Photo: @cloisteredaway on Instagram
For the past two hours, you?ve been sitting with your kid, speaking only in soothing tones (while contemplating what bribes might work), desperately hoping he?ll miraculously plow through three more pages of math problems without another meltdown. Or perhaps you?ve just received yet another email from the teacher, who?s sorry to have to get in touch again, but your son has forgotten to hand in the reading response due last Friday. Or maybe you?re still hunched over in the basement, well past bedtime, as you and your daughter painstakingly construct a model of a Mohawk longhouse, one toothpick at a time.
Unless you happen to be blessed with a hyper-organized, methodical, consistently motivated kid (we?re not jealous at all), you are keenly familiar with the pain and frustration of homework. Is there any way to sidestep all the drama" ?Figure out what makes them tick,? says Ruth Rumack, a former teacher and founder of Ruth Rumack?s Learning Space, an academic support centre in Toronto. Does your kid leave things to the last minute or have a hard time keeping track of assignments" Your kid?s personality, temperament and learning style are huge factors in how she deals with homework and how you deal with her. ?If you can identify the roadblock for your child,? Rumack says, ?you have a better chance of setting up a situation that creates success.?
Here, a cheatsheet on the most common ?homework personalities? that crop up in kids and...