Is Homework Destroying Our Kids?

I see a lot of debates about if homework is a good thing or is it just creating more unnecessary work for children. I am not entirely sure what the right answer is, but now having a child in high school, I'm starting to see the reasoning behind the debate.

My daughter has always needed extra support at school. I have always encouraged her to complete homework and support her with it if she needs help. Now she is in high school, the work load is a lot. I knew it could be a difficult situation for her to be in. So many different lessons to go to meant a lot more homework than what she was used to. In her old school, she was only given one piece of paper that had spellings on, she would get these on a Friday and had a whole week to complete them. I thought this was more than fair, a whole week to complete 8 spellings felt like nothing. But now the drastic change is a lot.

On a Friday now, she gets maths homework that is due on Monday. A student that is already struggling and already has extra support in place at school is expected to complete maths homework over the space of 2 days. Homework, that sometimes takes around 2 hours to complete, numbers are her weak spot.

It has totally changed our weekend dynamics as a family, before we would find stuff to do as a family and enjoy our days off from work and school. Now it has changed, my daughter now only has Saturday and Sunday to complete homework that she really struggles with. Like I said previously, it takes us around 2 hours to complete. It takes a lot of the weekend fun away for us all. if we go out on Saturday we have to make sure we do it on the Sunday, or, if we want to go away for the weekend homework has to become a part of it, she doesn't get any time to relax and not think about school any more. Maths is just one thing. There are also all the other lessons and the homework that comes with it. she doesn't struggle with every subject, but she now has to complete that homework for the other subjects during the week so that is doesn't spill into the weekend, so it now gets done after school, so she comes home from school to do more school work just so her entire weekend doesn't become another school day. She has no downtime, she has no time to think about anything other than school.

As a parent, my children's well being will always come first, so one day I said to my daughter, Don't do it! Don't do that homework, relax this weekend, were going out, and we are going to have fun. After weeks of seeing her down and shutting herself in her room and shutting off from everyone, I knew enough was enough. She didn't complete the homework as I told her to. That next day, I got a message saying she had got an after-school detention. I rang up to protest this. The school was very aware of her struggle, even to the point where they put her on the SEN register, but even this wasn't enough to support her more. Now I constantly have an issue with them over detentions and punishments because she hasn't done homework.

A week ago, I had parents evening. I was expecting to hear maybe some bad things because I only ever got phone calls to say she had been in detention and that is when I realised everything i was being told on the phone was based solely around homework. I got told so many great things about my daughter. I was told how well she is doing and how much she really tries her hardest in every single thing she is given. I was told that even in her weakest parts, she still really tries and does everything she can to get her work done. They told me she's confident and happy and a joy to be around. I noticed my daughter was actually doing really well in school. She's being punished constantly for not doing something she struggles with even though she's got great grades in every subject. She's doing amazing, but because she needs some time to switch off from school and learning she's being punished.

Is this the system we want for our children? There are definitely children out there who may not be struggling. They might get everything done and be great at every subject, but even they deserve a break. A weekend is supposed to be there time off, why are they expected to come home and contiune with the school work?

Is it wrong to be giving homework? Don't they already do enough?