Set aside a quiet space in your home for your children to sit down with their books, pencils and papers every evening. Make sure distractions are at a minimum--younger siblings occupied with their own pursuits, the TV turned off, the phone off-limits until homework is completed. Provide a nutritious snack to tide them over until dinner is ready.
Look for an area in your home where you can set up a table or individual desks. Make sure the area has sufficient natural lighting or indoor lighting. If necessary, try to make sure a computer is available for research or typing papers. Provide reference materials, such as a dictionary and a thesaurus.Your children have school supplies they use at school. Have a duplicate set of supplies at home. Keep this simple and provide extra paper, pens, pencils, markers, glue, colored pencils and construction paper. If you have a high school-age child, make sure your computer printer has sufficient ink so he can complete assigned papers and hand them in on time.
Your children eat lunch at school. Depending on their school's lunch schedule, this may take place anywhere between 11 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. Children are hungry when they come home. They are not able to cognitively function at their highest if they are hungry, so make sure you have a light snack available. Cut vegetables or fresh fruit, a glass of milk or cheese and crackers with a glass of juice will help to tide them over until dinner time. Some children may opt to open a can of soup.
If you are at work when your children come home, designate one of the oldest or most responsible children to make sure homework is done before any other activity is begun.You can facilitate this process by setting and communicating clear expectations to each of your children. Make sure everyone knows who is in charge until you get home. If necessary, have one of the children call you when they get home so they can let you know what they have to do for that evening. If you have a consequence arranged for neglecting homework, impose it on the child who has not started homework. Be consistent.
Some students say they have to have absolute quiet in order to be able to study effectively; others say they need to have some sound, such as from a stereo or an iPod, in order to do their studying. Try to provide your children with the study environment that best suits their study needs.
Provide guidance and supervision to your children as they complete their homework, but do not do their work for them. The whole reason behind homework is to give them additional practice at learning and working on new concepts; we know those concepts already. If your children get stuck on a math problem and are not able to figure it out for themselves, limit yourself to reviewing the steps of the equation and "walk" them through the problem. Have them work the problem, or a similar problem three or four times until they are comfortable with the process. Even if you know how the process works, or what the answer is, do not give it to them. They will learn more effectively by discussing it and working it out for themselves.