A sedentary lifestyle is bad for you and children spend too long looking at screens, so one way to fix that is to reduce the amount of homework.
To the pupils who are showing this to their parents, you should rip the paper at this point because the research isn't quite as it seems.
Firstly, the study was done in China. It's a nation where they already do way more homework than we do in the UK. We'd have to do more homework to make the level they reduced theirs to.
That's exactly the kind of detail your parents would focus on but the general point still remains. Doing homework these days requires being on a computer screen of some sort and screentime isn't good for you.
The study found that less screentime resulted in children spending 45 minutes less a day sitting down and they also had earlier bedtimes. Once again, I hope you trimmed this off before showing it to your parents.
When you dig into the details, like only someone who did a lot of homework at school can do, you notice that the study looked at reducing time playing online games and homework. Yet the headlines tell us to reduce homework. How about we reduce the online gaming first? It's like saying being a big building is bad for teenagers, so should we reduce time spent in school or in the local Wetherspoons?
The study suggested changing the laws to prevent online gaming providers letting children play on week nights and stopping schools handing out too much homework.
One of the researchers said: “We know that leaving it to parents doesn’t work. It is much easier for parents when they can tell their children that any more screen time would be against the law.”
Say that anyway. Your children don't know what the law is. They'll believe you if you say something is illegal. My son thinks it's against the law to buy ice cream on a day with a Y in it.
If they want to know the actual law they'll have to do their homework.
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