Simple Steps to Alleviate It
Homework is a significant source of stress for many students. While it’s meant to reinforce learning, the sheer volume and complexity can lead to overwhelming feelings. This stress can impact not only academic performance but also mental health. Here, we explore how homework can cause stress and provide effective strategies to manage and alleviate it.
The Stress of Homework
The Impact of Heavy Workloads
Heavy homework assignments can be daunting for students, often resulting in:
- Time Management Issues: Balancing multiple subjects with extracurricular activities can be challenging. Teachers often base homework volume on their own class’s workload, without considering that high school students carry a full schedule of classes, along with jobs, sports, and extracurriculars.
- Sleep Deprivation: Extended homework hours cut into sleep time, leading to fatigue and decreased productivity. Teens are already predisposed to staying up late. And their school days often start early. So piling on the homework can harm teens’ health.
- Mental Health Strains: The pressure to complete assignments independently and on time can cause anxiety and depression. These pressures are felt by high-achieving students and struggling ones. High-achieving students are often carrying heavy workloads with demanding classes that have high homework expectations. Struggling students may lack the support they need to understand the content in class and carry it over to independent homework.
The effects of this overload on teens is that homework can cause stress. And the stress doesn’t just go away when this particular night of homework is over. The cumulative effects of a demanding academic schedule can lead to lasting health issues and burnout.
Executive Function Challenges
Adolescents often struggle with executive functioning skills, which are crucial for organizing, prioritizing, and completing tasks. This can lead to:
- Procrastination: Difficulty in starting assignments. Teens underestimate how long an assignment will take and put it off until there is not enough time to do it right.
- Forgetfulness: Missing deadlines due to poor planning. Teachers use a variety of systems for sending work and reminders. Students may lack the habit of checking those systems, or they may have an ineffective system for reminding themselves.
- Disorganization: Losing track of materials and assignments. Papers and books get left at school or at home, or get crumbled at the bottom of a bag.
Steps to Alleviate Homework Stress
1. Make a Comprehensive List
Begin by gathering all necessary information:
- Review Progress Reports: Identify assignments that need attention. Parents often realize that their teen is struggling in school when progress reports are sent home. Use the progress report to prioritize the classes with the greatest need for improvement.
- Check School Portals: Use platforms like Google Classroom or Canvas to find assignment details. Have your teen work through this process with you. Assemble a list of all outstanding work. This part of the process can come with bad feelings or accusations. Try to approach this neutrally. Don’t ask “why didn’t you…?” about anything at this point. You are here to facilitate collecting information. If you can’t have a neutral or positive conversation with your teen about this, consider enlisting another older role model, or hiring a tutor.
- Communicate with Teachers: Encourage students to email teachers for clarification, fostering independence and responsibility. Remember: just because your teen is never without their phone does not mean they are good at things like sending emails or finding information. Although I always prefer that the email be sent by the student themselves, it sure helps to have an adult standing by to suggest phrases and clarifications.
2. Tackle Quick Wins
Identify and address assignments that can be completed quickly:
- Sort Assignments: Determine which tasks can still be submitted for credit. That might mean sacrificing some low-level homework points to complete a bigger project. Once the crisis is over, you can work with your teen so things don’t fall through the cracks. At this moment, some things have already fallen through. Let the little ones go.
- Submit Completed Work: Ensure finished assignments are turned in, even digitally, to avoid losses. Many schools have systems for accepting work digitally. If your child is struggling to keep track of paper long enough to turn it in, back them up by taking photos or scans of completed work before it gets put in the mysterious black hole in their backpack.
3. Start with Simple Tasks
Prioritize assignments that are easier and quicker to complete:
- Low-Hanging Fruit: Focus on tasks like class participation points and small assignments. Your child may be able to crank out a few of these each day until they catch up. And daily class participation points are achievable for students going forward. Teachers base these points on various things, but sometimes include class preparation (having your materials) and being on time.
- Earn Easy Points: Completing smaller tasks can significantly impact overall grades.
- Turn In What’s Finished: In your search, you may uncover some work your child finished but never turned in. Have your student prepare to turn it in next class.
4. Set ‘Do’ Dates Before Due Dates
Assign specific dates for working on each task:
- Create a Schedule: Consider the student’s and family’s schedules. You might want to print a blank weekly or monthly calendar with plenty of room to write.
- Balance Responsibilities: Adjust family duties temporarily to accommodate homework needs. If your child has a recurring duty like babysitting or house chores, take some things off their plate for now.
- Utilize Planning Tools: Use planners or whiteboards to keep track of assignments and due dates. A whiteboard (or a stack of blank paper) is an important tool for your teen’s homework workspace.
- Visualize the Schedule: Use highlighters on a paper calendar or colored events on a digital calendar to make the most important stuff stand out. Help your child see how much study time is available throughout the week by scheduling it into the calendar.
5. Prevent Future Overwhelm
Establish routines to prevent falling behind:
- Daily and Weekly Checklists: Help students keep track of their work. Customize for each student, but it is important to check the school’s assignment systems a few times a week.
- Regular Check-Ins: Brief after-school sessions to review the day’s work. A great question to ask is, “How long do you think it will take you to do that?” By asking your child to reflect on their assignment, you are helping them use their developing executive functioning skills to plan and manage their time.
- Weekly Planning Sessions: Plan for the week ahead, including non-academic activities. Consider sharing the digital family calendar with your teens. Ask them to share their calendar with you so you can help them plan for upcoming events.
6. Provide Emotional Support
Help students manage the emotional aspects of homework stress:
- Empathy and Encouragement: Recognize their efforts and progress. If a teen is struggling at school, you can bet they are feeling bad about it. Even if sometimes they present with a “whatever” attitude, remember that they have been living with the stress of these assignments. They need your kindness, your patience and your help.
- Teach Coping Strategies: Techniques like mindfulness and relaxation can help manage stress. I would argue that it is not normal to expect teens to deal with stress. But stress is an inevitable part of life, and homework stress is an opportunity to learn tools that will help.
- Professional Support: Consider counseling if stress significantly impacts mental health. A student who is regularly struggling in school may be showing signs of a learning disability or other problem. A teen who is suddenly struggling in a particular class, or in school overall, may either be facing an unfamiliar challenge at school, or dealing with problems that interfere with school.
7. Hang In There
Your kids have come so far over the years! Remember when you had to hold their hands when they walked, or they would fall over?
They don’t need that anymore. But there was a time when they really, really, did. Think of this kind of homework support as that. While your child’s executive functioning skills are still developing through the teen years, you are there to provide structure, guidance, and balance, while your child does the hard work of learning to stand on their own. This too shall pass!
Conclusion
Homework can indeed cause significant stress, but with the right strategies, this stress can be minimized, avoided, and managed effectively. By organizing tasks, setting realistic goals, and providing emotional support, students can navigate their homework without feeling overwhelmed. Parents and educators play a crucial role in guiding students through these challenges, ensuring a balanced approach to academic responsibilities.
Next Steps
Need more than strategies? Contact us for a consultation to find out how online tutoring with a certified dyslexia therapist can help your child overcome academic challenges!
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