The Homework Battle: Who Owns the Problem? 

If homework has become a nightly struggle in your house, you’re not alone. Many parents find themselves reminding, nagging, checking, correcting, and sometimes even completing homework just to get it finished. What starts as wanting to help can quickly turn into frustration for everyone. The question to ask is simple: Whose homework is it? The answer is: Your child’s. That doesn’t mean parents step away completely. It means shifting from owning the homework to supporting the learner.

When Parents Own the Homework

It’s easy to fall into the trap of becoming the homework manager. You may find yourself:

• Constantly reminding your child to start.
• Sitting beside them for the entire assignment.
• Correcting every mistake.
• Arguing about unfinished work.
• Staying up late to make sure everything gets done.

While these actions come from a place of love, they can unintentionally teach children that homework is the parent’s responsibility instead of their own.

What Does Support Look Like?

Supporting your child means creating an environment where they can be successful while allowing them to take ownership of their learning.

Parents can:

• Provide a quiet place to work.
• Help establish a consistent homework routine.
• Make sure needed supplies are available.
• Answer questions when asked.
• Encourage effort and perseverance.
• Communicate with the teacher when concerns arise.

Notice that none of these involve doing the work for your child.

Let Natural Consequences Teach

It can be difficult to watch your child forget an assignment or choose not to complete homework. However, experiencing the natural consequence at school is often a more powerful teacher than repeated reminders at home. When children are allowed to experience the results of their choices in a supportive environment, they begin developing responsibility, organization, and problem-solving skills.

Instead of Nagging, Ask Questions

Rather than saying:

• “Did you finish your homework yet?”
• “Go do your homework right now!”
• “You never remember anything!”

Try asking:

• “What’s your plan for getting your homework done tonight?”
• “What do you need before you get started?”
• “Is there anything you’re confused about?”
• “How can I support you while you work?”

These questions encourage children to think through their own responsibilities instead of relying on constant reminders.

Resist the Urge to Fix Everything

If your child forgets a folder, misses a problem, or struggles with an assignment, pause before stepping in. Ask yourself if this something my child can solve independently? Children build confidence by solving problems—not by having adults solve every problem for them. Sometimes the best support is simply believing they can figure it out.

Long-Term Projects Are Different

Not all homework is due the next day. As students move through elementary school, they’ll begin receiving larger assignments such as book reports, research projects, science experiments, or presentations that are completed over several days or even weeks. These assignments can feel overwhelming, especially for children who struggle with planning, organization, or executive functioning skills. This is one area where parents can provide valuable support without taking ownership of the project.

Instead of reminding your child every day or completing parts of the project yourself, help them break the assignment into smaller, manageable pieces. Sit down together when the project is assigned and ask questions like:

• “When is it due?”
• “What are the different parts of this project?”
• “What could you finish today?”
• “How much time do you think each step will take?”

Then, encourage your child to write those smaller tasks on a calendar or checklist. For example, a book report might be divided into reading the book, taking notes, writing a rough draft, revising, creating a final copy, and practicing an oral presentation.

As the days go by, your role becomes checking in rather than taking over. Instead of asking, “Did you finish your project?” try asking, “What step are you working on today?” This simple shift keeps the responsibility with your child while showing that you’re available to help them stay on track.

Learning how to plan ahead, manage time, and complete work over several days is just as important as the final project itself. These executive functioning skills will benefit students throughout middle school, high school, college, and beyond.

Remember, the goal isn’t a perfect project created by a parent. The goal is helping your child learn the process of planning, organizing, and completing a larger assignment independently—skills that will last long after the project has been turned in.

Praise Effort, Not Perfection

Homework is practice. Mistakes give teachers valuable information about what students understand and what still needs to be taught. Instead of focusing only on getting every answer correct, praise behaviors like:

• Starting without being reminded.
• Staying focused.
• Asking thoughtful questions.
• Checking work independently.
• Persevering through a challenging assignment.

These habits build lifelong learners.

When Your Child Truly Needs Help

There is a difference between avoiding homework and being unable to complete it. If homework regularly leads to tears, takes far longer than expected, or seems far beyond your child’s abilities, reach out to the teacher.

Homework should reinforce classroom learning. It should not create overwhelming frustration. Together, families and teachers can determine whether assignments need additional support or modifications.

It may not eliminate every homework battle overnight, but it helps children learn one of life’s most important lessons: their education belongs to them, and they are capable of taking ownership of it.

10 Ways Parents Can Set Their Child Up for Success at the Start of a New School Year

The start of a new school year is full of new beginnings. New teachers, new classmates, and new learning opportunities but they can also feel overwhelming for children and parents alike. The good news is that helping your child have a successful school year doesn’t require anything but a little planning and your time. The biggest difference comes from simple, consistent routines and a positive attitude toward learning. Here are 10 easy ways you can help your child start the school year with confidence.

Adjust Sleep Schedules Before School Starts

As the school year begins, gradually move bedtime and wake-up time closer to the school schedule. Children who get enough sleep have better attention, memory, and emotional regulation, making it easier to learn and participate in class.

