However, expecting a child, a 5 year old child at that, to keep track of a weeks worth of homework between Monday and Thursday? That's just too much! It ends up becoming the responsibility of the parents. We already know how to do this. We know how to organize our paperwork and belongings. We don't need to learn how. If we do it, which is what ends up happening in my home until said 5 year old becomes zealous about doing his homework without help and/or direction to put it away properly leading to lost homework on Thursday night, then how are they to be expected to learn to do it for themselves?
I'm a big believer in teaching a child responsibility from the moment they are old enough to put their own socks in the hamper (roughly age 1 in my book). But, I also believe that the level of responsibility given to the child should be age appropriate. Children, particularly young children, have a hard time making long term goals. For a 5 year old a week is a long time. He needs nightly homework, sent home daily. I was told that it was more work for the teachers to send home the homework daily. Really? It's the same amount of work, it's just graded all at once. Instead, many children (because I doubt my one child is the exception) are heading toward failure because 1. they are not being taught the responsibility of taking care of their own work, 2. they are losing the credit they would get if they had just done it and turned it in daily, and 3. becoming discouraged because of numbers 1, 2 or both leading to lower academic performance.
Please, I beg you, do my children and all other children a favor. Give them a fighting chance at learning the responsibility to remember a weeks worth of homework before throwing them into the practice of it.
