My personal philosophy is that 4-6-year-olds should never have homework - hell no, I abhor it! I just wanted my kids to be KIDS, with plenty of time to muck around and completely waste time ... going to the creek, skateboarding, riding their bike, dancing, sport, music - any physical activity is better than Homework at that age, I believe.
But then for our seven- to-nine-year-olds it is time to teach Healthy Homework Habits. The first essential is for parents to make them a brilliant little work-space — a little place, say in their bedroom, that creates an atmosphere for learning, that is a dedicated work area place they can call their own. It doesn’t have to be fancy or expensive: simply a small desk, a chair, a place to put things, paper to write on and pens to write with. And no, sitting at the kitchen-dining table with Mum directly overseeing ain't ideal, as it utterly fails to teach independence.
As a mother of three and NZ's No1 best-selling maternity author and parenting writer, we all know the helicopter perfect-parents that drive all us middle-road parents (and our children's teachers) crazy nuts with their nagging demand for more and complex homework for their 'talented above-average' child - who they also always respond meaningfully to for every boring and demanding comment their overly-indulged centre-of-their-universe child utters.