Create Consistent Morning and Evening Routines

Predictable routines reduce stress and help children know what to expect. Practice packing backpacks, choosing clothes the night before, eating breakfast, and following a bedtime routine. When mornings are less rushed, everyone starts the day on a more positive note.

Read Together Every Day

Reading for just 15–20 minutes each day builds vocabulary, comprehension, and a love of books. Let your child choose books that interest them, and don’t hesitate to reread favorite stories. Repeated reading improves fluency and confidence.

Talk About Feelings

Many children feel nervous about the first days of school. Ask open-ended questions like:

• What are you excited about?
• Is there anything you’re worried about?
• What do you hope this year will be like?

Listening without immediately trying to “fix” their worries helps children feel heard and supported.

Encourage Independence

Practice everyday skills that children will use at school. Have them zip their backpack, open lunch containers, tie their shoes, organize school supplies, and clean up after themselves. These small tasks build confidence and self-reliance.

Keep Learning Part of Everyday Life

Learning doesn’t only happen at school. Count groceries, measure ingredients while cooking, read signs while driving, write shopping lists, or play educational games together. These simple activities strengthen reading, math, and problem-solving skills naturally.

Limit Screen Time Before School Begins

As summer comes to an end, begin reducing recreational screen time and replacing it with reading, outdoor play, family conversations, or creative activities. This transition can help children readjust to the attention and focus needed during the school day.

Build a Positive Mindset About School

Children often mirror the attitudes of the adults around them. Speak positively about teachers, learning, and making mistakes as part of growing. Even if your child is anxious, remind them that everyone is learning together and that it’s okay to ask for help.

Connect With Your Child’s Teacher

Early communication creates a strong home-school partnership. Share any important information about your child’s strengths, interests, learning needs, or concerns. Teachers appreciate knowing what helps your child succeed, and working together benefits everyone.

Celebrate Effort Over Perfection

Instead of focusing only on grades or getting every answer correct, praise your child’s hard work, persistence, kindness, and willingness to try new things. A growth mindset helps children become resilient learners who understand that mistakes are opportunities to learn. There is no such thing as the “perfect” back-to-school family. Some mornings will be rushed, homework won’t always go smoothly, and everyone will have challenging days.

What matters most is providing your child with love, encouragement, predictable routines, and the confidence to keep trying. Small actions practiced consistently throughout the first few weeks of school can have a lasting impact on academic success, independence, and emotional well-being.

As a parent, you are your child’s first teacher. By creating supportive routines, encouraging curiosity, and celebrating growth, you’re helping build the foundation for a successful and enjoyable school year.

Here’s to a wonderful school year filled with learning, confidence, and new adventures!

Planning for Students with Special Needs

I often feel very privileged to have an amazing team of teachers that I work with every day. My team is dedicated, passionate, and willing to do whatever it takes to help our students grow. My school receives recognition for the way teachers support students with special needs. Families and elementary schools recommend my school to other families because of the amazing work we do to include students with special needs in the general education classroom while still providing the supports they need to succeed. 

Parents are the Students Best Advocates

Even though I think I work with some of greatest teachers, the strongest advocates I know for students with special needs are their parents. Even if your child is at an amazing school with amazing staff and teachers, it’s still important for parents to advocate for what they know is best for their child.

The amazing thing about the beginning of a new school year is that it allows families with students who have an IEP to review how the previous year went and to plan for the upcoming year. It’s important that families not wait for the school to reach out to the family. You know your child best, so be proactive and communicate your child’s needs!

Study Last School Year’s IEP to Plan for the New School Year

Here are some things you can do during in the next few weeks to prepare:

• Review your child’s IEP goals from the previous year. If your child was successful, how can you push him or her and the school to get to the next level in the upcoming year. If your child did not meet the IEP goals, determine where they fell short. Then, think about what you, your child, and/or the school needs to do to make that learning and growth happen next year.
• Look at the standards for the upcoming grade level for your child. You can find them just by Googling your state + K-12 Standards. They are dense, but try to read through them and think about what your child will need in order to access and master these standards. This is not about you being the expert. It is about making sure you are aware so you can advocate for your child.
• Talk to your child. Ask them about what they learned last year and what they hope to accomplish next year. Ask them what helped them feel successful and ask them what barriers they encountered. Use these conversations to help them learn how to improve and use the information to help you be a stronger advocate for your child.
• Practice IEP skills at home if you feel you can support your child.  If their IEP goals are behavioral, help them practice those skills; learning should not stop just because it’s a new school year. If the goals are academic, have your child engage in skills that are related to keep the learning fresh throughout the school year.  Keeping your child up to pace will help ensure they can hit the ground running in the fall.

Math + Reading = Summer Growth!

Summer learning is not a new concept. Schools have always pushed summer literacy through reading challenges, summer reading lists, and regular visits to the library. But as we push for kids to not backslide during the time away from school, we often neglect a higher area of need for many students: math!

