Best Tips and Life Hacks to Help Your Child With Essay Writing Homework

You face a considerable problem when your child goes to school:

Homework.

Your schooler doesn’t understand why they should read, learn, and write something assigned by teachers instead of playing with friends or watching a favorite YouTube show. Most don’t like homework and don’t want to do it, and it’s especially true when the time comes to write essays.

Writing is challenging, and both younger schoolers and college students struggle with corresponding assignments. You can support your child and help them fall in love with writing and develop this critical skill.

Image by Mikhail Nilov, Pexels

How to Help Your Child With Essay Writing

Below are tips and life hacks for parents to encourage kids to write and master essay writing homework. While some schoolers and students need college paper help to deal with it, you can become the assistant your child will trust their academic challenges to overcome them together.

Here’s how:

1. Organize a Writing Space

Homework is more engaging when it’s fun. Organize a study space where your child will write: It can be a room area with no background noise or foot traffic so your schooler can focus on a task. Add a bookshelf with all the handy resources your child may need while writing: encyclopedias, dictionaries, grammar guides, children’s books, etc.

Once your child gets a writing space, you may still face an adverse reaction and unwillingness to do homework. This trick may help: Give them something they like and enjoy.

For the space to attract your child, allow them to decorate it and bring what they love or find inspiring. Posters, motivational quotes from their favorite cartoon- or movie characters, colorful stickers, you name it! Let them choose fancy instruments for writing: bright pencils and markers, a fun notebook, a pen with their favorite superhero, etc.

Choose tools that will inspire your child to write.

2. Help Them Learn Essay Writing Basics

Essay writing homework may trigger a schooler if they don’t understand how to do it. It may be challenging for your child to decide on an essay topic or thesis statement, or they may need help combining arguments and evidence into logical paragraphs.

Or, they just don’t understand the subject or find the assigned topic uninteresting.

Talk to your schooler to recognize this problem and offer your help. Learn the rules of essay writing together; explain the structure, discuss the formatting rules, and reveal citation style.

You know your child better than others, so you’ll find proper words to communicate these details in a way they’ll understand.

3. Create a Supporting Environment

Demonstrate your interest in the child’s homework and achievements. Your support and acceptance are essential for boosting their confidence and building trust. Be a coach:

Instead of criticizing their mistakes or laziness, offer guidelines, fair feedback, and encouragement.

Make them fall in love with writing: Encourage them to write short fiction stories on topics of their interest or keep a journal. When offering feedback, start with positive statements rather than dwelling on mistakes.

4. Help Them Plan the Writing Process

Most children need help with planning and time management. Teach yours to organize time and plan each step of the essay writing process:

Work together and create a schedule with deadlines to balance homework and other activities. Break their essay writing project into short pieces so your child doesn’t feel overwhelmed by a more extended writing assignment: Set some time for research, outlining, writing a draft, and editing. Teach your schooler to understand deadlines and prioritize tasks to work with them properly.

5. Seek Help from Tutors

What do teachers expect from essay writing homework? Do you know your school’s policies? If your child constantly struggles with essay writing, you need to recognize the problem and ask for external support, if necessary.

Visit the school and discuss options for your involvement in the process. After all, you aren’t trained to address all the learning difficulties like teachers are. Also, you can seek help from outside educational experts:

They can suggest additional resources, exercises, and strategies to improve your schooler’s writing skills. The extra help can boost confidence and encourage your child to craft better essays and develop creativity.

6. Play Grammar and Spelling Games

High-quality writing is also about proper spelling and grammar. Help your child master them as soon as possible:

Younger children have a better memory. So, playing grammar and spelling games will allow them to remember these language aspects and avoid struggling with them in their future assignments. When the time comes to craft an A-worthy essay, your child will appreciate your efforts to educate them.

7. Read Drafts Aloud and Revise Essays Together

Essay writing homework also includes proofreading and editing the drafts. Doing that together with your child, you’ll monitor the quality of task completion and help your schooler polish writing skills.

Once you reread and revise the essay, please encourage your child to read it out loud. It will help uncover more errors and improve the draft. (If something sounds strange, ask, “Does it make any sense to you?” thus allowing your child to think and revise weak points.)

Emphasize that high-quality essay writing involves multiple drafts. Explain that the first draft is for writing ideas, while the second one includes ideas organization, correcting grammar and punctuation, and revising for logical coherence and better readability.

As a bonus, such practice helps boost the child’s reading and speaking skills. Ask your schooler to read the essay to the whole family: They’ll be the center of attention and listen to other family members’ feedback.

Goodbye to the fear of public speaking!

Bonus: Set Realistic Expectations

Let’s face it: Parents often have excessive requirements for their children.

(No wonder the pressure to succeed is among the top reasons students experience academic burnout and are ready to cheat or do everything to meet high expectations from teachers, parents, and the public in general.)

 Please do your best to understand realistic age expectations, research your child’s age-appropriate milestones, and find suitable methods to support them.

Celebrate wins and reward your child to give them extra motivation to work. Also, learn to distinguish between laziness and anxiety:

Your schooler may have trouble keeping up with homework because their anxiety blocks the ability to think. So, don’t rush to demand high grades for essays. Recognize the level of your child’s anxiety and help them reduce it if necessary.