Do Kids Need Homework?

With the argument about homework overload floating around more and more parents are starting to question if kids actually need homework. Experts feel that homework is the best thing for your child to use to review the concepts that they learned in school that day. However, with all of the talk about homework overload it has become apparent that more and more kids dread doing homework, which is affecting their learning.

If you happen to notice that your child is overloaded on homework, do not just sit back and allow their homework to drain away their spirits. Kids who suffer from homework overload are often stressed out and angry, which increases the amount of fights and arguments that you face with them at home. The worst thing that you can do is sit back and do nothing. The reason for this is that even the best teachers who have the best intentions don’t realize that they are assigning too much homework, which is leading to the kids getting burned out and not wanting to learn anymore.

Some studies have suggested that students do not need homework to achieve good grades. However, other studies have shown that students who do homework on a nightly basis score better on standardized test by 69%. However, students who do too much homework and children who don’t do any homework do not increase in their academic achievements. What experts have found through numerous studies is that in order to increase their grades students have to have the right balance of homework. What this means is that some homework is required for students to excel academically, but it has to be just the right amount.

One thing that many people do not realize is that doing too much homework can have a negative impact on a child’s health, and not just because it increases their stress levels. Doing too much homework has a lot in common with watching too much television because it means that your child is sitting down for long periods working on their homework. This lack of activity can contribute to childhood obesity and other serious health problems in kids.

Another problem that homework overload can have in kids is that it can interfere with their sleep. This can also hold true for elementary aged students because as homework assignments are starting to increase these kids are staying up later and later to get their homework done in time for school the next day. In fact, more than half of the kids who were surveyed reported that homework interfered with their sleep. Lack of sleep can cause all sorts of problems for children, including inability to concentrate the next day during school, which can lead to poor grades. Lack of sleep can also contribute to learning and attention disorders in children because it affects their ability to focus.

As a parent, you need to realize just what kind of power that you have with your kid’s homework, especially if you work together with other parents. Most parents are worried that there is going to be some kind of repercussions from the school if they speak out against the homework that their children are dealing with. This should not be of a concern to you because usually there are no repercussions. In fact, most parents that were surveyed reported that the teachers were more than willing to accommodate the homework to help the children in their class. What you need to think about is that if you sit back and do nothing there are going to be worse repercussions to your child’s health than if you stand up for their rights.