Doing their homework.... yay or nay? 🏫 🎒 📖 (Ep. 20)

Homework.
Are we one? Were we one? Will we become one? One of those parents who end up doing their kids homework. In an attempt to help kids with their homework or projects do you end up taking over and doing it all? Today's topic covers our thoughts on whether we should be doing our kids homework. and navigating the school politics.

Key takeaways:

• Helping vs. doing: When it comes to homework and projects, we're all about giving guidance and support without taking over completely. It's not just about bonding; we want our kids to grow independently without us doing everything for them. Stepping back lets them feel the satisfaction of finishing tasks and being proud of their work. And setting some boundaries (even for ourselves) leaves room for mistakes, learning, and all that good stuff. 
• Lesson in fairness: Life isn't fair and to a child who misses out on an award or prize, when the winner maybe got a little too much help isn't ideal. Parental involvement in homework or projects can sometimes lead to situations where children receive recognition or rewards that they didn't entirely earn. This situation however presents an important life lesson about fairness, effort, and integrity. It opens the door to a conversation about fairness, resilience and adaptability, preparing children for future challenges where fairness may not always prevail. It also underscores the importance of putting in genuine effort and taking responsibility for one's work, regardless of external factors.

What we discussed:
00:45 Intro
01:15 Our yay or nay
01:49 Our parents' approach
06:22 Our current homework experience
10:42 Other parents' involvement
14:11 Navigating conversations with the teacher
17:31 Outro

Connect with us:

Email us at [e-mail] and let us know how you’re doing!

Follow us and connect on: 

Instagram

Tiktok

Youtube

Remember, you’re doing a great job! 

With love, 

Nhi & Dee 

X  

Creators & Guests

Host

Diana Rodrigues

Co-host of the Milk and Madness podcast! 🤪

Host

Nhi Hemingway

Founder of Milk and Madness & Co-host of the Milk and Madness podcast! 👩🏻‍🎤

What is Milk and Madness?

Hey friends, this is Nhi and Dee and you’re joining us for the Milk and Madness podcast, where we talk about those ‘Aha’ or ‘I wish I knew about this’ moments, as a mum, parent, and woman.

We met almost 6 years ago at a mothers group, and now as our oldest kids are starting primary school (!!), we wanted to reflect and share on the experiences and learnings we’ve had, with the hope that it may help you in some way.

It's okay for homework to be hard. It's okay for homework to be challenging. It should be. Um but if it's hard and challenging and you know, you, you can't do it and then you won't do it. No, that's, that's not okay. if it's challenging and you want my support and my help, yes, absolutely.

if it keeps happening, then I'd probably sort of be like, hey, just wondering, like, are we allowed to help with the assignments? Because I've noticed that other kids have won know, awards, whatever. Um, and to me, it looks like their parents have helped.

Hello friends. Welcome back to another episode of the Milk and Madness podcast with your host Dee and Nhi. I'm Dee. Welcome to another episode in the Yay or Nay, Yes or No series, where we'll be taking a topic and discussing why we are for or against it. Now that we've started the school journey, the dynamic between us and our children has started to shift.

One of the biggest changes is around their independence. Which brings us to today's topic, should parents do their kids homework projects? Let's start with you, Nhi. Are you a yay or a nay?

Yes, so if we, if we look at it in terms of should parents actually do the homework, it's absolute no. It's absolute nay for me.

Um, you?

Same. What's the point of them going to school if the parents are going to Their homework or their projects for them. So definitely a no.

Yeah. Okay. Well, that's the episode done. See you guys.

No, but seriously, if you're listening and you are thinking, yes, we would love to hear from you I think, um, that would be really interesting in terms of your perspective. I think, you know, when we go back and look at our childhood and my experience at school, I was, fiercely independent, um, because I was as personality wise, but also because I didn't have any other option really.

Like my mom was very involved, but she was a single mom and she was very involved in other aspects of my life. But in terms of things like school and schooling, she was completely. hands off. Um, she completely trusted that my sister and I were going to do our best. And we both tried our very best because we knew that she was giving us opportunities that we weren't given.

So it's, um, yeah, it's one of those things where I have quite strong feelings about it. Will I be helping my kids do their homework? Yes, absolutely. Will I be doing it for them? Absolutely not. Because one of the key things, and I've talked to Kenzo about this quite a lot, poor thing is five, but you know, one of the things I've stressed with them a lot is that as your mom, I'm going to expect you to try.