As an educator, I talk with more parents who are tentative about their ability to help their kids with math at home than those who are hesitant to push reading. In most families, parents feel comfortable having an expectation that kids read at home or that kids participate in family reading time. This is largely because parents feel more comfortable with reading than math. Reading is a skill that many students can practice independently, especially as they get older. I would never discourage any parent from having a summer reading expectation for their child. Rather, I encourage parents to make time for both reading and math practice during the summer. Here are some ways you can practice math with you kids during the summer months.

Practice Multiplication Tables and Flash Cards

I do realize that this is will not be the first thing your kids want to do. Furthermore, I do realize that new math standards are asking kids to develop a stronger number sense and deeper levels of mathematical understanding. I also know that one of the key skills that holds kids back as they get into higher levels of math is their inability to do math quickly in their heads. Sadly, I regularly see kids in middle school using their fingers to add, subtract and multiply. While rote memorization of math facts is not a standard in most states, it is something that will help kids succeed as grow. Kids who can do simple math (multiplication, addition, subtraction, division) in their heads, are far more successful and can learn complex math more quickly than peers who still struggle with these basic facts. At home, parents can print out multiplication tables or use flash cards with their kids to practice. This will make a world of difference when they return to school.

Practice Verbal Math Problems

Give kids verbal math problems while you drive or when they are bored at home. For example, on the way to the store you can say, “If I went to the store and I bought 10 apples, then Daddy eats three when we get home, how many apples will we have left?” Just giving them opportunities to practice the skill of understanding these problems and doing the math will help hone their ability to think mathematically in all areas of their lives. Of course, you would need to change the difficulty or complexity for older students.

Solve Home Maintenance and Cooking Math Problems

Have your kids help with home projects and cooking. I have recommended this in previous blogs because it brings math into real world experiences. If you’re planning your 4th or July or end of summer cookout, you can say, “One person would eat 2 hot dogs. We’re going to have 23 people. How many hot dogs will we need. (46). Good! Now, hot dogs come in packs of 8. How many packs should we buy?” There are many examples like this, just try to include your kids when you’re doing home math!

Math Learning Can Be Fun

During the summer, let’s push both math and literacy to keep our kids sharp for the next school year!  Comment below if you have any summer math ideas!

Avoiding the Summer Learning Slump

My brothers and I recently went to breakfast during a week when we all visited my father in our home town. As we usually do when we visit home, we reminisced about our childhood, fun events, and experiences we have reminisced many times. Since we were visiting during the summer months, we talked about summer street fairs, days spent biking around the neighborhood, playing street hockey and basketball at the local park, and cookouts in our backyard. We also discussed my mom and how she organized our summer experience.  We didn’t realize it then, but the experience she gave us is one that I have shared with countless families in my role as a school principal, as it ensured a strong balance of fun, responsibility, and learning.

How Parents Can Structure Time

One of the pitfalls of the summer is the abundance of free time kids have. As parents, we must be intentional about helping kids fill that time when they are young so they build the life habits they need to lead productive lives as teens and adults. My mom had the perfect approach that kept my brothers and me productive, but allowed us to have a healthy balance of fun. She made sure that we had daily tasks or chores to complete. We had limited screen time and we always had time and resources for reading.

The Value of Chores

For chores, we had a list of To Dos that she wrote and had on the counter before we even woke up.  We got breakfast, were able to relax a bit, but then we had to get started on our chores. These included cleaning, organizing, and helping out with all the yard work. Each day was different, but we knew the routine and were able to do the things we wanted to do once the work was done. This was not only effective for running our household, but it also helped us learn the important life lesson of not procrastinating or putting off what needs to get done first.

Coupon Time Rewards

Although my childhood was in the 80s and 90s, and screens were far less ubiquitous than they are these days, we did have a TV and a computer. There was still plenty of entertainment between movies, TV, and games that could easily fill a day, but mom created coupons for us.  When we finished the chores for the day, we earned 30 minutes of screen time. We could earn extra time, up to 90 minutes per day, by doing extra chores or by doing extra reading. She also encouraged us to save our screen time so we could watch a movie as a family a couple of times a week. We often saved our minutes so we could participate in the family movie time.

Reading for Fun

In terms of summer learning, she made sure that we were always prepared to read. Each year on the first day of summer, we would go to the book store and each of us would get to buy a couple of books. We also took regular visits to the library so we could supplement our book collection. This helped if we didn’t make the best book choice at the beginning of the summer, or if we got through our original book selections quickly. As part of our summer requirements, we were expected to read for at least 30 minutes per day.

Creating Meaningful Summers

Finally, and possibly most important, we were not allowed to say we were bored. We had chores, earned screen time, enjoyed a room full of books, and explored the wonderful outdoors. If she heard us say we were bored, even if it was not said directly to her, she would fill the entertainment void with more chores. We learned quickly to find new adventures outside, or to enjoy more relaxation time reading our books.

I am eternally grateful for the summers my mother designed for my brothers and me. As I now try to create meaningful summers for my daughter, I realize the effort and planning my mom had to put in to make sure our summers were time well spent. I appreciate the life lessons she taught us without my brothers and me even being aware of the lesson at the time. I encourage all parents to think about how you can structure summers for your kids. And as you design what works best for you and your family, remember to always include summer reading!