“…helicopter parents, moms and dads, who hover over their college-age children, chiming in on everything from housing assignments to homework.”

No, they’re not actually doing the homework for the “child,” but they’re still involved in the process.

Lately homework has become a big issue. In the past twenty years, the tendency has definitely been to pile more and more homework on younger and younger children. Alfie Kohn identifies five themes about homework complaints:
1) A burden on parents
2) Stress for children
3) Family conflict
4) Less time for other activities
5) Less interest in learning

Let’s take just one finding from the latest research:

“there is no evidence of any academic benefit from homework in elementary school.”

For more information, go to http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/hm.htm. or check out The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing.

The key is to rethink homework, says Kohn. Instead of schools and teachers automatically assigning homework on a regular basis because “it is the policy to do so,” he suggests that the regular condition should be no homework. Homework should be given only if it is beneficial to the student.

Another person re-thinking homework is Richard Lovoie, who agrees with Kohn on this point and also believes that as students move towards high school that “well planned, appropriate homework can have motivational and academic benefits.” Go to http://www.ricklavoie.com/motivationbreakthrough.html

In either case, we can now move on to a few homework tips.
1) Use trial and error to determine the best time and place for your child to do homework.
2) Prepare a homework toolbox or kit with all basic, essential tools and supplies.
3) Ask the teacher for an acceptable example of your child’s homework that has been corrected and is neat and legible. Use this as an example to show your child what to aim for. Consistency is important.
4) If your child is very disorganized, go to http://www.organizedstudent.com/ and read and implement suggestions from “The Disorganized Student.”
5) If your child is overwhelmed by too much homework, clear everything away except one assignment. When it is completed, give him another one.
6) Many parents and professionals believe that homework should be done where it is quiet, but the fact is that many students are more productive listening to music in the background – especially instrumental music.
7) If your child has attention, distractibility and impulsivity issues, read and implement strategies from “A Homework System That Works” at http://www.additudemag.com/adhd/article/1034.html If your child is very intense, sensitive and needy, go to http://difficultchild.com/ and learn how to apply the Nurtured Heart Approach to help your child.

We see a lot of students at Sparks of Genius (www.sparksofgenius.com), especially elementary school students, and I have to agree that homework is a major issue for all of them and their parents. And parents, by the way, means mothers. Right?

I know homework is an issue when the mother says “We have a lot of homework tonight.” So here’s another homework tip. When you check your child’s completed homework, look for neatness and completeness. Look over a few answers, but do not get caught up in going over every item.

Too many parents get overly involved in their elementary school student’s homework. Remember, you do not want to become a helicopter parent.

Recently I asked a mother of two, a dental hygienist, how she successfully got her son do complete his homework independently. She said “Look, I spent a lot of years teaching him how to have a positive attitude about homework, how to manage his time, how to complete his homework at the same time and place, how to use his homework toolbox, how to be organized and how to take responsibility for doing homework that is neat and complete and for handing it in.”

“When he entered seventh grade I told him he was on his own,” she continued. “What happened?” I asked. “Nothing,” she said. “He just started doing it.”

Remember, you do not want to become a helicopter parent. Or do you?

–Dr. Rohn Kessler

What I find so interesting is the extreme nature of the comments about these programs. Holy cow! People are angry about providing breakfast!

Here’s a sample (from here).

“And this is yet ANOTHER reason why I, as a teacher, have just moved to another county!”

“I, as a taxpayer am fed up with the PBC school board and their reckless squandering of my tax $$. If people want to have kids THEY should be forced to provide for them.” (Ed: There is definitely squandering…but not on this program!)

“Stop all FREE food programs (maybe we should teach the kids that there is no such thing as a FREE lunch, or anything else)”

“How scary is is that we allow the same people that bring us the IRS, DMV, and Social Security to TEACH OUR KIDS?!?!?!?” (Ed: Good point…it is scary!)

“Why should I as a taxpayer subsidize free breakfast for all?”

“The qualification for free breakfast/lunch is $26k for a family of four. Really, consider living on that w/2 children, or as a single parent w/3 children, and I would assume we have a parent who possibly leaves home before the children have breakfast. Judge not, that ye be not judged. Be grateful these children are being fed a nutritious breakfast, for they are probably in need.”

What do you think? Leave us a comment!

