Editorial: Parents should help students with homework
September 11, 2018
When you think of homework, you may think of all the times you make silly mistakes on it or how confusing it can be. We believe parents should help with homework, as long as they do it to help you, not hurt you. But that statement begs a question: Why should parents help with homework?
Ok, we know what you’re thinking, “Of course, parents should help with homework, they wouldn’t be parents if they didn’t!” And yes, we agree that parents should help, but studies show some negatives. For example, a 2001 Northern Illinois University and Northwestern University study quoting Lee Shumow and Joe Miller found that, “Parental at-school involvement was associated positively with young adolescents’ academic grades but not with either the standardized achievement test score or school orientation.” This shows that there are some disadvantages to parents helping with homework, but there are still some advantages.
Alia Alia-Araibi, 8th grader, agrees that parents should be able to help their child on homework, but only at a certain degree, like helping them understand the material, and not doing their child’s homework for them, causing them to still not understand the material.
Alia believes that it’s ok for parents to help their child because if the only way for the student to get into contact with their teacher about the homework is the next day then their parent can step in and help out with as much as they can. She doesn’t have any experience herself with her parents helping her, “They tell me to just look it up,” she says, but she believes that others parents should be able to help them on their homework .
Like we said before, parents help with homework to help their student get better grades, not poor grades. According to parental studies, “The benefits for students include; higher grade point averages and scores on standardized tests or rating scales, enrollment in more challenging academic programs, more classes passed and credits earned, better attendance, improved behavior at home and at school, and better social skills and adaptation to school.” Also, looking at this makes us realize that parents helping with homework is good, as long as they don’t do the work for their child.
Coach Head, a 7th Grade math teacher, concluded that, “It’s good interaction between the parent and their student,” and continued to recognize our point. She also acknowledged that, as a parent, she only makes sure her children know what they got wrong, but let’s them do the work.
We conclude parents should help their child with homework because students get better grades and catch mistakes before they turn it in. So please, next time you have homework, make sure you get it checked.
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