504 Plan Workshop

On November 8, I will be presenting a workshop on constructing 504 plans using the concepts of The Homework Trap. I have narrated the power point presentation and posted it on my website for anyone who is interested in seeing it (and who does not live near Mt. Laurel New Jersey).

Click here for workshop.

Homework, 504 plans and the PTA

Now that the National PTA convention has come to a close, we need to consider “what next” in the effort for homework reform. The PTA has agreed to review the guidelines at its governance meeting in August. That’s a good step. But regardless of what the National PTA eventually does, parents who are concerned about homework policy will still be concerned.

It seems to me that there are two types of parents and two types of approaches. There are parents whose children are doing well or reasonably well in school but who want to put the brakes on this constant, and unproductive, intrusion into their homes. There are parents whose children are not getting the work done, are facing low or failing grades, who are in large amounts of conflict with their children, and the result is only hours of heartache leading to nothing other than an inevitable downhill decline.

For those in the first category, I encourage you to contact your local PTAs and statewide PTA organizations to voice your support of these guidelines. For those in the second category, I suggest that you look at the 504 law to find ways to implement homework reform for your child, regardless of what the school district does.

On October 4, I will be presenting, in conjunction with a local education lawyer, a workshop on the homework trap, and how to use my model as the basis for a 504 plan. I hope to make this presentation available to parents throughout the country, and to partner with other education lawyers in advocating for this model. Right now, most educators are unaware of my model. For that matter, most educators are unaware of any models. Review the education websites, blogs, and discussion forums and you will find a dearth of information about homework. Look at the curriculum for a school of education and you will not find a course on the topic of homework. Typically, a 504 plan offers the child “more time,” perhaps meaningful when taking a test, but not “less work,” absolutely needed when it comes to homework accommodations.

If you are a parent in the latter position, I invite you to contact me and, if you have a lawyer or education advocate helping you out, that you connect me with that person. One thing that will help you get the help you need is to get the notion of homework reform embedded in the thinking of those who are putting together 504 plans. Educators cannot incorporate a concept into their plans if they don’t know what it is, and that may be loath to accept a change just because one parent says this is what the child needs. But for every child who gets a rational homework accommodation, that becomes one more case to enter the thinking of the educators the next time a bright, capable, but homework-trapped child, comes up for discussion.

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Dr. Kenneth Goldberg is a clinical psychologist with 35 years of professional experience in dealing with many different psychological issues. He is the author of The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers and currently works in his own private practice.

Visit the website
Read book reviews of The Homework Trap
What is The Homework Trap?
A Roadmap to Success
504 plans

A Model for 504 plans

I wrote this article a few months ago. It was first published on the Washington Post's Education blog on April 6, 2012. The summer is a good time, free from the immediate daily pressures of homework, for parents to think about what they want for their children in the coming year. For many, it will be necessary to seek a 504 plan based on the child's problems with working memory (auditory processing or attention) or processing speed (in reading or handwriting). This article highlights the fundmental principles of The Homework Trap.

The Homework Trap and What to Do About It

There are many parents whose major concern is not public policy but what will happen at home tonight. They are not Tiger Moms, but ordinary parents who simply want the best for their children. These parents start out with the full intention of supporting the teachers and their children’s schools. Yet, something goes wrong along the way as they and their children fall into a homework trap.

The problem starts in elementary school. The notes come home, and the parents get “the call.” They meet with the teacher and make plans to make sure everyone is on the same page. Before long, the cast of characters grows. By middle school, there are several teachers, the disciplinarian and the nurse, all fretting over what these children do not do. Their parents feel pressured to oversee their work, as they also feel criticized as if they’ve done something wrong. These parents would do anything to help their children, yet nothing they do reaps results. Soon, they realize that the efforts they are making are actually doing more harm than good.

The key misconception about homework-trapped children is what I call the “myth of motivation.” These children are viewed as lazy and unmotivated, as if they are different from the other children who would rather play than do their homework. There are reasons why these children don’t do their work, and it’s not because they lack motivation.
Rather, they have “under the radar” learning problems. Minor difference in learning capabilities can have major implications on the work that’s sent home, much more than it has on the work done in class.

The most important issue is the child’s work pace. No one would question that a slow running child truly wants to win the race, yet we somehow believe that homework trapped children lack the desire to get their work done.

We know that people don’t spend large amounts of time engaging in tasks they do not do well. Yet, homework-trapped children are made to struggle for hours on end to get everything done. These children would be far better off if they were asked to work for a fixed amount of time (perhaps 10 minutes per night per grade) than to fall into an abyss of working all night to get every worksheet done.

The child, who is forced to keep on working without boundaries, will predictably learn how to avoid. Excessive homework pressures teach children to lie, forget, argue, and procrastinate. This eventually brings in the child study team, not to deal with learning problems, but because the child’s behavior has been bad. With that, the child may get sent to a different class or an alternative school where, voila, homework is no longer required. It’s an odd turn of events that these homework trapped children, who could have succeeded with some homework relief, only get that relief after they’ve acted out.

Because of this, I offer three very simple adjustments that are crucial for homework-trapped children, and which, frankly, I think should be policy for all. They are:

1. Time-bound homework. Just like school starts and stops by the clock, define homework as a fixed period of time. See what the child can do in a reasonable amount of time and work with that child on using the time well.

2. Reduced penalties. Zeros factored in 25 percent of the grade is too harsh of a penalty to alter behavior. Lesser consequences will prove more effective in both mobilizing the child and allowing the parent to approach the issue calmly.

