Suggestions Please

[concernedmom4ki]

Why can your kids not do homework before they go to Dad's?

I am changing my entire work schedule around - I am even hiring another person JUST so that I can leave at 2:30 every day and go and pick the kids up from school. This also means that I will be able to start on their homework every day with them by 3?:00.

That's great and fine and dandy but here's the scenario: I will get home with them at 3 - their dad gets off between 3:30 and 4:00 and will get to my house within 10 minutes of when he gets off to pick them up on his days. That's doesn't give me too much time to get their homework done on those days - on my days it won't matter. Then when dad picks them up around 4, I have already given my hours at work to this new person and schedule my 40 work hours around my kids to ensure that I will be able to pick them up every day from school.

On dad's nights, he will leave with them and I will have to wait until the next day to go back to work. I will also be working 7 days a week more than likely in order to get my 40 hrs a week that is required in.

Then, he also gets to work his work days start to finish and looks better to the courts - that he has a more straight work schedule than I do and when my husband is home from work on his days off, I will go to work and work when they are here in order to make up my time from getting off during the school week to go get them for me and their dad.

Their father isn't going to do homework in the car on the way home, I know that.

There's homeroom. There's lunch. Both of those can be used to do homework. And if they can't find the time to do homework otherwise - sports are out. Make them responsible for figuring out how to get their work done.

I do understand that - I just feel they shouldn't have to give up things they really want to do because their father chose to move somewhere else that's so far away. They've told me they didn't want to move over there; they want to live here. They say that they've given up everything in their lives that have been part of their lives for all these years and they don't understand why they had to.

 

[concernedmom4ki]

Anyway...the point I am making is that kids are given extraordinary amounts of homework these days. I know its not just in my community because I speak to parents all over the country on that issue.

Thanks Ldij!

Any and all advice is greatly appreciated!

 

[legalcuriosity]

My daughter had anywhere from 1-2 hours a night of homework all through grade school. It actually didn't get better until middle school/high school.

I was PTA president at the time and fought the school mightily on that issue because I thought it was absurd for elementary school children. She normally had to bring home so many books that I had trouble lifting her bookbag...let alone her being able to carry it.

When she was in 4th grade it came to a "crisis". I kept getting the run-a-round from her teachers (they started team teaching at the 4th grade level) about how they were coordinating homework assignments and there was no way that she had to take home as many books as she was taking etc.....

So one day I loaded everything into her bookbag that the teachers had specifically required for homework purposes that day...and took her bookbag to the principal and asked her to lift it......things got better after that.

I am going to have to remember that for future reference...thanks!

Anyway...the point I am making is that kids are given extraordinary amounts of homework these days. I know its not just in my community because I speak to parents all over the country on that issue.

You aren't kidding!!! The amount of homework I've seen assigned to 7 year olds is quite shocking. I didn't even have "homework" until at least 4th grade.

 

[CJane]

Plus - I cannot afford for him to put the kids' morning and afternoon care charges on my account!

What should I do?

Ya know, being accomodating is great, and believe me, I do my share of it. But, there reaches a point where you're doing TOO much to make things easier on everyone. The kids won't die if the go into daycare - they might even enjoy it. And continually rearranging your schedule in order to try and make life 'easier' is only going to run YOU ragged - which makes it hard to be a good mom because you don't have time to be anything else.

My suggestion (and what worked in my case) would be to let the kids go to daycare on his days. Since he's created the situation in which it's necessary, he should pick up the tab for it.

I don't know how judges view one parent's employment vs another parent's, but I'm not sure how working 7 days a week just so that you can be home in the afternoons is going to help you - personally/professionally or legally.