How to help with homework when you don't know the answer

It's 8pm. Your kid is stuck on fractions, or a paragraph response, or a science worksheet. You haven't touched this material in twenty years, and the method looks nothing like the one you learned.

Here's the good news: helping with homework is mostly not about knowing the answer. It's about figuring out where your kid got stuck, and keeping the evening from falling apart while they work it out.

Find the exact spot where it breaks

"I don't get it" usually means "I don't get one step." Your job is to find that step.

Ask your child to show you the last part that made sense, then walk you through it out loud. Somewhere in the explanation they'll hesitate, or say "and then I just kind of..." That's the spot.

Sometimes the stuck point isn't the new skill at all. A kid struggling with long division may really be shaky on multiplication facts. A kid struggling with a word problem may be fine at the math and stuck on reading the question. This is worth knowing, because re-doing tonight's worksheet won't fix a gap from last year.

Questions that work even when you don't know the subject

You don't need the content to ask these:

• What is this question asking you to do?
• Is there an example in your notes or textbook that looks like this one?
• What have you tried so far?
• If you had to guess, what would you try first?
• How could you check whether your answer makes sense?

These move the thinking back to your child, which is where the learning happens. They also help you stay calm, because you're not pretending to be the expert.

Resist the urge to hand over the shortcut

When your kid is miserable, showing them how you'd do it is tempting. Sometimes it's fine. But there are two risks.

First, the teacher may be teaching a specific method, and yours can confuse things. If you're not sure, it's reasonable to ask the teacher which method they want.

Second, a finished worksheet tells the teacher your child understands something they don't. Homework that's quietly done by a parent hides the exact information a teacher needs.

Decide when to stop

A tired, frustrated kid at 8:30pm is not learning much. Pick a limit before you start. For example, give one stuck problem 15 or 20 minutes, then stop.

Then write a short note to the teacher: "We worked on number 4 for 20 minutes and got stuck on how to start." Most teachers would rather know than receive a wrong answer or a blank page.

Honestly, this depends on the teacher and the school. Some are understanding about incomplete work and some aren't. You know your situation better than any article does.

Watch the temperature

If your child is crying or shouting, the math isn't going in. Take a break, get a snack, walk around the block. The problem will still be there in ten minutes.

Praise effort and specifics ("you caught that sign error yourself") more than being smart. And try not to say "this is easy," because when it isn't easy for them, they hear that something is wrong with them.

One worksheet usually isn't enough practice

This is the part that gets missed. A single homework sheet is often just a first exposure. If the same kind of problem keeps tripping your child up, they probably need a few more of that same kind, at a level where they succeed some of the time, not all of it and not none of it.

You can do this yourself. Look at the problem they got stuck on and write three or four similar ones with different numbers. Have them do those the next day, when they're fresh. If they can do them, great. If not, you've found out something useful.

If writing your own problems isn't realistic at 8pm, that's where a tool can help. LeftStart is a free, donation-funded app where you can snap a photo of the homework and it generates practice on that skill. It keeps going until your child has it down. It doesn't replace the teacher or you sitting nearby, but it can cover the "more of the same" part.

What to try tonight

Pick one thing, not all of the above:

1. Ask your child to explain the last step that made sense.

2. Find the one step where they stall.

3. Set a time limit, and write the teacher a note if you hit it.

You don't need to be the expert. You need to be the person who sits there, asks good questions, and notices when it's time to stop. That's more than enough, and it's more than a lot of kids get.