If you love your children, do not do their homework

Sunday afternoon in the unique playground of WhatsApp. One of the groups, from an advanced Primary course, is boiling around a math problem. Luckily I have it in silence, because when I want to realize, there are more than thirty messages about exercise 8 (first there was some confusion between 7 and 8 but it seems that some father has decided to trust his son and we have concluded which is 8). It is not a difficult exercise, really. But it is one of those that admits several answers, of those that do not have a single possible operation. Maybe the statement could have been better written. I do not know. But of course I do not think that its author imagined the hours of controversy that has unleashed among the parents. The funny thing is that everyone thinks. There is one who must be a very smart guy who knows an awful lot of numbers because he tells how he solved the problem with such an obtuse language that the same is Nobel for mathematics. And I, with these hairs, sharing WhatsApp with such lofty geniuses. The truth is that I told my daughter what I always say: "Think about it for a while and try to solve it If you do not know, do not worry and on Monday you tell your teacher". I say this with absolute conviction because I know for a fact that the teacher is a complete person who will be happy to help her and will not eat it. Also, since I'm a university professor, I know for a fact that your academic future will not be compromised by problem 8 of mathematics.

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Moreover, I am convinced that not having been able to complete homework and ask your teacher will be two fantastic lessons for your academic and professional future.

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The debate continues on the WhatsApp alien to my attention. Some convincing father draws a common line of action that goes through a mathematical operation that children have not yet given. But they do not care. This right. And for them, the important thing is that the teacher sees that it is correct. To them 'plin' if the child has understood, 'plin' if, in doing their homework, they have said between the lines that they consider him too stupid to solve it, 'plin' if the child already interprets that he has the right to Do your homework, do not suffer and have a happy childhood. Monday arrives and my daughter tells me, not without blushing, that the first thing the teacher asked is who had helped the parents to solve the happy exercise 8. Since the children still harbor little evil, they answer without hesitation: the hands of more than half of the class, with a brilliantly solved exercise thanks to sublime knowledge of a graduate in mathematics. The teacher explains on the blackboard to all those present a much simpler way to solve the problem. The children understand it and go home. Of course, half of them have a strange feeling that mixes shame with the false justification that their parents have an obligation to help them.
By the way, my daughter had bad exercise. They have not eaten it. You already know how to do it. She looks happy. It may interest you: - WhatsApp parent groups, harmful to children - Helping you do your homework is not helping you - Helping children in math homework can be harmful

Video: When your kids lie about doing their homework!!