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When one of my daughters was in third grade, my husband and I were sitting at parent teacher conference. I was a little surprised when my husband asked the teacher to give our daughter more homework. He didn’t feel like she was being challenged enough. I was also impressed, because I worked nights, and it left my husband in charge of overseeing homework. I knew he had been paying attention to what the kids were doing.

Is there such a thing as too much homework? I guess to answer this question you have to look at the reasons why you are asking. Is there not enough time in the day or week to complete it? Is the due date too soon after assigning the work? Is your child struggling to understand the subject?

Put everything into perspective. If you child doesn’t have enough time because they have other things going on every night, then you need to decide what is most important. This is your child’s education, and if their plate is too full, something else should go.

If the teacher is not giving a reasonable amount of time to complete the assignment, make sure you know when it was really assigned. Your child might be telling you a later date because they forgot or have put off doing the work. If it is really an unreasonable amount of time, talk to the teacher and explain the problem. They might think the assignment was easier than it really is, or that it didn’t require as much research. Your child might also have misunderstood the assignment and is making it more difficult.

If your child is struggling with the topic, find them some help and see if you can get more time to finish it. If you can’t provide the help, find a tutor or someone else that can help them.