John and Peter work with the same NGO in Kigali. Both are married with one son each; and both are determined to ensure that their children receive a good education. They each drop their children off to school each morning and personally pick them up in the evening for the journey home. 

It is in what they do after they get the children home that the parents differ.

Immediately after getting his son home, John takes a quick shower and heads out to relax with his friends over hot sticks of brochette and a few cold drinks.

"Don’t forget to do your homework,” he shouts to the boy on his way out. As far as he is concerned, his duty as a parent is done.

Peter on the other hand, stays home a while. He asks his son what assignments he was given for homework. Then they sit down at the dining table and go through each assignment, the father doing the really hard numbers for his son when the boy has totally failed. Peter is determined to help his son succeed in life, and he believes that helping him succeed in simple things like homework will make him more confident and likely to make it in the future.

Peter and John represent two widely held, yet totally opposite, views on the attitude parents should adopt where their children’s homework assignments are concerned: how much should parents help their children with homework? Should they even help at all?

The research

For years, educational research has consistently indicated that children whose parents are actively involved in helping them with their homework tend to do better overall in school. They tend to attain higher grades than students whose parents take no interest in their homework, especially as they go to higher classes (upper primary to secondary). 

The reason? The extra attention given by the parent after school provides the one-on-one tutoring that is suitable to the individual child’s learning speed and ability to grasp concepts. Thus he/she learns better than with the general, mass-teaching that is provided at school.

However, a recent study disagrees.

In their recently published study, The Broken Compass: Parental Involvement With Children’s Education, in which they attempted to find out the extent to which a parent’s involvement in their child’s education contributes to their future academic success, Keith Robinson, a sociology professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and Angel L. Harris, a sociology professor at Duke, found that greater parental involvement  often has zero overall effect on the child’s academic scores, and may sometimes even be counter-productive. 

Their reasons? First of all, when parents do their children’s homework, the child doesn’t get to internalise the study material on their own, an important component for learning. Secondly, most parents, even in subjects they were once good at, may have forgotten the concepts after many years out of school and may end up mixing them up. In the end, instead of helping their children learn, they might further confuse them about the subject matter. 

So, what lessons can parents and educators draw from these seemingly contradictory findings on how parents can make the most out of their involvement in their children’s homework assignments?

Teachers, parents speak out

According to Shamim Nirere, a School mentor in Muhanga GS Mata, it is important that parents be actively involved in their children’s homework, as long as they only play a guiding role and not spoon feed the child.

"Parents should help their children with homework, however small. However, they should offer guidance only and not general spoon feeding,” she says.

She goes on to cite other benefits of taking an active interest in your child’s homework.

"Helping your child with homework is one easy way you can bond with them. Besides, he/she may be more free with you than they are with the teacher. You can also provide a lot more time for the child than the teacher can when they have a whole classroom of children to teach,” she says.

Nirere also encourages parents to be proactive in helping their children excel in school. 

"This is the only way to follow up on your child’s school work. You should not just sit back and wait for a report at the end of the term, but rather be part of the cause for good performance,” she adds

For his part, Matthew Abishunji, a parent of two children aged 10 and 6, agrees that parents’ involvement during homework should be about demonstration and guidance rather than doing the actual work for the child. 

"For example if the child has a problem with a Mathematics problem, you can work out a separate problem but similar to the one they were given as an assignment. Then you can allow the child to also demonstrate his own understanding by doing the assignment him/herself.”

However, Abishunji notes that in spite of the parents’ best intentions, it often happens that they do not really have a clue about what their children are studying.

"The challenge is when you also don’t have any clue about the questions or if you have never attended school before. However showing concern may require you to ask someone to handle that on your behalf. An elder person or student from the neighbourhood can provide assistance,” he advises.

Nzabarora Eunice, a pupil at GS Kimironko, says the help she receives from her mother and sister when she comes from school helps her better understand some difficult concepts.

"As soon as I get home, my mum asks me about my homework. If there is something that I didn’t understand in class, she explains it to me until I understand, then she makes sure I do all my homework. When my mother is busy, my elder sister also helps me.”

At the end of the day, parental involvement should be all about helping the child achieve real learning, acquire confidence in their abilities and eventually become an independent individual.

5 WAYS PARENTS CAN HELP WITH HOMEWORK

- Create a homework place: Set aside a clean, well-lit place in the house where homework will be done. It can be a totally separate room if possible, or just a table in a corner of the house that is quiet, with no distractions like TV, radio, cell phones or younger siblings running around. Also, be sure to put everything your child will need to do the homework (pencils, pens, sharpeners, rulers, erasers etc) nearby. "I’m looking for my pencil” is a classic excuse kids use to get out of doing homework.

-Help with scheduling: Mark off a fixed time every day after school when homework is to be done. This works better if it is the same time every day and helps the child develop a sense of routine.  For example, you might say 6:00-7:00 pm is ‘Homework time’ every day. This way, they can get through homework first before going to play or watch TV.

-Supervise: Be somewhere accessible- living room, kitchen etc where your child can reach you in case they need some help with difficult parts of the assignment. Even when it is in a subject you don’t know much about, take time to find out what the homework is about. That way you can at least make sure they have attempted all the work. 

- Give guidance, not answers: If your child is really having a hard time with some parts of the homework, give him/her some pointers and direction on how to approach the question. Do not, however, give them answers. This will help them learn to face problems independently.

- Motivate: Encourage your children to finish their homework. There are many ways to do this: you can praise their efforts when they are done or share with them how doing their assignments will help them improve in school.

You can also promise to do an interesting (preferably family-oriented or educational) activity of their choice when they finish a particularly hard project. However, never bribe your child with money or gifts as this will teach them only to work for rewards.

Learners share their thoughts 

Shiphrah Hudera

I rarely grasp anything in class so I utilise the homework assignments to fully understand what was unclear in class. For a subject like Mathematics, I have discovered that the more equations I do the better I become. That’s why I prefer to do homework myself.

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Allan Irakoze

If it wasn’t for those assignments, I wouldn’t be performing as well as I do. It’s actually those assignments that help me grasp the difficult topics because unlike in class where I may for one reason not understand something, the environment at home is more learner-friendly.

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Joyau Isimbi

It is through the continuous assignments that I am able to remember what we studied in class. The good thing with homeworkis that you have a lot of time to understand a subject.

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