BOOKS: Ending The Homework Hassle

ENDING THE HOMEWORK HASSLE:

Understanding, Preventing, and Solving School Performance Problems

by John Rosemond
(Andrews and McMeel, 1990)

Parenting, child rearing, and education are highly appropriate issues this month, with 1st Quarter School Report Cards coming home soon. In Metro Atlanta, TODAY'S THE DAY, and I have to tell you, I'm a little nervous:

• We've already been called into conference with the school counselor, to talk about Tiger, our Kindergardener. (No, that can't be good.)
• Our 3rd grade daughter, Haleigh, seems to be settling in and doing well academically. I'd definitely give her an A+ in developing attitude and drama worthy of a middle-schooler.
• Speaking of which (middle school), our 5th grade son, Zach, is struggling along, in what seems to be quiet desperation at times, taking on the challenge of the transition-to-middle-school routine and schedule (five separate classes and teachers this year--and a locker!), at the same time navigating the uncertain course of being the New Kid, still testing and searching out his niche. (Football wasn't it, we quickly realized. We're trying basketball now. He really misses his old hockey team.)

When Russ and I went to meet with the school counselor to discuss our 5-year-old's behavior and adjustment issues in the Kindergarden classroom, we came away with a reassuring consensus of opinion (he's going to be fine), and a recommended videotape by parenting expert, John Rosemond, which we dutifully watched.

It was good to get reacquainted with the author of Making The "Terrible" Twos Terrific! I had forgotten what I had found so reassuring ten years ago, when I read John Rosemond in search of life-and-death answers and sanity-saving solutions to surviving daily life with a toddler. Just one: Zach. (Those were lovely, innocently-naive parenting days--I didn't have a clue! Now my baby is off to middle school next year, and my 5-year-old is failing Kindergarden...)(No, not really!)

The single biggest piece of wisdom/hope/revelation/common sense I discovered in Making The "Terrible" Twos Terrific ten years ago, and somehow let get away: The family should be adult and marriage-centered, to provide a solid, long-standing foundation for the family as a whole--for the big people, and the little people in the house too. Our society has moved away from the needs of the adults, the parents, and the marriage, to focus on the children. While this remains true, we are living our lives upside-down, People. This is not good.

Ending The Homework Hassle, Introduction, page 3:
"The end result of all this well-intentioned involvement is that parents wind up taking responsibility for major aspects of their children's learning--whether it's learning how to get along with others, learning how to choose friends, learning how to occupy time, learning how to read, write, and do arithmetic, or learning from their mistakes, wherever and whenever they occur. That last one's the Big Bugaboo. Today's parents seem convinced that, if left to their own devices, children will make mistakes. To prevent those mistakes from occurring, and to prevent themselves from looking like bad parents when they do occur, today's well-meaning but misguided parents meddle in things they have no business meddling in at all."

John Rosemond is blunt, at times harsh and abrasive, yet he offers a wealth of practical advice and wisdom based on years of experience with his own two children and thousands of others he has helped as a leading parenting and education consultant. He has a great sense of humor, and lets that loose after beating up on clueless parents and "misguided" child rearing practices. He also makes a lot of sense: no-nonsense, good old-fashioned common sense.

Ending The Homework Hassle came into our life at just the right time, as we are struggling to find balance in parenting a child through the messy, wonderful, fraught-with-danger transition toward adulthood. It's so hard not to rush in and constantly try to make everything perfect and wonderful in our children's lives, but we can't do that throughout their entire lives and abruptly expect them to take over, and know what to do, at age 18, or 21, or when they graduate from high school or college--that's when they are supposed to head out into the world on their own, remember? If they never learn Respect, Responsibility & Resourcefulness (John Rosemond's "Three Rs"), how will they know how to function in the world beyond Mom & Dad's house?

Rosemond believes, and builds a solid case:
"Homework can and should be a character-building experience, a stepping-stone toward emancipation."

Again, in his words:
"...several other books on homework have been written. One says responsible parents help their children with homework on a nightly basis and gives step-by-step, play-by-play directions for doing just that. Not this book. This book will help you keep a safe distance from your child's homework."

Ending The Homework Hassle is not the most exciting, gripping, page-turner of a book, I must admit, but the basics of Rosemond's simple ABC's of Effective Homework Management should be required reading:

• "A" STANDS FOR "ALL BY MYSELF"
  
• "B" STANDS FOR "BACK OFF"
  
• "C" STANDS FOR "CALL IT QUITS AT A REASONABLE HOUR"
  
  

Rosemond describes the all-too-familiar nightly homework rituals and hassles, and then explains the ABC's, using realistic examples to demonstrate how parents can be "consultants" in their children's homework, rather than active participants. (This hit on-the-mark, as Russ and I were just congratulating each other the other day: He got an 'A' on his 3rd grade diorama project (w/Haleigh), and I did a rather wonderful job on my 5th grade book hanging mobile project (w/Zach)--this is just wrong!) There is a Q & A section at the end of each chapter, with suggestions and case-proven solutions for special cases.

Rosemond asserts that 5 out of 10 children, with "already-developed homework problems" will respond very quickly to the Homework ABC's. It might take a little longer, with more in-depth motivational strategies, for 2 or 3 of the 10; and the remaining 2 or 3 might have special needs. The second half of Ending The Homework Hassle is about accurate assessment and appropriate response to special needs kids, whether the strategy is Remediation (Special Ed/Tutoring), Retention (holding back a grade), or Medication, in the case of diagnosed ADD. (He is a proponent of Medication, when necessary, in conjunction with behavioral modification, for ADD.)

The final chapter of Ending The Homework Hassle, Epilogue: Building Solid Foundations gives a brief overview of Rosemond's parenting philosophy with the "Three R's" which can be fully explored in his earlier book, John Rosemond's Six-Point Plan for Raising Happy, Healthy Children. Rosemond has a series of books available on Amazon.com and at his website: http://www.rosemond.com. He is also a syndicated columnist. His parenting column appears every week in newspapers all over the country.