Stop Taking Responsibility for Your Teen’s Schoolwork
Doing well in school increases educational and financial opportunities for your children. Helping them succeed in school is an important role of parenting.
Many parents we work with at Mindful Healing have mentioned struggling to find the balance between helping their teens succeed in the classroom and taking over the responsibility of managing their homework.
If in your efforts to help your teen succeed in school you find yourself taking on the responsibility reminding them of assignment and project deadlines, answering questions they are having trouble figuring out, or checking over their homework to ensure it is completed, you might be getting in the way of the opportunities you are trying to create.
Your teen’s homework is not your responsibility; it’s theirs! Of course, it is okay to help your teen from time to time with their homework or to check in and see how classwork is going. But their homework shouldn’t be your priority, it should be theirs.
Reasons to Step Back:
Over-accommodation prevents teens from learning
As a parent, you have the best of intentions to help your teen succeed in school. However, if you accidentally over-accommodate to the point where you are practically doing the work for them you prevent them from learning the material.
Instead, help your teen find resources that will help them get unstuck, encourage them to seek help from teachers or tutors. This way, your teen will have to learn the material that is covered in class instead of relying on you to give them the information they need.
Taking responsibility for your teen’s homework hinders independence and self-reliance
When your teen is in college or in the working world, they are not going to have you around to remind them to go to class, finish assignments, and complete tasks and projects on time.
If you are consistently doing these things for your teen now, you are not teaching them how to be successful when they leave your house for college or their career. They will be unprepared for the “real world.”
One way you can start teaching them the skills they need to be successful independent young adults by letting them take responsibility for their work now.
You may be worried that they will forget to do their homework or that their grades will suffer if you stop reminding them. This may happen. While this might be discouraging at first, it is important to remember that your teen will learn to manage their homework on their own if you don’t step back in to fix it for them.
If you are always jumping in at the last minute to save them from the consequences, they learn that you will “save” them and they don’t learn how to problem solve or prevent consequences in the first place.
Overfocusing on your teen’s homework may get in the way of your relationship
While it is important for your teen to get good grades, if you overfocus on their grades or managing their homework this can have a negative impact on your relationship with them.
If your teen isn’t doing their homework, there are likely other underlying issues that need to be addressed. However, when you make your teen’s homework your focus, what teens often hear is that homework/grades are more important than the underlying mental health they may be struggling with.
Instead of focusing only schoolwork, try to increase open communication and see if there are reasons why they may have trouble in class such as depression, perfectionism and anxiety, or other mental health concerns.
Also, when you take on too much responsibility to for teen’s homework they can become frustrated and resentful and so can you. Allowing your teen to take full responsibility over their homework will help them develop the skills to be better problem solvers and more independent not only in school but in all areas of life.
