Too much help with homework can hinder your child’s learning progress

Parents are often guilty of helping their child a bit too much with their homework. Sometimes the homework battle can be made that little bit easier if you just tell your child what to do, or simply do it for them. At least it’s been done, you think.

Teachers have spoken of parents writing their children’s assignments, taking on the homework responsibility and emailing teachers out of hours, or, as in one case, turning up at a teacher’s home on the weekend to ask about the homework that was set.

But research shows that giving your child too much help could actually hinder their skills development and lead them to feel incompetent.

Help with homework can be filled with tension or create pressure to succeed for the child.

That’s not to say that parents shouldn’t get involved, as research shows this is an important factor in academic success. But parents need to know when it’s appropriate to do this, and when to step back.

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What are four of the top social media networks doing to protect children?

With reports of cyberbullying on the rise, a guide to what Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram are doing, and whether it’s enough

According to recent report from NSPCC, ChildLine conducted 35,000 counselling sessions for low self-esteem between April 2014 and March 2015. The report blames “a constant onslaught from cyber-bullying, social media and the desire to copy celebrities,” as key reasons.

Julia Fossi, senior analyst for online safety at NSPCC says that while most platforms are taking steps to improve safety, social networks must be held more accountable for the content they host.

She says that social sites, which often use tracking technology for adverts and marketing could use a similar technology “to identify potential bullying issues and help determine what an effective intervention would look like.”

With reports of cyberbullying on the rise and girls more likely to be affected, Will Gardner, CEO, Childnet International says that the area is “challenging” but agrees that sites must continue innovating with technology to tackle the issue.

Here, we look at what four of the biggest social media networks are currently doing.

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10 Educationally Insane Superhero PSA Comics

For most of their existence, comic books have been perceived as two things: 1) entertainment for children, and 2) terrible, morality-eroding entertainment for children. In order to strike back against these perceived problems, Marvel and DC have frequently produced public-service announcement comics, generally referred to as PSAs, using their superheroes to promote awareness of things need to be aware of, or warn kids about bad things like drugs, sex and landmines. Since these comics were educational and given out for free, they were almost invariably terrible and lame. But a few of them were terrible and insane. Here are 10 comics that were significantly crazier than they were educational.

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