-Allen Dobkin

So how can we make it a little easier this year?

How much homework is too much?

Your child, especially a young child, shouldn’t be spending his life on homework. There needs to be a balance. The experts agree that a kindergartener or second grader shouldn’t be spending more than about 20 minutes a day on homework, and even older elementary school kids benefit most from spending an hour at most. After 4th grade, it is important that your child practice math, because since math builds on itself, deficits here can mushroom. When your child is in middle school more homework is appropriate.

If your young child is routinely spending hours completing his work, something needs to be done.

Simple Steps can help

There are some very basic things that we can do to make homework easier. You have probably thought of them but may not have gotten to implement them. Some simple steps from pediatrics.about.com include:

• Provide your child with a quiet, well lit place to do homework with materials such as pens and a dictionary available.
• Establish a set time for doing homework, not right before bedtime. Think about using a weekday morning or afternoon for working on big projects, especially those that involve working with others.
• Help your child figure out what is easy homework and what is hard homework. Encourage your child to do the hard homework first when he is most alert.

How much should I help my child with homework?

We all know that it is your child’s homework not yours. You want to give your child as much independence as you possibly can but if the child is floundering, you don’t want him to sink.

Even if your child is doing ok, it’s good to acknowledge him when he is doing his work and to reward any accomplishments. “Johnny, I like the way that you’re concentrating on your math problems.” “Wow, Helen, you worked really hard on your science project. Let’s celebrate with a trip to the park.” As important as acknowledgment and rewards are when your child is doing well, they are ESSENTIAL when your child is struggling

When your child is struggling.

If you child is spending 3 hours on 6 math problems or can’t organize his thoughts to write and essay (see our blog on how to write an essay), then you know there is a problem, and you need to find ways to intervene without taking over.

For example, if difficulty paying attention is the problem with the math, you can cut a whole in a piece of paper so your child only sees one math problem at a time. This is a very low tech solution, but some of the new technology can also be helpful. For example, there is a program called Inspiration (which Dr Rohn used to help teachers teach science) which maps out your thoughts. Once your child’s thoughts are mapped out, it’s much easier for him to write that essay. If writing itself is a problem, your child may benefit from typing his assignments on the computer.

You want to be available for your child, especially when they are having a hard time, because you don’t want them to get so frustrated that they don’t do their homework and then they fall behind in school.

When is the help you do too much? Remember that interference is when you do what the child could do by himself. Additional suggestions can be found at about.com or here.

My child says he finished his homework

Some children who are frustrated with homework will just tell their parents “I already did my homework” or “I don’t have any homework tonight.” In the old days the main way a parent could verify this statement was to work with the teacher to create a homework pad where the teachers would write down the child’s assignments. You could also call a friend.

While there is nothing wrong with this approach, today many teachers will post homework on a web site or will email assignments to parents.

When you need a professional

If there is a problem the first person to go to is your child’s teacher. It is important that parents and teachers can work together on this. The teacher may be able to make accommodations for the child. For example, the teacher may allow you to cut assignments short when the child is having an especially difficult time. If the child does not complete assignments because he can’t write, the teacher may allow you to write down your child’s answers. That relationship with the teacher apprises you of what’s going on, so you don’t get a big surprise at report card time.

The teacher might recommend a tutor, and there are many good ones out there. Sometimes the difficulty doing homework may reflect a deeper problem. For example, if your child just cannot focus or pay attention that could be the issue. Please take the free 39 point learning assessment at our website (SparksofGenius.com) to see if an attention or focusing issue is the problem.

Make sure the homework is in the backpack

My friend would sit down with her son night after night and go over his homework. Then he would forget to put it in his backpack and get an incomplete. She finally helped him organize his backpack and checked to make sure the assignment was there. It must have worked, because now he is going off to college to major in computers. He is a smart kid, just disorganized.

I hope that this makes homework a little easier. If you are frustrated, remember that you are not alone. Another friend of mine thought that having a child was like having a very intense cat. Boy was she wrong. Every problem has a solution, but that doesn’t mean that finding the solution doesn’t require some work. Hang in there and have a great school year.

By Ninah Kessler, LCSW
Life Coach

Research shows that students do better in school when they are told they can get smarter by training their brains to get stronger— like a muscle.

Article here.