It's one of the things that I'm not going to be easy on. I'm just not. Because, um, If you try and you don't succeed, if you try and you're not great at it, if you try and it's not for you, that's totally okay. Fully support you in that. But if you don't try, then I'm not going to be okay with it. Um, so that's kind of where I am with things and, and know, homework fits in that because.

It's okay for homework to be hard. It's okay for homework to be challenging. It should be. Um, it should be reinforcing things that you learned in school and I'm all for that, but if it's hard and challenging and you know, you, you can't do it and then you won't do it. No, that's, that's not okay. Um, if it's challenging and you want my support and my help, yes, absolutely.

I will do everything that I can to help you. But, um, yeah, so when I think about my childhood, I just think that, there were times when maybe, maybe it would have been a little bit easier for me if I had a parent who was going to help me with certain things. But it did teach me that I had to learn by myself.

So it's a bit of a mix. I suppose my history is a bit mixed in terms of that, but yeah, I feel really strongly. I'm absolutely not doing their homework at all.

We're definitely in the same boat in that regard. And I think our sort of upbringing is very similar as well. So my origin story is very similar to yours.

So single mom growing up, she didn't have the time. to help with homework. And there was also a language barrier. So even if she wanted to, she really couldn't. She helped in other ways. So she gave me tools and she put me in tutoring when I asked for it and things like that. So there were other ways that she helped, but she didn't know when my assignments were due.

She didn't know what projects I was working on. She didn't know what homework I was given. She would read with us at night and things like that, but where she could. But it was definitely very, independent. I had to, think and organize myself and do my own projects myself. So come up with the ideas and execute them on my own.

And it does teach you certain life lessons, right? You do become a lot more organized, you become a lot more responsible. So there's definitely pros, to that. The cons obviously were that you didn't really feel supported or like I said she did give me the tools so in the end like I did go and get tutoring in areas that I was struggling with and so that was great but at home obviously that bonding experience with your parent where you know they're helping you, not doing But helping you through it, just giving you like a little bit of something just to get you going, sometimes can help.

It definitely, I think is something that I lacked and not to fault her. She was working two, three jobs at some stages, but, it is definitely something that I lacked and something that I enjoy doing with the kids now is actually helping them through. But I do remember very early memories of, because my sister is four years younger than me, she would come to me for help.

And I specifically actually remember always saying, I'm not doing your homework for you. I need you to think, I need you to work it out on your own. I'll be here to help you. And it's the same, like with my cousins, when I went overseas and they needed me to help them with like the English homework and stuff like that, they were expecting me to do it for them.

And I was just like, flat out. No, I will help you. I will assist you, but I will not do it for you. So I've always been big on not doing things for other people. It's annoying. Cause like, sometimes I want people to just do things for me, but then that takes away from. I guess the satisfaction of solving a problem or being proud of your work.

So I definitely don't want to take that away from the kids.

Yeah. Yeah.

Our kids, Aiden and Kenzo are in primary school and they have homework, so we have actually quite a lot of homework. I said to Matt last night, when we were going to bed, like, we are behind on homework this week?

So, what kind of homework does he get? So he has a lot of writing homework and, um, there's reading homework. There is some comprehension homework, but I'm all for it. And it's been amazing just seeing the learning, the exponential growth, honestly, in terms of the reading and stuff has been just so, I'm so proud of him.

Right. And yeah, we have so much homework, so much homework and it's so funny. I spoke to another parent, um, and their kid went to kindergarten, but they went to a different primary school. And they don't have homework either. So I was like, why do we have all this homework? But then at the end of the day, I'm like, you know what?

I'm all for it because I'm a, I'm a very involved parent. So I'm all for helping him with that. Um, and it has really reinforced my, my stance in terms of, I'm not doing your homework for you. I think it's really helped in terms of just making sure that the communication lines are really close with the teacher as well because, um, you know, we're talking about how he's going and, and, you know, he's writing is terrible, but that's normal and, you know, all this stuff.

So it's been really good, but yeah, every night we do. Oh, five minutes. I'm trying to do five minutes 10 minutes, max of homework because, you know, he's young and I don't want homework to be taking up a lot of time. But he does a couple of minutes of writing exercises, whatever, whatever letter they're on right now.

And then we do a bit of reading where he's pretty much reading the books now. They're very simple books, but you know, he's five. Um, and it's interesting because there are definitely times when you want to just. Tell them what the word is, or you want to be like, let me just hold your hand and write this letter, right?

