In an era where parenting techniques are put under a microscope on social media, a US-based mom-of-three has stirred quite the debate in a TikTok video.

Lottie - a mother to daughters in fifth grade, third grade, and kindergarten - openly admits to completing her children's homework for them, especially when they're swamped with after-school activities. As expected, viewers were divided, with some calling her tactics "genius" and others accusing her of breeding laziness.

Lottie's justification? The undue pressure that homework brings just isn't worth the stress, especially when her daughters come home tired after engaging in activities like cheerleading and sports.

"I know every parent helps, but I will just do the homework. I'm not going to have them stress over maths problems they don't have time to do," she explains. Her stance becomes clearer when she points out the difficulty level of some assignments, saying: "Some of these projects these teachers give… I mean, the kids are seven years old."

However, Lottie isn't just about completing assignments for her daughters. She emphasizes her goal to nurture honesty and strength in her children. "I try not to baby them when they fall, I want to raise them to be strong," she asserted. "My biggest goal in life is to have an honest relationship with my kids."

Some parents wholeheartedly sided with Lottie. One person praised: "This is such amazing parenting I aspire to be like this when I'm a mom!" Others confessed to doing the same, relieved to find they're not alone.

But as with every opinion, there's another side. Many are concerned about the long-term implications of Lottie's approach.

Would you complete your kid's homework for them? Credit: Drazen_ / Getty

A concerned parent expressed: "Doing your child's work for them won't help them in the long run unless you want them to grow up to be entitled and lazy."

This sentiment was echoed by another parent who shared a teacher's perspective on children reaping the benefits of doing their homework diligently.

Interestingly, some parents raised another angle on the debate: the very concept of homework for primary students. One mother recalled how her child's primary school's no-homework philosophy backfired when he entered high school, while others swore off homework entirely.

Are kids overworked these days? Credit: Sally Anscombe / Getty

"My kid's primary school had a no-homework philosophy," they wrote. "Now, my oldest is in high school and is struggling so much with homework. It has me questioning whether no homework in primary school is a great idea after all."

"My house will be a homework-free zone. Kids are in school all day and then are expected to go home and do more school work, no! Reading is acceptable, but that is it," a firm believer shared.

So, do children nowadays have "too much" homework to be getting through? And are you the kind of parent to complete your child's maths homework if they look too tired? Let us know in the comments.

Featured image credit: Catherine Falls Commercial / Getty

Homework can be the bane of both the parents' and the students' life. I am yet to have a child (thankfully), but one thing I am dreading is the moment they begin coming home with homework, particularly math homework. It's safe to say that math was never my strong point during my years at school, and the moment my kid asks me to help with a math question is, quite simply, a moment I dread. I can't imagine that there is much more embarrassing as a parent than not being able to figure out your kid's homework questions. I mean you are meant to be several years older and wiser, and naturally, you should be a bit smarter than your kid and able to do the work set by their teachers.   However, this is exactly what happened to one parent, who took to Reddit to try and get help with their kid's homework which had left them completely puzzled. Dusty Sappington posted a photo showing a section of her 8-year-old daughter Izzy's homework after she struggled to get her head around it. Sappington circled the problem in question, which reads: “Janell had 15 marbles. She lost some of them. How many does Janell have now?” It's clear that Izzy found this question particularly difficult, with her answer simply being a question mark. Sappington says that her daughter suffers from dyslexia and attends a private school that specializes in teaching those with learning disabilities as well as offering more traditional classes to students. After posting the photo on Reddit, Sappington claimed that the homework came with no additional instructions, saying: “If someone can answer this correctly, my child will be done with her homework!!” While her fellow Redditors did try to help her, they were also left pretty stumped by the question. “I haven’t found out the answer, but hope to see her graded paper soon,” Sappington said. “To be honest, I’m unsure if it was printed in error or was a question to test her knowledge of less than and greater than, which she has touched on in the past.” The mother said that she initially posted the question on Reddit "mainly for amusement" but it has since gone on to get 9.841 points with a 95% upvote. “Being the mother of a third-grader and a fifth-grader, I have seen a lot of homework over the years that has our family laughing at the absurdities, scratching our heads and relying too much on Google,” she explained. Sappington says that she hopes that the post will remind people of the importance of education and that teachers deserve to be paid more than they currently are. “I hope this adds more fuel to the fire to better fund our educational systems.” I mean, that question is surely impossible to answer? "Some" isn't a number so how are you meant to provide a legitimate numerical number? Math is for idiots.

A mother was left so stumped by her first-grader's homework that she had to reach out to social media to see if anyone else could make sense of it.

Homework is often hated by kids, but parents can find some of the questions just as frustrating as their little ones.

From not having practiced their own algebra in decades to just confusingly-worded equations, getting the correct answers can be something of a minefield.

One mother from the UK shared a question in her six-year-old daughter Lilly-Mo's homework sheet that had left them well and truly stumped - and it's safe to say they weren't the only ones who couldn't work it out.

Homework can be just as tough for the parent as it is the child. Credit: Maskot/Getty Images

Laura Rathbone, 40, took to Facebook to share the question that had baffled them, which asked the child to pick the "odd one out" between the following words: friend, desk, toothbrush, egg, and silver.

The mom, who lives in Buckinghamshire in England, told Today.com: "At first I thought I was losing my mind. I was like, 'What am I missing here?' So I posted in a group with loads of moms hoping they would have the answer."

Unfortunately, it seems nobody else was any the wiser, as she got a whole lot of conflicting answers in the comments.

One person wrote: "I would say toothbrush as it’s the only one with 2 syllables?", clearly forgetting that 'silver' also has two syllables in it, too...

