Tell parents to ask, not to teach
Parents helping with homework often re-teach with different methods and end in tears. Give them a better job: interest, structure and questions.
Nov 4, 2026 · 1 min read
When homework goes home, parents assume the job is to explain it, and family evenings turn into arguments over long division done 'the wrong way'. Cooper, Robinson and Patall (2006), synthesising the homework research, found the link between homework and achievement is real at secondary level but weak for younger children; for them the payoff is habits, not marks. That reframes the parent's role. They provide time, place and interest. The teaching stays with you.
In practice
- Send home the questions, not the methods: 'teach me what you did today' and 'how do you know it's right?' work in any subject.
- Give an explicit stop rule: at frustration, stop, and write me a note instead. The note is worth more to you than the finished sheet.
- Set a time cap by age and say it out loud to families, so nobody is enforcing a two-hour siege over a twenty-minute task.
- Tell parents the routine matters more than the correctness: same time, same place, phone elsewhere. That habit is the actual homework.
Quick takeaway: parents supply the conditions; you supply the teaching.