A calm, practical routine for the homework hour, and what to do on the nights it still goes wrong.
Keep homework short, predictable and kind. Pick a regular time after a snack and some movement, work in 10-minute chunks, and start with the easiest question. When your child is stuck, ask three questions before giving one hint, never the answer. If tears start, stop for five minutes, then come back to one question.
Updated 6 October 2026 · 7 minute read
If homework often ends in tears or raised voices at your place, you are far from alone. Researchers at the University of South Australia found that maths homework can become “a shared site of frustration” for families, especially when it is too hard to do alone and parents learned different methods at school (UniSA, 2024). Most homework fights aren’t about the homework. They come from a tired, hungry child, a tired grown-up, and a task that feels too big.
The good news is that small changes to when and how you start make the biggest difference. None of them needs you to know the answers.
| What | Try this |
|---|---|
| Timing | Pick a regular time, most days. After a snack and a run around usually works better than straight after school or just before bed. NSW Education suggests a routine at a set time, a little each day. |
| Space | The same spot each time, with pencils, paper and anything else they need ready to go. Phones and screens away unless the task needs them. Sit nearby, not over their shoulder. |
| Snack and movement | Food first, then five minutes of moving: a walk, a bounce on the trampoline, kicking a ball. A body that has moved finds it easier to sit. |
| A clear finish | Agree what “done” looks like before you start: “Two questions and your reading, then free time.” |
Set a timer for 10 minutes of focused work, then take a short break to stretch, get a drink or tell you a joke. Younger children may need shorter chunks; older children can stretch them as they get used to it. Ten calm minutes do more than forty unhappy ones, and the timer means the end is always in sight.
Let your child choose the question that looks easiest and do that one first. A quick win warms up their thinking and their confidence, so the harder questions feel less like a wall. If every question looks hard, start with the first step of one: “What is this question asking you to find?”
When your child gets stuck, ask three questions before you help. They often find their own way in by the second or third.
Still stuck? Give one hint, not the answer: point to a useful word, suggest a strategy, or work through a different example out loud and hand the pencil back. Then wait. If they are still stuck after a hint or two, it’s time for a break, not a bigger hint. Our guide on helping without giving the answer has more prompts.
Tears mean the thinking part of the brain has had enough for now. Pushing on rarely works. Try this instead:
| Step | What to do | What you might say |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Stop for five minutes | Put the pencil down and step away from the table together. Get a drink, have a hug, go outside. | “Let’s have a five-minute break. The question will still be here.” |
| 2. Name the feeling | Say what you see, calmly, without fixing it. Feelings settle faster once they are named. | “That one felt really frustrating. That makes sense. It’s a tricky one.” |
| 3. Come back to one question | Not the whole sheet: one question, or one step of it. Then you can stop. | “Let’s just do the first step of this one together, then we’re done for tonight.” |
Keep your own voice low and slow, even when you feel frustrated too. It is fine to say “I need a minute” and take one.
Sometimes the kindest thing is to stop. Stop for the night if your child has had a break and still can’t start, if the same step has stuck them after a couple of hints, or if homework is taking much longer than the school expects. A short note helps the teacher far more than answers a grown-up worked out:
“We worked on this for about 15 minutes and got stuck on question 4, at the part about remainders. We stopped there.”
Teachers use homework to see what a child can do on their own, so knowing where they got stuck is useful information, not a confession.
Schools set their own homework policies, and families feel differently about how much homework is right. If the load feels too heavy or too light, a calm conversation usually gets further than a complaint. Questions you could ask:
Ponder’s practice sets are short, with a few questions each, so a set fits inside one chunk. Every question follows five steps, starting with “What is the question asking?”, and hints arrive one at a time, from a nudge to a worked example of a similar problem. The answer is never the first thing a learner sees. You can see how Ponder works or what the sets cover in each year.
Try Ponder’s free “Where are they at?” check together: a few maths or English questions for your child’s year, with one hint at a time, then strengths and next steps in plain English. It takes 5 to 8 minutes and needs no account.
Ponder’s guides are general information for families, not professional advice. Sources were checked on 6 October 2026.
It depends on your child’s year and their school’s homework policy, so ask the teacher what they expect. If homework regularly takes much longer than that, let the school know. A short, calm session most days usually works better than one long one.
Nearby is usually best: close enough to help when asked, not so close that you take over. Younger children often need you at the table; older children may just need you in the next room.
Make the first step tiny: “Just read me the first question.” Offer a choice of which question to start with, and keep the 10-minute timer in sight. If they still can’t start after a break, stop and write a short note to the teacher.
Family life sometimes wins, and that’s fine. If you skip, a quick note to the teacher helps. If homework is regularly too much, talk to the school about its homework policy.
Stop for five minutes, name the feeling, then come back to one question only. If it keeps happening, talk to the teacher: the work may be too hard to do alone, and they will want to know. Our guide on maths confidence may help too.
Point to where to look (“Have another look at question 3”) rather than fixing it. Teachers use homework to see what a child can do on their own, so mistakes show them what to teach next.
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