individual training regime that takes into account the peaks and valleys of his performance. An individual approach is especially useful for those children who have difficulty getting used to school, as well as those who are hyperactive or too anxious.
If you decide to help your child with homework, you should be patient and imaginative in order to turn classes not into a painful procedure, but into an exciting way of communication and learning that brings real pleasure and benefit to the child and you. Imagine that you are going on a difficult journey together from the point “I can’t, I don’t know, I can’t” to the point “I can, I know, I can!”. Moreover, the main role does not belong to you — you only accompany the brave little traveler, however, observing, guiding, helping is much more difficult and responsible than doing it yourself. Therefore, you will need more endurance, strength, confidence in success than a child. To facilitate your mission, below we present the basic rules for organizing individual assistance to a child at home, which can really benefit him, and not harm him.
Homework sharing rules
1. Do homework with your child, not instead of him. In any case, the responsibility for their implementation remains with the student, and not with the parents. Try to convince the child that conscientious preparation of lessons makes it much easier to complete class assignments, that at home you can find out everything that he could not ask at school and practice without hesitation in what is still not working out. Find other arguments that are important specifically for your child — for example, if it is important for him to be successful with classmates, say that a well-learned lesson will allow you to show off your knowledge at school.
2. Do with your child only what is given in school. Do not overload the student with additional tasks. Remember, the child is at school for 6-7 hours, and then his «work day» continues when he does his homework. The life of a child should not consist of one mental activity! A child is an integral being, and movement, communication, work and creativity are important for its full development.
3. Whatever grades the child has received, he is still ready to study — support him in this with your praise and approval. It is important that the child believes that you continue to love him, regardless of the grades received in school. Rejoice every time you notice in his eyes an interest in knowledge, even when performing simple tasks. Remember a man likes what he does. Ask your child tasks and questions according to their abilities. Even a small success, increased by parental attention and approval, inspires, kindles interest, gives rise to a desire to solve more complex educational problems.
4. Limit the time for preparing lessons in general and the time you work together. Agree with the child that you will work together for 1-1,5 hours, but with full dedication. Doing lessons for two or more hours exhausts the child’s strength, as a result, he associates mental work only with negative emotions. Limiting time together teaches your child to appreciate your support and help.
5. Eliminate negative evaluative statements from your speech. Such phrases in no way stimulate the mental activity of the child, but significantly worsen his emotional state. As a rule, they are pronounced under the influence of emotions of irritation, resentment, neglect, fear, anger, and sometimes hatred accumulated during the lessons. If you decide to help the child, leave all your affairs and worries for a predetermined time. Otherwise, a situation arises when the prospect of doing a more attractive business leads to the fact that an adult becomes sorry for “wasting precious time” on teaching a child (“I would already do this time”), and as a result, offensive (and by no means conducive to increasing) mental activity) the words: “Well, couldn’t it have been done right the first time”, “This is wrong, think again!”
Sometimes adults will use phrases like the following when communicating with a child: “You just don’t want to think!”, “You are very inattentive,” or “If you try so hard, you will never get anything more than a deuce!” These are the so-called formulas of direct suggestion, which can be recognized by the words often used in them: “always”, “never”, “again”, “all the time”, “forever”. Sometimes they contain negative characteristics of the child: “You are inattentive”, “You are lazy”, “You are a whiner”. Parents can also show the child his unattractive (due to today’s failures in school) future. Needless to say, such phrases should, if possible, be excluded from the parental repertoire of communication with the child.
6. If a child has made a mistake, then an adult should help him find it and correct it. Your goal is to simplify the task for the child, build him such a new mini-task that will be within his power and help him understand the reason for the mistake. For example, if a child adds 27 and 15 to get 32, you ask him: “What will be 17 and 15?”. Having received the answer in the new problem — 32, the child stumbles upon a contradiction: 15 is added to different numbers, but the answer is the same! So it leads him to discover the error.
7. When doing homework with your child, stick to a pace that is comfortable for him. If you rush and rush, it will only create a nervous environment that is not conducive to mental work, but is unlikely to increase the speed of execution. Appeals: «Be careful», «Do not be distracted!» will also be of no use. The child is distracted because his nervous system needs time to recover. If the child continues to exercise under duress, he will get tired much faster. Having noticed signs of fatigue (the child drops a pencil or pen, asks for food or drink without being hungry, asks abstract questions, picks up foreign objects, etc.), give him the opportunity to be distracted from classes for 5-7 minutes, then re-engage in educational process.
8. Do not set several diverse tasks for the child at the same time. For example, sit up straight, write nicely, think fast. Constant torpedoing with commands-orders: “Stand up”, “Don’t jerk your leg!”, “Don’t bite your lips!”, “Write evenly” — leads to the exact opposite result: the child is immediately distracted, and it is difficult for him to concentrate again. Select for yourself that main task (read and understand the text, understand the solution to the problem, correctly rewrite the exercise, etc.), and move the rest to another time.