Children and Responsibility

Do you "help" your kids with their homework? Do you take charge of their assignments and monitor every move to make sure it gets done? I know parents who agonize over homework every single night, and I just don't get it. Maybe our family was the odd duck, I really don't know. But I do know that from about 2nd grade onward, my children were solely responsible for keeping track of their assignments, doing the work, and turning it in. I provided the tools, the workspace, and the atmosphere to study. But I did NOT do the work, I didn't nag them to get it done, and other than helping call out questions or vocabulary words before a test or a quiz, I didn't have a big part in it. I finished school. It wasn't my responsibility.

Luckily my kids were smart, responsible, and wouldn't have wanted to get behind or suffer the shame of not turning in an assignment. They did it because they wanted to. They did it for themselves. For the most part that strategy of making them responsible worked perfectly. The only time we had a glitch was once when Stephen was in 7th grade. I did monitor grades, and progress reports closely so that I could intervene if a problem surfaced. That one time, I saw that his vocabulary test grades were really slipping. I investigated. It turns out that he was copying the words down wrong from the board, so even though he was studying, he was studying them WRONG. Poor kid. I started going over his list as soon as he brought it home every Monday afternoon so we could make corrections before he started studying. And we also got an eye exam right away. He needed glasses. It fixed the problem completely.

I know both of my kids were very self-motivated. But I think it also helped them to have faith in their own abilities, to know that I trusted them with something as important as their schoolwork. I really do believe that kids become (or CAN become, but honestly some kids really do overcome even the worst parenting) what your expectations are. If you are a hovering, double-checking, over-protective parent who believes your child is incapable of dealing with things on their own, that is exactly what they become. But what happens when they grow up? Will they have enough confidence to succeed in life if they are used to Mommy taking care of everything? I don't know. I know all kids are different, and I guess some children really do need higher levels of monitoring. But some kids really could learn a valuable lesson if they were given a chance to take care of their own schoolwork. Yes, its true that they might actually fail an assignment or two. But eventually, once they realize that Mom or Dad will not pick up the slack, wouldn't that kid finally, out of some feeling of self-respect, or desire to learn or succeed figure out how to take care of these things on their own?

I don't have the answers to those questions. I know what worked for us. And I never ran around exhausted and complaining about "ALL THE HOMEWORK", because it wasn't MY homework. I did all of mine like 30 plus years ago. I guess what I'm saying is that you have to allow a child to suffer consequences sometimes. If not now, then its just a delayed reaction later. Fail an assignment now, or fail at a career (or a relationship, or at life) later. I know which one I would choose.