Children’s Distractibility Adds Hours to Weekly Homework, Causes Family Tension

Eliminating stress, frustration, and pain in all its forms have been a constant goal driving many great innovations and modern advancements. Homework is supposed to be aiding our children’s development and enabling enlightenment, knowledge, and life skills. Not driving a wedge through the family fabric by adding more stress and frustration. Is harder homework the reason for household stress?

According to our recent proprietary study of 782 parents across the US, a majority of parents — 63 percent — report that their children’s homework is a source of household stress and frustration. To any parent of a child during this age of smartphones, this news will come with a little shock and much consternation.

Technology has streamlined homework completion, to be sure: students now have far greater access to information than ever before. School reports that once required a trip to the local library or digging through textbooks and encyclopedias can now be researched in a matter of clicks.

This access to information and communication has come with a cost on focus and productivity.

For many children of elementary-school age, there are roughly six hours between school and bedtime, with the final bell being at 3 pm and heads hitting the pillow at 9 pm. After factoring in travel times, dinner, and any after-school activities, this makes for family time being precious time; homework notwithstanding. But when distractions are factored in, the evening hours grow even more dear.

Of the respondents to our survey, 57 percent report that distractions inflate the time their children spend on homework each evening. Nearly half (42 percent) that homework time swells by an extra 30 to 60 minutes per evening. For 4 percent of the families responding to the survey, students are spending an extra two hours on homework because of distractions.

Frustration mounts over the length of time needed to complete homework, projects and the need for parents to constantly redirect their children to stay on task. Fortunately, while technology might be a source of distraction from the task at hand, technology can also help focus.

Check out the rest of the results of our study and get some insight on restoring attention and concentration on Narbis’ blog on children and homework distractibility.