10 ways parents can help with school projects
By: cath
TAGS: School Projects homework
We all want our children to do well at school. We want to support them in their learning and give them all the help they need to be successful with their homework, tests, and projects.
There is a fine line though between supporting them, and taking over… and that’s particularly true of school projects!
When it comes to school projects, we need to be hands-on in the thinking and planning stages, but hands-off when it comes to actually doing the work.
It’s important to consider why educators set projects – or assignments – in the first place. Regardless of the topic, projects provide kids with the opportunity to plan, form a strategy, implement it, and see it through to completion. They also allow students to demonstrate understanding, show creativity, improve their time-management skills and develop independence. Ultimately the goal is for kids to become self-regulated, self directed learners – capable of holding down a job, and managing projects in real life!
Here are ten ways to help your child with their school projects, without taking over:
Preparing for school projects
1) Establish regular homework time. It’s a good idea to start this early on in your child’s schooling, for example when Home Readers begin being sent home. Making it a usual part of the daily routine will help to keep on top of both daily homework tasks, and irregular ones like projects.
2) Use a family diary or calendar. By the end of primary school, kids are expected to be able to manage their own diary. Help your child to become familiar with simple calendars, and mark the due date of school projects clearly together. Also mark regular after-school activities to help with time management. The Kleenex Mums weekly planner can help with this.
Offering practical support
3) Ask first! Before jumping in, ask your child what they would like from you. Don’t make assumptions, and try to remember that it is their project – not yours! Ask to see the criteria sheet from their teacher, so that you understand what is being assessed.
4) Brainstorm together. Some kids approach a school project knowing exactly what they want to do, while others prefer to consider their options before deciding. Often, children benefit from a brainstorming session with a parent. This could involve writing on a big piece of paper, or just chatting over a hot milo. 
5) Find resources. Finding information is an important part of any project or assignment, and one area where parental support makes a big difference. Sit with your child while they access the internet; go to the library together; look at newspapers, magazines, and posters; consider interviews and more. Remember not to take over; your child needs to learn how to find their own sources of information eventually.
6) Identify materials. Ask your child what they need ahead of time and don’t think for them. Depending on the type of school project, they may require cardboard, craft materials, glue, USB stick, photographs, or even the use of a camera or camcorder.
7) Sit on your hands! You can help your child with ideas. You can help them to find information. You can help them to get their materials together. Then give your child the freedom to do their project their own way. If you can’t stop your fingers from picking up that glue stick… sit on your hands!
8) Be a cheerleader. Don’t nag your child about their project. Encourage them, spur them on, let them know you believe in them and cheer them to the finish line.
Following up after projects
9) Celebrate success. Don’t wait for an A+ before you celebrate your child’s successes. Let your child know what you like best about their work.
10) Learn and grow. Taking the time to discuss your child’s project with them afterwards can be very valuable. Ask them what they might do differently next time. Without being critical, talk about natural consequences and help them to see that the outcome is the result of their choices.
As parents, our job is to prepare our children for life in the big, bad world. That’s the whole point of school, of home work and of school projects!
Doing everything for our kids won’t help them in the long run. If we take over the gluing of our seven-year old’s poster presentation, we just might find we end up doing half of the work for their grade seven science project, which will possibly lead to them expecting us to write their resume at seventeen and (horror!) still do their washing at twenty-seven.
It’s important to support our kids in whatever phase they are in, while still keeping an eye on the bigger picture. We need to be invested in our kids’ learning and development; ensure we are available when they need us; and most importantly, offer practical support without taking over.
Do you find yourself helping out too much with your kids’ school projects? Leave a comment below, I’d love to hear from you.
cath
Cath is a mother, primary school teacher, and award winning blogger a SquiggleMum . You can find Cath squiggling about topics close to her heart online and in print, or catch her on Brisbane radio discussing parenting.
Showing 2 comments
I'm very much a hands-off mum when it comes to homework and assignments. I let my child jump in on her own, and she knows if she gets stuck or would like some guidance, I am there to help. I prefer to guide her by asking open-ended questions such as 'where else could you look for that info' for example.
What I find frustrating is that my daughter takes her assignments to school, and it's obvious that the work was done by a child. She then places it among all the other assignments that were obviously done by the parents, lol! But I like to tell myself that the teacher must be able to figure it out..
When I was a chilkd I was fortunate because my Mother and my Aunties saved pictures from Magazines that they thought may be useful for school projects, which were of very valuable use. As we had no filing systems, they were stored in a couple of cartons and we had to search through them to find what we needed. The exercise books they were used in were kept and sometimes even the pictures were recycled at some stage, especially as I had a younger brother who also did projects. We were helped to a degree in searching for pictures and articles, but the rest was completely our responsibilities. However, I know of one child who attended a special school as she had genuine learning problems but still had to do projects and needed far more assistance than other children. I personally feel that under the circumstances that time could have been used better with extra time spent on her basic educational needs.