There are absolutely those moments, but I'm, I'm right at the start right now in terms of this and. So far I have definitely stuck to, I'm going to help you. I'm going to help teach you this stuff. I'm not going to do this homework for you. And it's going well so far.

He definitely gets frustrated when he's like, I can't sound this word out or whatever it is. But, um, yeah, we'll continue that in terms of me just helping him out and just supporting him, but yeah, he needs to know you know, what you said before he needs to have that satisfaction of being able to read.

Uh, we always talk about it because he has all these books about science and how rockets work and how cars work. And did you know this, did you know that? And I said, isn't it going to be so great when you can read this yourself and then you can tell me, Hey mom, did you know that? Snails actually have the most teeth or whatever random science fact, you know, it's going to be so great.

And he's like, yeah, yeah, that's going to be awesome. And there are nights where he's like, I don't care. I don't want to read. So it's just managing all that as well. But, um, yeah, how, how weird that you do have any homework so far?

No, like, not like that. Just the reader, obviously they get that to come home and they've got the journal and they journal like what they've been reading.

Um, but no, although ever since term two has started in the mornings before school and after school in the evenings and whatnot, um, Aiden is obsessed with like coloring in and doing his activity books and practicing writing, and all of that sort of stuff and like letters and numbers.

I can see him doing those things anyway. Um, and so I don't really push it . Like I said, the school hasn't given us anything, so, I'm okay with it. Like he's not just sitting at home in front of the TV or anything like that. He's, you know, doing his like dot to dots and he's tracing and cutting out things and so still developing those skills.

It's just not dictated by the school yet. I should probably ask when we're going to start getting homework. So I'm mentally prepared for it. It is. It is a bit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I mean, look I'm really bad at like getting him to read the reader. Like we do reading eggs, which is like an online reading program and we read other books and we do other things.

I'm just really bad at like getting him to read the book that he was given. Um, but we do like, you know, I'll be like, how do you spell this? Like while we're sitting at dinner and so we do other activities. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and I think, you know, it all, it all compounds, right? It all adds up and eventually it'll, it'll, you know, you'll be able to see how how he grows from that.

Um, but yeah, no homework there is something that I noticed at the school. So a couple of months ago, we had, like a hat parade where all the classes, every student got to make a, you know, an Easter hat and they did a parade, you know, in the courtyard of the school. And it was just so very obvious which kids did it on their own and which kids either had their parents help or their parents did the whole thing. Like there was this one kid that I noticed, uh, they must've been in like grade one or grade two and they had a hat and the actual hat part was like the base of a, like the basket of a hot air balloon. And then it had like these sticks and then it had a hot air balloon on top of it.

And it was just designed to perfection. It was beautiful. It was such a beautiful hat, but I'm just like, either you've bought that. Or your parents have made it and I'm just like, look, I'm always curious to know, like, if you do a kid's project for them, like, do you think that no one will notice?

I was going to say, if you're going to do it for a kid, do it so it looks like a kid did. I'm like, gosh, it's even more deceitful. Um, yeah, I, I just, I don't know, like, I don't know, obviously the situation there, but it was just, it was really cute because I was like, look, you've obviously done it. Um, it's, it's quite obvious, but then that kind of makes me think what happens when it's a competition and like the project is, you know, they win a prize for the best, whatever it is, science experiment, right?

Mm hmm. And your kid builds a volcano and another kid, kid's parent builds a volcano for them and they win first prize. I'm always like, what do we do in those situations?

It's so funny that you mentioned this because I was literally thinking of an experience That I had when I think my friend and I, my best friend in high school, she's still my best friend now, Sally, I think we were in year nine and we were literally building a volcano. And, um, he, he built it for us. He built it for us. But! But! Who's he? Your friend? Uh, my friend's dad. Ah. Ross. Bless him. Oh, bless you, Ross. But, um, he's like the sweetest, sweetest guy. So I remember us in their garage, Sally and I trying to build this volcano.

And we did okay, I think. Um. But he came and added the finishing touches to it, and it wasn't a competition or anything like that. And it was like a once off, and I don't think he's ever done any other homework for us or anything like that. But we handed that in, and I think we got a decent grade for it, and I didn't think of it or feel guilty about it.