Does your child see intelligence as something fixed or something expandable?

Students who think intelligence is fixed become preoccupied with whether they look smart or dumb. They also tend to avoid difficult tasks. |Not good!

But students who believe they can develop and expand intelligence usually like being challenged. They try harder, are more persistent and worry about making mistakes and looking dumb. This is good.

In one experiment of 12 year old students with similar math achievement scores, those with a fixed mindset did worse in math than those who were taught that the brain is a muscle. And, the gap between the two groups widened over the years.

Carol Dweck, a psychologist and researcher at Stanford University said:

“We taught them that the brain forms new connections every time they applied themselves and learned,” she explained. “It gave them a new model of how their minds worked, and how they had control of their brains and could make it work better. The idea is to free them from the tyranny of fear of looking dumb. The name of the game is learning.”

Students need to understand that their intellectual potential is not fixed. So do parents and educators.

Some games that exercise the brain to get stronger can be found here.

Moreover, there are many ways to be smart that are undervalued in school and at home—so-called multiple intelligences.

Students at Sparks of Genius learn that their brain forms new connections when they work hard to learn and learn. They also learn how to take full responsibility for learning buy controlling their mind and their brain to work better.

Sparks of Genius personal trainers use a high tech (software) high touch (character development) formula to help students train their brain for success

We identify, ignite and nurture many intelligences. It’s a great way to increase student achievement.

To learn more about your child’s learning potential

fill out the FREE 39-Point Learning Assessment now. http://sparksofgenius.com/screens.html.

Dr. Rohn Kessler

All wrong.

In a new biography, “Einstein: His Life and Universe,” Walter Isaacson explains how good a student Einstein actually was. He was a good student, did not fail math and in fact had mastered differential and integral calculus before he was fifteen.

But he did not like the mechanical regimentation and mechanical learning of the German schools, comparing elementary school teachers to “drill sergeants” and high school teachers to “lieutenants.”

When he moved from Germany to Switzerland at the age of sixteen, Einstein spent a year at a school that emphasized independent thought, free action and personal responsibility. He thrived in a learning environment without rote drills, memorization and force-fed facts.

Based on the philosophy of a Swiss educator named Pestalozzi, the school helped students move through a series of steps from hands-on observations to intuition, conceptualization, imagination and visual imagery.

“Visual understanding is the essential and only true means of teaching how to judge things correctly,” wrote Pestaslozzi, and “the learning of numbers and language must be definitely subordinated.”

Spatial intelligence has been defined as “the ability to think in pictures and to perceive the visual world.” Dr. Branton Shearer, a member of the Sparks of Genius Community, explains it as using the imagination to think in three-dimensions, transform one’s perceptions and re-create aspects of one’s visual experience.
One with high spatial awareness can solve problems of spatial orientation and moving objects through space.

http://miresearch.org/mitheory.php

Remind you of anyone? It was at this school that Einstein, age sixteen, started picturing what it would be like to ride along a beam of light.

To learn more about the 9 intelligences in our 5-4-9 formula, visit http://sparksofgenius.com/sparks.html

-Dr. Rohn Kessler

This episode focuses on what happens when educational decisions are made, not by teachers, but by government bureaucrats like the lovely pink Delores Umbridge whose installment at Hogwarts is a detriment to learning.

The story of Harry Potter has always centered around Hogwarts, that fantastical training grounds for wizards and witches and safe haven against a harsh family life and of course the evil Lord Voldemort. This episode focuses on what happens when educational decisions are made, not by teachers, but by government bureaucrats like the lovely pink Delores Umbridge whose installment at Hogwarts is a detriment to learning.

The first thing the new bureaucrat does is establish her legitimate authority.

The first thing the new bureaucrat does is establish her legitimate authority. Then, under the guise of “law and order” or “following the rules” she begins implementing changes that in reality merely further her power in the school. Her rise to power is aptly displayed in the film by a wall covered in educational edicts each individually hammered into place by the eager Mr. Filch.

Some students thrive under this new authority…students like Draco Malfoy and his cronies Crabbe and Goyle. Of course the Weasley’s–in particular Fred and George–don’t take to the new addition to the staff. The results of their inevitable rebellion are visually impressive and hilarious.

