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'My daughter is DONE with homework' - mother's anti-homework stance wins praise

Does homework cause anxiety? - Teri Pengilley
Does homework cause anxiety? - Teri Pengilley

Blogger Bunmi Laditan has won support after hitting out at the large amount of homework her 10-year-old daughter is being given to do.

Writing on Facebook, Laditan shared an email she'd sent to the school telling staff the 10-year-old would be drastically reducing the amount of homework she would be doing each week.

Her daughter, she writes, has been "been very stressed and is starting to have physical symptoms such as chest pain and waking up at 4 a.m. worrying about her school workload. 

"She’s not behind academically and very much enjoys school. We consulted with a tutor and a therapist suggested we lighten her workload.

"Doing 2-3 hours of homework after getting home at 4:30 is leaving little time for her to just be a child and enjoy family time and we’d like to avoid her sinking into a depression over this."

homework email - Credit: Bunmi Laditan/Facebook
Credit: Bunmi Laditan/Facebook

Writing alongside the post, Laditan said: "My kid is done with homework."

"She's in school from 8:15am-4pm daily so someone please explain to me why she should have 2-3 hours of homework to do every night?" she adds.

"How does homework until 6:30, then dinner, then an hour to relax (or finish the homework) before bed make any sense at all?

"Is family time not important? Is time spent just being a child relaxing at home not important? Or should she become some kind of junior workaholic at 10 years old?"

Laditan admitted being nervous that her child's school might push back against he anti-homework stance - and said she'd be willing to teach her daughter at home if necessary.

In the UK, primary school children typically receive about an hour of homework a week when aged five to seven, rising to half an hour a night for seven-to-11-year-olds.

Children in secondary schools are set around  45 to 90 minutes a night at ages 11 to 14, with one-and-a-half to two-and-a-half hours a night for those aged 14 to 16.

How do children spend their days?

"We all want our children to grow up and succeed in the world," wrote Laditan. "While I believe in education, I don't believe for one second that academics should consume a child's life.

"I don't care if she goes to Harvard one day. I just want her to be intelligent, well-rounded, kind, inspired, charitable, spiritual and have balance in her life. I want her to be mentally and emotionally healthy. I want her to know that work is not life, it's part of life."

 

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