Negative Effects Of Having Homework And How To Tackle Them

A lot of researches carried out have confirmed that when too much time is spent on homework, it has certain negative effects on pupils or students. Some of these negative effects include physical health issues, lack of balance, stress, alienation from active living among others. Some of these studies go further to point out that spending more time than usual on doing assignments are counterproductive. It draws school children away from the things they love most – family, extracurricular activities with friends, etc.

For this reason, certain schools and teachers follow specific guidelines when it comes to giving out homework to pupils. Some of these guidelines include the following:

• Not giving more than 20 minutes a day assignment to pupils in grade 1-3
• Not giving more than 40 minutes a day assignments to grades 4-6
• Not giving more than 2 hours a day assignment to grades 7-9

In other instances, the guidelines could be based on students’ capabilities. For example, while some children in grades 4-6 can handle up to an hour of assignments, there are others who cannot handle more than 40 minutes of homework. In such situation, it becomes the duty of the teachers to set assignment limits for their various classes.

If your child or ward is always coming home with assignments, you can help them maintain a positive attitude by letting them know that it is important that they bring home assignments every now and then. You can do this by doing the following:

• Helping such child maintain a specific time and place for tackling his or her homework.
• Do away with every distraction during such period by turning off the TV, putting the phone on silent and letting other members of the family know that noisemaking and other distractions are not allowed.
• Make out time to read and write so that such child can be further motivated to tackle his or her homework and on time too.
• Go over the child’s work to make sure he or she is doing the right thing. Help out where they seem to be confused and need help.
• Ensure that every of their needed supplies as far as carrying out the assignments is concerned are provided. This includes writing materials, pens, erasers, rulers etc.
• Divide heavy homework load into manageable bits.
• Liaise with the child’s teacher in order to devise other helpful means towards helping the child complete his or her assignments with little or no stress.