The heart of the conflict (besides Voldy vs. Harry) lies in the Ministry of Magic’s refusal to accept or acknowledge, and prepare against, Voldemort’s return. This polarizes wizarding society with Dumbledore and Harry with their supporters on one side, and the Ministry (government) with The Daily Prophet (media) opposing. The conflict spills out into Hogwarts as the ministry tries to undermine and eliminate Dumbledore as Headmaster.

Is it possible for the government to be involved in education without turning it into a political tool to further their own agenda?

Does any of this sound familiar? The U.S. Federal government laid down the law (literally) on education a few years ago with No Child Left Behind, and the resulting increase in bureaucratic involvement in education has led to controversy after controversy. Is it possible for the government to be involved in education without turning it into a political tool to further their own agenda? Harry Potter says “no” but you’ll have to decide for yourself.

For pure entertainment value, HP5 delivers a thrilling package that won’t disappoint. Cutting the lengthy book into a lengthy film requires eliminating a great deal of material, but it was masterfully handled and only hardcore sticklers (of which there are many) will be unhappy. Those new to HP or less than enamored with him should find plenty to like in this movie.

From a Cognitive Training perspective, the movie is no better than Transformers, Live Free or Die Hard or any other eye-candy flick. No thought is required to enjoy the ride. On the Brain Training Food Pyramid, this is a High-Fat, High-Sugar treat to be enjoyed only occasionally.

Good luck!
Allen Dobkin

Don’t just count the time required to actually take the exams, include the time to prepare students for the logistics, endless faculty meetings, time to take practice exams. SAT and ACT testing takes place on Saturdays…so why not FCAT (Florida’s Big Test) testing, too?

2. The Tests do not provide the intended measure.

What each test measures is how well a student took that particular test. Period. Claims that the exams measure reading ability, math mastery or science proficiency are all disputed.

Here in Florida, we have a huge immigrant population who speak English as a second language. Since the government must acronymically label everyone, these students are referred to as ESOL – English Speakers of Other Languages.

What’s the problem? These students must take their exams in English, not in their native language. Thus, their exam grades reflect a combination of their English Mastery and the subject matter. Imagine having to take a Science test in French. They can’t win. If I had to take a reading test but in Spanish, they’d say I was illiterate, too!

3. Exams are skewed by culture.

The standards, questions and priorities are all set by primarily middle-class white people. They assume a certain set of background knowledge that is common among middle-class white folk, and since the impoverished, minorities and immigrants have a different background, they are penalized.

4. High-performing schools are penalized.

An ‘A’ rated school will have a tough time showing any progress or improvement. They may have the ‘A’ but the law of diminishing returns increases the difficulty and expense in terms of resources to push scores even higher.

5. Poor schools are penalized.

If we are going to make an apples-to-apples comparison, we can’t ignore the impact of having the right, and enough, tools for the job. If there are not enough teachers, text books, classrooms, or computers at a particular school, learning achievements will naturally falter when stood side-by-side with an affluent school that has their own T.V. studio. That problem is doubly compounded when you consider that students at those poor schools are poor themselves and thus face the socioeconomic disadvantages that come with that dilemma.

6. “Improvements” are baloney!

How can you tell if a school improved? Compare this year’s score with last year’s, right?

WRONG!

The students who took the exam last year are not the same students who take it this year. They are different people. It’s an entirely new student body! Think how this might apply to real life. At work your boss sends group 1 to a leadership seminar, then he sends group 2 to the seminar. Everyone then takes a quiz on the material covered. Group 2 scores higher…the seminar must have improved!

There is–maybe–a way around this: the growth model. Under the growth model, reported by the NY Times, schools are evaluated at least in part by how individual students progress on exams. So little Susie is no longer compared to Johnnie, who is a year behind her. Instead Susie as a fourth grader is compared to Susie as a 7th grader. This makes more sense, but still won’t save us.

7. Exams ignore student effort.

This won’t be popular, but let me be honest for a moment: some kids fail because they don’t make (enough of) an effort. You can’t teach the unwilling. Why they are unwilling is important yes, but is a completely separate issue from school/teacher efficacy. Again, poor students are prone to find school useless.

