The Schoolfield

Kindergarten Homework Assignments: The Most Common Mistakes

Trying to help a kindergartener with homework is not as easy as it may seem. When you become an adult, you tend to forget the simple things that mattered when you were little. This leads to communication problems between generations and can even impede your child’s academic progress.

If you want to make sure that your little son or daughter succeeds in studies from day one, you need to avoid the following mistakes:

• Do not complete the assignment yourself.

• Kindergarten-level problems are so ridiculously simple for an adult that it may be difficult to hold back and help your child solve them, instead of doing them on your own in two minutes.

  However, this experience is important for your child. Remember that you aren’t the one who needs to learn kindergarten-level math or spelling. This means that you need to minimize your “intellectual” involvement in the task and focus on encouraging your child instead.

• Do not get angry.

• Parents today are busy and stressed. Of course, you must never take out your frustration on your child, but sometimes seeing the little one struggling with something simple can get to you.

  You must keep tight reign of your emotions in this case. If you start being aggressive, even without blaming the child directly, your son or daughter will definitely feel the negative emotions and start associating them with homework.

• Do not overlook organization.

• Organization is the key to academic success. You need to instill this bit of wisdom into your child from a young age. Teach kids to work on their homework at the same time every day. Prepare the workspace together so that your child can learn the importance of arranging all the necessary tools beforehand. These habits will help your son or daughter succeed later in life.

• Do not demand too much.

• Your child might be the most intelligent being on the planet, and the kindergarten assignments might be very simple. However, do not try to measure the kid’s ability by your own adult standards. When you push the child too much, he or she might end up hating the process of studying in general.

  It is indeed true that young minds are flexible and can process a lot of information quickly. This makes it easy to raise a “child genius”, but you should never forget that childhood should be spent in games and fun. This is what makes your kids happy, and their academic record is important only for you. Be sure to put your priorities in the right order.