Another commented: "You can only eat an egg…", someone else added: "Toothbrush is the only word without an E."

One pointed out: "Friend because it’s the only word that can not be phonetically sounded out. All others you can. Given its phonic homework that is what I would say it is checking."

Laura had shared the photo of the homework online. Credit: Laura Rathbone/Facebook

Someone else added: "Silver. The others are nouns," while one wrote: "Friend because it’s a person and not an object," which is personally the one I would have gone for, too.

One follower commented: "As a teacher myself I actually think this is an interesting piece of homework. I would imagine designed to encourage thought, reasoning and probably discussion at home."

Despite everyone failing to come to an agreement on what the answer actually was, Laura admitted: "Everybody had different theories, and it was quite interesting! I really enjoyed reading all of the comments."

However, it turns out there is one right answer, as Laura reached out to Lilly-Mo's teacher to finally put herself out of her misery and find out.

It turns out that the correct answer was indeed 'silver' as the children had been learning about nouns at the time.

Laura did point out that it was still pretty confusing, as silver can be both an adjective and a noun - so it's no wonder everyone was left scratching their heads.

The mother added: "I also asked about this in my parents' WhatsApp chat and no one had the same answer. It's a real brain teaser!"

Featured image credit: Rebecca Nelson/Getty Images

If you're anything like me, chances are that you hated maths in school and needed more than a little help with your homework.

In the early days of my struggle with numbers, my parents could quite easily help me solve the problem, but as the sums went on, that wasn't always possible.

However, despite all this, there are some levels of math that I would like to think I'd be able to tackle easily, like a seven-year-old's homework.

But one mom was unable to do this very thing, and that's why she took to the internet for help, The Sun reports.

Sharing a snap of the tricky problem on the Facebook group Family Lockdown Tips and Tricks, Teresa Hopper wrote: "I hate homework. Please help! Is the answer to a) & b) the same or am I missing something?!"

[[imagecaption|| Credit: Facebook / Family Lockdown Tips & Ideas]]

The difficult question reads: "Karla says: "I have three hundreds counters, 17 tens counters and 16 ones counters [sic].

"a) Can she make two equal three-digit numbers? If so, draw the counters to show them.

"b) Can she make two equal three-digit numbers if she had to use all her counters? If so, draw the counters to show them."

However, despite the fact that this question was aimed at a seven-year-old child, even the collective adult brains of this Facebook group couldn't work it out - and it even stumped a person with a Ph.D. in maths.

[[imagecaption|| Credit: Facebook / Family Lockdown Tips & Ideas]]

One person wrote: "Clearly not for a 40 year old woman, I'm lost [sic]."

A second added: "I'm 45 and I can't work it out lol."

Meanwhile, to the amusement of the entire group, a third wrote: "I have a PhD in maths, and I have no idea what this question is asking. Unless there’s a diagram to go with it, or more explanation somewhere else [sic]."

[[imagecaption|| Credit: Facebook / Family Lockdown Tips & Ideas]]

As per News.com.au, Teresa told Fabulous Digital that they managed to get it right in the end, answering 172 for a and 243 for b.

She said: "I did and the teacher has marked it as correct! I certainly didn’t expect it to be so difficult."

For the most part, being a kid is a pretty good set-up. You don't have any bills to pay, you get all your meals cooked for you, and you spend most of your life hanging out with your friends. It's basically a 16-year long holiday. However, there is one downside: homework. School is bad enough by itself, but at least the lessons can be fun sometimes. Homework, on the other hand, is always a chore. So, when one seven-year-old boy from Bangkok, Thailand, was given a homework assignment to complete over his 3-week Christmas break, he decided to give his teacher a taste of their own medicine. In a post on Twitter, Lisa Vale put up two pictures of her child's homework, explaining, "Reminded my kid he needed to do his homework he put off for 3 wks during break. This is his finished work." The first picture shows that Vale's son, Angus, had been set a spelling task, in which he was asked to use 10 words in different sentences. This seems easy enough for a seven-year-old but, considering he probably had some really cool Christmas presents he wanted to go play with, he wasn't too happy about doing it. So he used the words in the most genius way possible. [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/LisaVale/status/949234044436271104]] Some of the best sentences included were, "little kids hate homework", "why is there homework when school is off?" and - my personal favorite - "can you name two kids that like homework?" Well, teacher, can you? He then finished off his rant by saying, "save trees, less homework". And he makes a compelling argument, it must be said. “[Angus] came up with the idea himself as he was a bit disgruntled about having to do any homework during the winter break,” Vale explained in an interview with the Huffington Post. According to her, he was "in a foul mood" after being told that he had to do work during his free time, but soon began to lighten up once he had started the task. "As I was cleaning up ’round the house, I heard him giggle more and more until by the end of it he was in hysterics and proudly exclaimed, ‘Done!'" said Vale. And you've got to admit, it was a pretty good way of getting his point across. Meanwhile, one other mom wrote an email to her daughter's school informing them that her child would not be doing any of the homework she had been set. "Children need downtime after school the same way adults need downtime after work. They need to play with their siblings," she said. "They need to bond with their parents in a relaxed atmosphere, not one where everyone is stressed about fractions because - SURPRISE- I'm not a teacher. Children need time to just enjoy their childhoods or is that just for the weekends (although we do homework on Sundays also)." Angus' mom was not so sympathetic to her seven-year-old's avoidance of his tasks, however, and made sure he completed the whole thing. As for how his teacher reacted - well, we'll have to wait to find out, as the cheeky little lad is not due to start back at school until Monday. Hopefully, they'll all see the funny side of the situation.