School of Dad, Part 3: The Homework Standoff

Ellie has a homework sheet that needs to be completed by Friday. It is Tuesday. We have been having the same conversation about it since Sunday.

The homework sheet contains six questions about numbers. The questions are not difficult. Ellie is capable of answering them. She is not answering them, not because she lacks the ability, but because the homework sheet is, in her considered assessment, not what she wants to be doing right now. The "right now" has been consistent since Sunday morning.

We are in a standoff. I am attempting to resolve the standoff without either completing the homework for her or producing a conflict that costs more energy than the homework is worth. This is a more difficult engineering problem than any of the client work I have done this week.

The parent's position

My position, which I have stated clearly and which has had no discernible effect, is: the homework needs to be done by Friday, doing it now means it is not a problem later, and doing it later under time pressure makes it harder and less enjoyable than doing it now without pressure.

This is a completely rational position. It contains all the correct information. A 39-year-old would find it persuasive.

Ellie is five. The five-year-old relationship with "later" is different from the adult relationship with "later." For an adult, "later" is a real temporal category that contains consequences. For a five-year-old, "later" is approximately "not now," which is, compared to "now," an acceptable state.

What I have tried

The timer. Ten minutes on the clock, just try it for ten minutes, you might find it's easy. Result: she completed three of six questions, was told the timer had ended, stopped. Next day: renewed refusal, citing the timer as evidence that the homework was the kind of thing that ends when you want it to.

The bribe. I dislike this as a strategy and deployed it anyway at a point of low resources. Finish the homework, get an extra story. Result: one story negotiated upfront as a down payment, homework not started. I have been outmanoeuvred by a five-year-old.

The indifference approach. "Fine, I'm not going to mention it again, you deal with the teacher." This is not something I can actually sustain with any conviction and she appears to know this.

Sitting with her. Just being at the table, working on something of my own, available but not pushing. This is the approach that has worked best. It requires me to have a spare 40 minutes at the kitchen table, which is a structural limitation.

What I have learned

Homework in the early school years is, from the research I have looked at, of limited academic benefit. The evidence for homework at Key Stage 1 improving outcomes is weak. What it is primarily useful for is developing habits of completing tasks in a context that is not school.

The habit I am trying to help her develop is not "do the sums." It is "there are things that need doing and we do them." This is a larger and longer project than Friday's number sheet.

Understanding this has shifted my position slightly. I am less invested in the specific completion of these six questions and more invested in the approach to the specific completion. She needs to find a way to start things she does not want to start. This is a life skill and I am at the beginning of its teaching.

The resolution

Wednesday evening. I sat at the kitchen table with my laptop. She came and sat across from me without being asked, pulled the homework sheet toward her, and started writing.

She did not say anything. I did not say anything. The questions took about twelve minutes.

When she finished she slid the sheet across the table and said, with the tone of someone who has decided this is not connected to the previous days: "Done."

"Well done," I said, also with the tone of someone who has decided this is not connected to the previous days.

This is parenting. The homework is in her bag. I have no idea what we will do next time.

Neither does she, I think.