Because getting good grades opens the doors for students to earn many educational, vocational, and financial opportunities, parents want their children to do well in school.
However, in their efforts to make sure their teens are succeeding in the classroom, sometimes parents take on too much responsibility for their teens’ homework.
While you may have the best intentions for your teen, if you’re continuing to write down their assignments in their planner, remind them of project deadlines and presentations, answer questions they have trouble figuring out, or check over their homework to see if it has been completed, you might be getting in the way of your teen’s future success.
Your teen’s homework is not your responsibility; it’s theirs. While it is okay to offer help every now and then, making your teen’s homework your priority will be detrimental for both you and your teen.
Here are a few reasons why you should take a back seat when it comes to your teen’s homework:
Overaccommodation prevents teens from learning
Sure, it is absolutely okay for you to review your teen’s history essay or provide feedback if they practice a speech for English class.
However, when you accommodate your teen to the point where you are practically doing the work for them, your teen will not learn to master the concepts they’ll need to know for the ACT or SAT and their future academic career.
Help your teen find resources that will help them get stuck, encourage them to seek help from teachers and tutors, and make sure if you help them with any work, you are only giving them feedback on work they’ve already started or completed.
This way, your teen will have to learn the material that is covered in class instead of relying on you to give them the information they need.
Taking responsibility for your teen’s homework hinders self-sufficiency
When your teen is in college, they are not going to have you around to remind them to go to class, take notes, finish assignments, and prepare for major projects and presentations.
If you are consistently doing these things for your teen in high school, you will be throwing them into the deep end in college when they have to be responsible for making choices and doing their work on their own.
You can help them develop their self-sufficiency and prepare them for the real world by letting them take responsibility for their work now.
Maybe they will forget to turn in an assignment, or they will be unprepared for a presentation at first. While this might be discouraging, it’s important to remember that your teen will learn from these mistakes and take action to prevent them from happening in the future.
If you are always reminding them of upcoming assignments, they won’t have any reason to take the initiative to set alerts or write down reminders themselves. If you are always swooping in at the last minute to “save” them when they forget about their homework, they won’t ever make changes that will allow them to do better the next time around.
Focusing on homework may get in the way of your relationship with your teen
While it is important for your teen to get good grades, this should not be the number one priority in your relationship with your teen.
If your teen isn’t doing their homework, there are likely other, bigger factors at play than simple laziness. However, when you make your teen’s homework your main responsibility and focus, you might lose sight of some of the larger issues that may be at play.
Instead of focusing on homework completion, try to foster open communication and see if there are reasons why they may have trouble completing homework like anxiety and perfectionism, depression, or other mental health concerns.
Also, when you take too much responsibility for your teen’s homework completion, it can foster resentment and frustration. You may start to find yourself having less patience with your teen the more you have to keep up with their school work.
The best way to avoid this and preserve your relationship is to make sure they are taking care of their own homework.
Allowing your teen to take full responsibility over their homework will help them learn how to be more responsible in other areas of their life, and it will give them the opportunity to learn from their mistakes and grow into high-functioning adults.