There are students with Christmas tree attendance, who drop out to sell fruit and run cock-fights, who have to miss two weeks to watch their siblings while their parent is gone, who live with a distant cousin because mom and dad are stuck back in Haiti. They can’t make enough of an effort. They’re just trying to live. But standardized tests insist on cramming them into the middle-class white mold in which they so obviously do not fit.

8. Testing decisions are made by unqualified bureaucrats.

We’re talking about government agencies from the White House, Department of Education, State Government, School Districts, Administrations and advisory boards and committees. The government is the body which cannot deliver your mail on time and buys $800 hammers, remember? Why would we trust that they can deliver high-quality education?

Elected officials and appointed officials have their own agendas. Academics have their own agendas. Teachers have their own agendas. Yet the more contact, training and experience with students one has, the less influence one has on the big decisions. This guarantees that education is used for political gain, with education taking a back seat.

These people decide when, how, who, what, and where testing takes place. They decide what is on and off the test. They call the shots, and most have little or no experience actually teaching.

9. Testing ignores parental involvement.

Along with hundreds of additional factors that impact student performance, parental involvement is completely ignored. On one end of the spectrum are the parents who are in regular contact with teachers, who hire private tutors, who help with homework and maintain a great learning environment at home. At the other end is an unrelated guardian who demands that the student drop out and get a job so they can help pay the bills. That has a real impact, as do all the intermediary positions, yet are totally ignored.

Why Standardized Testing Is So Desperately Needed!

Good luck!
Allen Dobkin

My granddaughter Isabel is my stepdaughter’s child, so I never experienced living with a two-year-old, especially in a situation where I was doing some of the parenting. When I teach parenting classes, I always feel a little sheepish, because it is much easier to teach the principles of good parenting than to live them. I have a great respect for parents hanging in there and doing what needs to be done for their kids. But when Isabel and her mother lived with me for two weeks, I got to walk the walk. And even though Isabel is younger than our clients, the principles of good parenting remain true, whatever the age of the child.

It is much easier to teach the principles of good parenting than to live them.

It was quite humbling to find myself doing things that I would caution a parent against. For example, I advise parents to acknowledge the child when they are doing behavior that you want to reinforce and to just give consequences with as little emotion as possible for behavior that you don’t want. And because I knew these principles, I was able to acknowledge Isabel when she did what I wanted. “You’re doing such a good job of sitting in your chair and eating your cereal.” Simple acknowledgment, making sure that she knew the specific behavior that I liked. With an older child it would go like this: “Johnny, I really like the way you are sitting at your desk and completing your arithmetic homework. Doing your homework will help you keep up with things at school.”

But when Isabel did something I didn’t like, things became much more “interesting,” especially when she was taking my vintage vinyl records off the shelves and playing with the knobs of my turntable. Here I also learned another valuable lesson. Kids, even toddlers, have radar for when you are tired or wanting to attend to something else, and this is the time they pick to act up, just to make sure that you’re still with them. You are their laboratory for learning about how the game of human relationships are played, and if you give them a big emotional response for behavior that you don’t want, even though you are telling them “no”, you are reinforcing that behavior.

All healthy children test the limits. With a seven year old, it could be doing things in slow motion when they are late for school. For a seventeen year old, it could be bringing home the car after curfew.

For a two year old, I tried to distract her with something else or tell her the behavior that I wanted her to do. “The turntable is Nana’s and it’s just for looking. Why don’t we play with your blocks over here?” For a seven year old it could be putting them on a point system and giving them extra points for getting ready on time or laying out their clothes the night before and reviewing what the morning routine will be like. For a seventeen year old it could be going over the responsibilities of using the car before they go out and giving them consequences for violating the rules. But going ballistic will either terrify the child so that they don’t feel safe exploring their environment, or, with a braver child, make the behavior that you don’t want more likely.

Another lesson that I learned is that when a child is tired, hungry or bored, those are the times that they are most likely to get into mischief.

It’s important to tell a child what you want them to do rather than what you don’t want them to do, but it’s so much easier to say “don’t” or “no.” When you say “don’t do this”, you are giving them the subtle suggestion to do it. And they respond to you. This is why when you say “don’t put your cereal on the floor” rather than “I need you to keep your cereal in your bowl or in your mouth” you get more cereal all over the floor. For an older child it would be the difference between saying, “Johnny, stop slapping your brother,” instead of “Johnny, please keep your hands to yourself.” And of course if you had noticed Johnny and his brother when they were playing nicely and commented on that , it would have been all the better.