I don't feel guilty about it now. Like, did it impact the rest of my life? No. Did I

gain any advantage through having it done? No I think, you know, if a parent wanted to do a kid's homework, look, you do whatever you do, I'm not going to judge you, but I just think, you know, is it like a once off or is it if it's like every assignment, every project that might impact, you know, potentially more than having Ross do this volcano for Sally and I. Um, Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm a bit, I'm a bit non fussed about it, honestly, in terms of other parents want to do more in terms of helping out or do their kid's homework because it's their kid.

And, you know, if there's any thing that comes out of it, then that's them to, to deal with. Um, will I be annoyed if, you know, there was a science fair and Kenzo, who's really into science, built something that he was so proud of and lost to someone who had their Do something. Yes. I would be annoyed, but you know what?

That's probably just a learning for Kenzo too. You can't win everything. Even if you think yours is amazing. Yeah. It's cheating. I suppose.

Would you though, would you have a conversation with the teacher though? Or would you just leave it? And just, I think I would leave it it

in-house. I think I would leave it, but if it happened all the time, then I bloody hope that that teacher is on it.

Right. Like that's the thing. Like I always think like surely the teacher knows, like if I can tell. Yeah. Yeah. Surely the teachers know. And you know, if they're giving out prizes like you'd expect them to. You know, have a little bit like, yes, it might be the most beautiful one, but if it's quite obvious that a parent has done it or the best one or it works or whatever it is, and the kid maybe can't explain how they got the volcano to erupt or can't really tell you much about how they made the project.

And that's kind of like alarm bells. Mean, I would expect the school to turn around and be like, you know, give it to somebody else who clearly has done it. Um, in which case maybe the parent who thinks that their one is better might then complain. I don't know. Whatever. Like I'm not fazed either.

Like it's, to your point, it's all a learning experience, whether it's good or bad. Aiden has this issue at the minute where he wants to be the first. He wants to be first in line. He wants to be the fastest runner. He wants to be the first and best in everything. So I'm trying to gently knock him down a peg and kind of know that you just calm down.

Like you can't always win everything. You can't be first at everything. Like even just, you know, put my seatbelt on first and do this first. And like his poor sister's like, mommy, can you do me first? I'm like, Aiden asked first. Like, sorry, I'm trying to make it fair. Um, so it's not a bad lesson to learn because that's life.

You're going to win some, you're going to lose some. Um, and talking about fairness is probably Like, it's a good way to sort of introduce fairness so they can kind of understand that concept. You know, when you've got that example to show, hey, this person's parent helped. They won. Yes, it might not be fair, et cetera, et cetera.

So definitely good conversations. But yeah, I think I'm with you. Like, if it keeps happening, then I'd probably sort of be like, hey, just wondering, like, are we allowed to help with the assignments? Because I've noticed that other kids have won know, awards, whatever. Um, and to me, it looks like their parents have helped.

Like, is that allowed? And then kind of see where the teacher stands on that. And I just worry that I'll spiral. It's like, yeah, yeah, you can help. Then it's like, okay, move over kids.

And you're up at like 2 am. Yeah. I'll be Ross.

Look, that volcano was really great. I have fond memories of it. And actually, I just remembered another assignment that Sally and I did, and I think it was for the same subject and he was just the cameraman, he was filming us.

Right. Because we were trying to, um, I think, I think it was like a oral presentation of some sort, but we thought we'll make it cool and we'll do it as a video, right? And so we were acting out, we write all this, we did all the homework, obviously the, all the project itself. And he just helped. move the camera around and that kind of stuff with us.

So that was, that was really fun. Um,

that's the definition of helping. The kids have done all the work and you're just helping them with logistics or helping them practice, like come and do your oral presentation in front of me, like Aiden does his show and tell with us, like he'll do it and what are you going to talk about in show and tell and he'll do it.

That's the definition of helping is that sort of like the small bits, but they do the whole. research and whatnot. So I think just, just to define it a little bit more, but like, like, let's see what happens. Like we're only in prep.

We'll see what happens as the, um, assignments and projects get a bit more complex and you know, I think we'll learn things.

So I'm all for being part of it and on that learning journey with him as well. So yeah, I think on that note, in terms of us doing homework for our kids, the answer is a resounding no from Dee and I. Um, but that's it for us today. So, you know, if you're one of those parents who do end up doing a kids project or maybe more than you thought you would be, let us know.

We'd love to hear about it and how that progressed for you. Cause you know, it might happen to us. We'll keep you posted, but until next time, enjoy being your kids study buddy in whatever capacity that might be. We'll catch you soon. Bye. Bye.