Neal: Homework is driving parents crazy, and it’s not helping kids think

It’s 5:46 p.m., and instead of preparing to eat dinner or unwinding from a full day of work, I’m at the kitchen table teaching myself to decompose numbers, then multiply and divide them using grids and boxes — a concept I don’t remember learning in school — so I can review the process with my kid, who’s got other assignments to complete, is tired from school and (always) hungry. Waiting in my inbox is a growing stack of messages from multiple teachers and an assistant principal, across two schools, all requesting some form of compliance. 

If chronic stress can shorten our lives, parenting through the final three months of the school year might actually kill me. 

“Multitasking is dumbing us down and driving us crazy,” as The Atlantic once put it. Research consistently shows that frequently switching between demanding tasks increases stress and makes it harder to focus. And yet most evenings in our house require exactly that: toggling between homework, inbox messages and expectations that don’t always line up.

Statistics Canada has found that over the last several years, a significant share of Canadians report high levels of stress on most days, including children as young as 15. This kind of stress has real consequences for our health, including a weaker immune system, high blood pressure and fewer years of life than we might like. It’s especially true for those of us balancing work and caregiving. So, if you’re also feeling overwhelmed, you’re part of a very large group of people trying to hold it together.

Prioritize self-care, mindfulness and exercise, they say. Let go of perfection, we’re told. It sounds lovely in theory. But in practice, someone still has to ensure the homework gets done, and done well enough to satisfy a system that rewards perfection. 

Which brings me to my next anxiety: What future is this schoolwork actually preparing kids for? 

My daughter’s Escales homework book includes a tidy chapter about some of the first teachers and schools in Nouvelle-France. The Canadian Encyclopedia fills in the story, noting that early efforts weren’t particularly widespread or successful, in part because learning happened primarily through experience and within families. As formal schooling expanded, it became more structured and increasingly focused on solving social challenges.  

In my own work, success rarely comes down to knowing a single right answer. Instead, it requires managing competing priorities, finding new solutions to complex problems, and adapting when things don’t go as planned.

And yet most of the schoolwork coming home in backpacks still rewards recalling the right answer. 

If our future looks anything like the one we’re promised, our kids will be surrounded by technology that can answer any question instantly, make breakfast, and then beam them into work every morning. In that world, the value can’t just be in knowing the answer. It’s in knowing how to use it to make real decisions. 

Sometimes I imagine what learning might feel like without all the stress. Time to follow a curiosity instead of rushing to check something off a homework to-do list. Hearing from my kids that they spent the day exploring an idea in a hands-on way, while I sit feet-up on a terrasse, not thinking about the next due date.  

Some approaches are moving in that direction, bringing what’s learned in the classroom into the real world through community engagement and cultural exploration. But for now, those kinds of experiences remain closer to a daydream than a daily reality for most families. 

Until that kind of learning becomes our reality, I’ll be at my computer on Sunday mornings scheduling responses to school emails and mapping out homework assignments for the week. I’ll try to stay one step ahead of the stress, even if it means catching up on messages, assignments and requests that came in days ago. It’s not a perfect system, but it feels like the only way to keep things — and myself — from going off the rails. 

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Arron Neal, Special to the Montreal Gazette

Arron Neal is a communications strategist, writer and mother of two exploring the intersection of culture, parenting and politics.

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