I also noticed how many times I ended my sentences with “OK?” as in “You can have a cookie when you finish your supper, OK?” When you do this, you are actually making the child the parent, because the child gets to decide whether things are ok or not.

But even as I watched myself making mistakes, I was grateful that I knew the principles of positive parenting, because at least I could correct myself and get the behavior that was not only good for me, but good for my granddaughter.

When Isabel stayed with me I realized how wonderful it is to be with a child and to get to look at the world through their eyes. But I also learned what an awesome responsibility and opportunity it is to teach them how to interact in the world. This is the struggle and the gift of every parent. And the job never ends.

One night when I told Isabel what a good job she was doing of sitting quietly on my bed and playing with her toy and how much I appreciated that behavior, I got rewarded. Isabel told me she loved me! These are the moments that make all the work, the aggravation and the yogurt rubbed into your glass table worthwhile.

By Ninah Kessler, LCSW
Life Coach

“A given person with high implicit [or inner] self-esteem may be outwardly self-promoting or may be outwardly very modest,” said study team member Anthony Greenwald, a psychologist at the University of Washington.

Full Article Here

Low Self-Esteem is often confused with learned helplessness. Learned helplessness develops when a child is in school and has difficulty with, say, math. He struggles in math, possibly due to a weak teacher or just doesn’t have the same internal aptitude that others do. Maybe he was sick for a key week at school. For whatever reason, the child does poorly. Spurred on, the child decides to try his best for the next exam. Math being recursive, his lack of understanding of the prior material keeps him from really understanding the new stuff, and he gets a bad grade again even though he tried his hardest.

The child concludes, “I’m bad at math.” That is learned helplessness.

Contrast that experience with low self-esteem. A child goes to school and, despite good grades and many friends, feels like he or she isn’t any good in general.

Both conditions can lead to lack of effort in school and reduced performance, but one is based on a faulty conclusion drawn from real evidence while the other is a conclusion drawn despite external evidence (or due to internal evidence only).

The outward symptoms may look and sound the same, and the two issues are very similar, but they require a different touch to handle effectively.

This is where Sparks of Genius shines. What we do in our Electronic Playground is help children uncover hidden strengths, then we leverage those strengths to make improvements in other areas. How do we create total transformation? Through the 9-5-4 Program.

Even though there are 9 Intelligences, schools only care about one or two; Sparks of Genius taps into all 9.

• Verbal intelligence
• Mathematical intelligence
• Spatial intelligence
• Musical intelligence
• Kinesthetic intelligence
• Interpersonal intelligence
• Intrapersonal intelligence
• Spiritual intelligence
• Naturalist intelligence

Increase three or more [Cognitive Skills] and you’ve got a Total Transformation.

There are 5 Cognitive Skills. Increase one of these, and you increase cognitive ability. Increase three or more and you’ve got a Total Transformation.

• Attention
• Memory
• Learning
• Thinking
• Processing Speed

Finally, there are 4 Executive Functions. These are higher-order functions and essential for long-term success.

• Organization
• Planning
• Prioritizing
• Decision-Making

Students come to us, go through fancy, high-tech evaluations, and Dr. Kessler puts together a customized work-out regimen that plays on the student’s strengths and pumps up the areas that are weakest. 2-3 hours per week on a home computer, plus an hour in our high-tech, high-touch playground is usually all it takes. The results last, and they generalize to school, athletics, home, and the social realm.

Good luck!

Allen Dobkin

Get homework done quickly and efficiently without wearing out your vocal cords.

1. De-escalate.
2. Use positive reinforcement.
3. Express interest in homework, schoolwork and grades.
4. Treat homework time like it is a big deal.
5. Do your homework visibly.
6. Spend 15 minutes negotiating Homework Expectations.
7. Write down and post the Homework Expectations.
8. Give your child three free passes.
9. Reward a Perfect Homework Record.
10. Email the teachers!

What about kids with Learning Disabilities?

Challenged Children, those with any kind of learning disability, need the exact same treatment. They need all the rules, reminders and rewards even more! Don’t let their disability fool you: expect them to perform to their 100% capacity. If we settle for less, we do them a disservice.

-From www.whyschoolsux.com

Read the article here.