When it comes to doing homework, most
usually fit into one of three categories: they do it all without being asked and get glowing reports, they leave it to the last minute - at which point they rush it after being nagged by their parents, or they don't submit it at all, and end up spending every other Tuesday in detention.
But whether or not a child does their homework isn't necessarily a marker for how well they're coping at school, or even
. In fact, as one mom showed, avoiding homework might sometimes be the smarter decision.
Bunmi Laditan, an author and mother, wrote an email to her daughter's school to let them know that her child was overloaded with homework.
In the message, Laditan got straight to the point by saying that "Maya [her daughter] will be drastically reducing the amount of homework she does this year." And before you jump the gun and assume that this mom is just letting her kid slack off, Laditan follows up her statement by explaining that "[Maya has] been very stressed and is starting to have physical symptoms such as chest pain and waking up at 4 a.m. worrying about her school workload."
The doting mom goes on to say:
"She’s not behind academically and very much enjoys school. We consulted with a tutor and a therapist suggested we lighten her workload. Doing 2-3 hours of homework after getting home at 4:30 is leaving little time for her to just be a child and enjoy family time and we’d like to avoid her sinking into a depression over this."
In a Facebook status about the email, Laditan goes on to question exactly why a child who already attends school for nearly 8 hours a day needs to be given a further three hours of work to complete in the evening.
"How does homework until 6:30, then dinner, then an hour to relax (or finish the homework) before bed make any sense at all?" she asks. "Is family time not important? Is time spent just being a child relaxing at home not important? Or should she become some kind of junior workaholic at 10 years old?"
She then adds:
"Children need downtime after school the same way adults need downtime after work. They need to play with their siblings. 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)."
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The post was shared over 22,000 times, and attracted a variety of responses from fellow Facebook users. Many of those who supported Laditan were actually teachers themselves, and one fourth-grade teacher commented to say that she had not given her students any homework at all that year, "and their academic growth has been just as much or more as I've seen from other classes in the past".
And while some may complain that "kids these days have it so easy", it's worth remembering that all children work differently, and imposing the same system on everyone is going to yield a huge variety of results.