3. Respect lines of authority. Teachers are in charge of their classrooms. Parents should tread lightly when it comes to telling them what to do. Parents are the people in charge of their homes; teachers should not tell parents how to organize their homes. Ultimately, when decisions are to be made about behaviors in the home (i.e. homework), the parent needs to be the one with the final say.

I am aware of the controversy over how much homework children should get. It’s an important debate but not the one I’m concerned with today. I’ll leave that to teachers, the experts in education, to figure out what makes the most sense. But in developing their models, it is critical for teachers to understand that homework assignments are using borrowed ground. Homework requires the tacit permission of the parents to allow it in their homes. While most parents will support the school in what it asks, they also need the power to withdraw that permission, if needed, without consequence to their child’s education.

Dr. Kenneth Goldberg is a clinical psychologist with 35 years of professional experience in dealing with many different psychological issues. He is the author of The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers and currently works in his own private practice.

Visit the website
Read book reviews of The Homework Trap
What is The Homework Trap?
A Roadmap to Success
504 plans

Homework and ADHD

Children with ADHD require greater reductions in homework than othe children require. And they need these reductions while having full access to the regular classroom. These reduction can be incorporated into a 504 plan. The following video explains why this is required. The concept is also included in my book, The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers.



Dr. Kenneth Goldberg is a clinical psychologist with 35 years of professional experience in dealing with many different psychological issues. He is the author of The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers and currently works in his own private practice.

Visit the website
Read book reviews of The Homework Trap
What is The Homework Trap?
A Roadmap to Success
504 plans

Homework and ADD

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to talk with a family: mom, dad, grandma, and 12 year old boy. The boy was well-mannered and seemed like a normal child. His mother told me that they had had ongoing problems with him at school. He did well in class, but did not get his homework done. His mother was called in by the school starting around third grade. She told the teachers that he had trouble focusing on the work and thought he might have ADD. The teacher scoffed, the demands kept coming in, and homework would go on all night long. In fourth and fifth grade, the same. Then in sixth grade, his teacher decided he had ADD and, based on that opinion, the school did a 180 and was now pushing hard for diagnosis and treatment. In effect, his teacher wanted this boy to take medication. She did not want to revise the requirements. The child did not seem hyperactive to me and his mother made the point that he had ADD, not ADHD. I shared my thoughts that homework time should be capped and that it is an error to conceptualize the problem just as the child not getting his work done. Rather, we should conceptualize the problem as the child is spending too much time on homework. Reduce the required time and the child is more likely to comply and more likely to actually get some work done. If this child is inattentive at school, he was certainly paying attention to what I was saying and eagerly and appropriately joined our conversation. He seemed very willing to work for an hour if he could then be free, and his parents seemed to think that would work for them as well. I don’t know if this child has ADD. I didn’t get the feeling that he did and it is an overly diagnosed condition these days, but, who knows? It would require more information than I had in this fairly casual context to know. But the point is that this was an average seeming family with competent parents, certainly capable of looking at their son and making decisions on his behalf, and if they are battling with him long into the night, not because they choose to but because they feel forced to, they cannot really help and guide their child. I mentioned to the parents that they should make the decision to cap the time. I shared with them the norm in education, an hour per night per grade, which could be used as a standard. I suggested that they make that decision, firmly and not subject to negotiation, and see what the teachers do. In my experience, even if they don’t agree with that decision, many teachers will modify their demands once the parents are clear this is the decision they have made. I also point out, that if their child truly had ADD, that could also be the basis for constructing a 504 plan. I cautioned them that the one problem with a 504 plan is that most schools are not yet aware of the model I promote, so 504 plans often include “more time,” not “less work.” The other issue with ADD, which did not seem appropriate for this particular family since this child’s “ADD” was either non-existent or mild in nature, is that children with true ADD or ADHD, need even lower time caps on homework than ordinary children need. I’ll explain that piece in a future blog post.
Dr. Kenneth Goldberg is a clinical psychologist with 35 years of professional experience in dealing with many different psychological issues. He is the author of The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers and currently works in his own private practice.

Visit the The Homework Trap website

Homework and Behavior

I would like to comment on the issue of homework and behavior.  In a conversation I once had, a member of a child study team told me that about half of all children she dealt with who had behavioral problems showed those problems, first, through homework noncompliance. That’s an extraordinary amount, one which in my mind, calls for homework reform, if not for the whole school, at least for those children who are homework-trapped. Think about it. Schools are there to teach. Behavioral management, although necessary, interrupts the primary mission of schools, to teach our children. Imagine the positive impact it would have on education for all, if there were ways to reduce homework-generated behavior management problems. Well, I think there are, and they come through the simple ideas I suggest in my model. I explain it further in the video clip below, and encourage all parents of homework-trapped children to pass this clip on to members of your child’s school staff.

Visit my website

The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers
Dr. Kenneth Goldberg is a clinical psychologist with 35 years of professional experience in dealing with many different psychological issues. He is the author of The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers and currently works in his own private practice.

For print copy, click below:

Messages for parents and teachers

On this blog post, I have posted four messages regarding The Homework Trap. Please excuse the amateur nature of this production.

Introduction

For parents of homework-trapped children

Using The Homework Trap as a model for 504 plans

The Homework Trap for Teachers

Visit my website

The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers
Dr. Kenneth Goldberg is a clinical psychologist with 35 years of professional experience in dealing with many different psychological issues. He is the author of The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers and currently works in his own private practice.

For print copy, click below:

For Kindle copy, click below: