Scenarios
Daniel is new to homework and it not self-initiating his homework.
Over-parenting
Everyday when Daniel comes home, his mom asks him what he has for homework. She opens his bag and checks to make sure he brought home the right books and takes out his planner. If there is nothing written in the planner, she says in a stern and exasperated voice, “Why is your planner empty again?” Later, she sends an email to the teacher asking her to make sure that Daniel writes in his planner before he leaves. She makes Daniel do one hour of homework everyday at the kitchen table before he is allowed to do anything else. Mom keeps a close eye on deadlines and makes sure Daniel work is done on time, even if it means using bribes, punishments and sometimes doing a bit of the project work herself. At the end of the year, Daniel has done well in his core curriculum but is still struggling to manage his school work on his own. He continues to need organizational support, reminders and pressure to complete work.
Too-little parenting
When asked, Daniel never has any homework. His parents accept this and trust that Daniel has the skills to manage his deadlines, projects and course work on his own, with teacher help. At the first parent-teacher-student conference, it comes out that Daniel is progressing very slowly in his self-paced Math, he has not handed in any literacy assignments and his science fair project is moving very slowly. Parents ask Daniel about this, express disappointment and leave it to Daniel to make changes. Daniel continues to not do any homework, and nothing is said about this at home.
At the end of the year, he has progressed little with regards to Autonomous Learning. He has completed the bare minimum for his core curriculum.
Autonomous Support parenting
His parents realize that homework and project-based work is new to Daniel and they know he will need support in getting a handle on all this change. Parents ask Daniel about homework, and when he says he has none, they set up a meeting with the teacher and Daniel to discuss the issue. At the meeting they realize that the workload is based on Daniel’s goals and project timelines. Daniel has the goal to complete Math 7 by June. They work together to set up a realistic timeline. The resulting plan has Daniel doing two sections of math four days a week. The homework plan is that if Daniel does not finish two sections a day at school, then he will complete the two sections at home. Dad asked him how he wanted to keep track of his progress. Daniel decided that he will use his planner and write the sections on each day for one term, giving himself weekends and Wednesdays off (for soccer). He will cross off the sections as completed. He decided that for enrichment, he will do one hour a week at school and with Mom, on weekends, they will do one tricky math problem together.
They also agree together that homework time is between 4 and 6 weekdays, before any form of entertainment.
For the first week, Daniel is motivated and does his work without prompts. By the third week, Dad notices that Daniel rarely does math homework. Dad asks Daniel to have a short meeting to discuss schoolwork. In the meeting, Daniel admits that he has been slipping. Dad asks if there is anything he can do to support Daniel with his goal of completing Math 7. Together they come up with a system of reminding Daniel of his math homework which includes a sign on his bedroom door and a short daily reminder from Dad, “Math 7 on track?” By the end of the term, Daniel does not need the reminders and is able to manage his math homework on his own.
What happened:
Daniel was given an appropriate amount of control: he set his math goal, he made a timeline, he had input into when he did his homework. When he failed to follow through, his parents did not ignore the problem nor did they take over by giving punishments and bribes. Instead they supported Daniel by discussing the problem with him and working together to come up with strategies for achieving Daniel’s goal. At all times the responsibility and control and therefore ownership resided with Daniel.
