Help Your Child With Homework Without Doing It For Them

Quick answer: Coach, don't solve. Ask four questions — what is the question actually asking, what have you tried, what do you already know that is related, what is the single next step — then move away and stay reachable. Cap struggle at 20 minutes, and let unfinished work go in unfinished so the teacher sees the gap.

I'm writing this from the other side of the desk. I'm doing IGCSEs and A-Levels, and I've had both versions of homework help at home. In Year 9 my dad used to sit next to me and basically dictate my maths working. I got full marks on the homework and 41 percent on the end-of-term test, because I had never once done the thinking myself. The gap was obvious enough that my teacher asked me about it directly. That was the first time I understood that help which produces a correct page can leave you with nothing.

Why taking over feels like help but isn't

Taking over works in the short term and fails in the long term, because homework is not a product — it is a diagnostic. Its job is to show a teacher which bits you cannot do yet. When a parent smooths out the working, that signal disappears and the class moves on.

There is also a confidence cost. Every time an adult steps in at the first sign of struggle, the message underneath is "I don't think you can do this." By A-Level I believed I was bad at maths, when really I had never been allowed to stay stuck for longer than 30 seconds. Being stuck is not the problem. Being stuck with no strategy is.

The four questions to ask instead of giving the answer

Use these in order, and stop as soon as they get moving.

1. What is the question actually asking you to find? Make them say it out loud in their own words. Half of "I don't get it" moments are misread questions, not missing knowledge.
2. What have you tried so far? If the answer is "nothing", that is the real problem, and the fix is writing down anything at all.
3. What do you already know that is related? Point them at their notes, the previous exercise, the worked example on the page. Never at your own memory of school.
4. What is the single next step? Not the whole solution. One line.

The critical bit is what you do after question four: you leave. Hovering turns every step into a checked step, and checked steps do not transfer to an exam hall.

A worked example: the same question, two ways

Take a reverse-percentage question of the kind that appears on GCSE and IGCSE papers. A jacket costs 68 pounds in a sale after a 15 percent discount. Find the original price.

The takeover version: "You divide by 0.85. So it's 80. Write that down." Correct answer, zero learning, same mistake again next week.

The coaching version:

1. "What are you being asked to find?" — the price before the discount.
2. "What have you tried?" — "I did 68 plus 15 percent and got 78.20." Good. Now there is something concrete to work with.
3. "What do you know that's related?" — they go to their notes on percentage multipliers and find that a 15 percent decrease means multiplying by 0.85.
4. "So what's the single next step?" — write the equation: original x 0.85 = 68.

They finish it themselves: 68 / 0.85 = 80, and the check runs itself, since 80 x 0.85 = 68. The reason 78.20 was wrong is that 15 percent of the sale price is smaller than 15 percent of the original — which is the entire point of the question.

Mark schemes reward this route directly. On a two-mark reverse percentage question you typically get M1 for writing 68 / 0.85 or an equivalent equation, and A1 for the answer. A student who only ever sees finished answers writes "80" alone and loses the method mark whenever the arithmetic slips. To get working checked without checking it yourself, our math solver shows the route, not just the number.

The 20-minute rule, and the note that saves everyone time

Set a hard limit: 20 minutes of genuine effort on one question, then stop. Not 20 minutes of staring — 20 of attempting, note-checking and trying something.

When the timer goes and it still isn't working, the student writes one line at the bottom: "Stuck on Q4 — I tried multiplying by 1.15 and got 78.20, I don't understand why that's wrong." That sentence is worth more than a completed page. It shows exactly where the misconception sits, it proves effort, and teachers respond to it properly instead of just ticking. I resisted it for ages because it felt like admitting defeat.

How much help is right at each stage

Involvement should drop steadily, and the drop should be visible.

• Ages 5 to 10: read the instructions together, then move to the other side of the table. You are the reader, not the solver.
• Ages 11 to 14: help set the session up — phone in another room, question list written out, order chosen. Then leave. Check in once at the end.
• GCSE, IGCSE and CBSE Class 10 years: logistics and morale, not content. Print past papers, protect the study hours, ask which topic feels weakest. Do not sit in on the working.
• A-Level, International A-Level, AP and WASSCE years: content help from parents rarely lands even when you know the subject, because marking conventions have moved since you sat exams. Ask about deadlines and sleep instead.

What to say when you can't do the subject

You do not need to know the content to be useful. The best thing my mum ever did was ask me to teach her the topic. She knows nothing about enzymes, and explaining denaturation to someone who kept asking "but why does that stop it working?" exposed every hole I had.

Three questions that work in any subject you don't know:

• "Can you explain that to me like I've never heard of it?"
• "Which part of that are you least sure about?"
• "What would the mark scheme want you to say here?"

If they cannot answer the first one, they do not know it yet, however neat the page looks. A plain-English explainer or a tutor chat that asks questions back gets them to the point where they can teach it to you.

Where AI fits, and where it wrecks things

AI only beats a parent reciting the answer if it is used the same way — asking questions rather than handing over solutions. Copying a generated answer produces the Year 9 problem I had, just faster.

Use it after the attempt, not instead of it: do the question, then ask why the wrong method was wrong. Or turn the notes into practice questions and fail somewhere it doesn't count. My own rule is that I can ask for a hint, an explanation or a check, but never a finished answer to something I haven't attempted.

Test yourself

1. Your child says "I don't get question 6." What is the first thing to ask, before any explanation?
2. A jacket costs 51 pounds after a 15 percent discount. What was the original price, and what is the check?
3. Twenty minutes of real effort has gone by and question 4 still isn't working. What goes on the page?

FAQ

Isn't it unfair to send in unfinished homework?

No. A page that honestly shows where the thinking stopped is more useful to a teacher than a complete page produced by someone else. The unfair version is the one where the teacher marks your work and thinks it is your child's.

My child gets angry when I ask questions instead of just telling them.

That usually means they are arriving too late, when frustration has already set in. Ask them at the start of the session, not at minute 25. Agree the rule when nobody is stressed: you answer questions about what the question means, not about what the answer is.

What if the homework is genuinely too hard for their level?

Then that is information the teacher needs, said directly rather than hidden by a parent quietly completing it. Send a short note. A persistent mismatch between homework and ability is a setting issue, not something to fix at the kitchen table.

Should I check their work before it goes in?

Only if they ask, and only by pointing at a line rather than correcting it. "Have another look at line three" keeps ownership with them. Rewriting it does not.

In short: your job is to protect the conditions and ask the questions, not to produce the page. Coach with the four questions, cap the struggle at 20 minutes, let the gaps show, and drop your involvement year by year on purpose. Homework that goes in slightly rough but genuinely theirs is what shows up in the exam.