Millions of parents admit they help their children with the homework – with as many as one in six regularly doing ALL of it, it has been revealed. A study of 2,000 parents with children aged between five and 15 found nearly two thirds dive in to aid their kids on subjects such as maths, English and science.
One in ten parents say it saves tears and stress if they just do their kids’ homework themselves, with a quarter saying they have to stop themselves from doing all of it.
Not surprisingly, 70% of parents said their children are more than happy to sit back and watch mom and dad do their school work, the poll by Bett, the world’s leading educational technology tradeshow, found.
In fact, 38% of parents say their kids’ often wander off and leave them to slog over the text books.
But the study found homework can prove a major bone of contention with parents, with one in twenty couples admitting to arguing over their kid’s school work.
Reasons for rows include the best way to tackle homework, which parent will help, not helping them enough and interfering too much.
Yesterday a spokesman for the Bett tradeshow, which commissioned the study, said:
”Most parents will get called upon to help with their children’s homework at some point during their education.
”But these results show there is a fine line between helping your child understand what they are studying and completely taking over.
”If you are letting your child sit back and relax while you do their homework, the chances of it actually sinking in are very slim.
”It’s great that so many parents are keen to get stuck in but it’s best to be there as a sounding board if you’re child gets stuck on something.”
The study also found that the average couple with kids in school fall out over the kid’s homework three times in a typical month.
While a quarter of parents agree that, on the whole, work that their children get sent home with is too hard.
Nearly two thirds said there have been times when they couldn’t help with school work as it was just too difficult.
As a result of this, 17% of parents said they felt incompetent and 30% said they felt paranoid about their own levels of intelligence.
But of the 2000 parents polled, 18% were convinced that teachers judge you on the standard of your child’s homework.
So it’s no wonder then that 34% reckon that there is competition between themselves and other parents when it comes to their son or daughters standard of course work.
An ultra-competitive 42% of parents claim to get a real ‘buzz’ if their child gets top marks on a project that they have helped with.
Interestingly three quarters said they still favour the subjects they were good at in school.
The study also revealed that half of the parents polled said their offspring regularly get distracted by the TV when they are supposed to be studying and 70% have had to step in and reprimand them for this.
A spokesman for Bett added:
”Children are bound to get distracted when doing their homework.
”The temptations of TV’s and game consoles are far greater than when their parents were at school.
”But homework doesn’t have to be stressful, if both parents and students are struggling with something there are always resources to help.
