Back To School, Kids

Like death and taxes in the adult world, children returning to school in the coming weeks will face their own set of inevitable challenges: peer relationships and homework.

The quality of each can have a significant impact on a child, say two Duke University experts.

Steven R. Asher, an expert on children's peer relationships and a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke, says the quality of a child's peer relationships can impact everything from academics to quality of life.

"It's extremely important to pay attention to whether children are accepted by others, whether they have friends, and what their friendships are like," Asher says. "Children who are rejected by their peers are more likely to be lonely, to be victimized by schoolmates, and to become more aggressive over time. They are also much more likely to drop out of school."

It's also important, he says, for schools to create environments that are nurturing and safe for children, and that provide a context for children to learn valuable social relationship skills. Having healthy friendships depends on children being successful at handling everyday social tasks such as dealing with conflicts of interest or being helpful toward a friend in need, or being forgiving when a friend lets you down.

Parents can also help their children by getting them involved in strong community-oriented activities that nurture relationships, Asher says.

Then there's homework. Harris Cooper, an expert on the topic who is a professor and chair of the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke, says the appropriate level of homework depends on many factors, including the subject and the student's grade level.

In general, Cooper recommends teachers follow the "10-minute rule": assign 10 minutes of homework per night for first-graders, 20 minutes for second-graders, 30 minutes for third-graders, and so on.

For junior high students, Cooper says homework appears beneficial "even with the most minimal amount of time but disappears after about 90 minutes a night."

For high school students, he suggests an optimal amount of homework at between 90 minutes and 2½ hours a night. "The positive relation between homework time and achievement continues to climb until students are doing seven to 12 hours of homework per week," Cooper says.

Parents who think their child is getting too much homework should look into whether the child is using study time effectively before contacting the teacher to discuss any concerns, Cooper says.