Taking the Stress out of Homework by Abby Freireich and Brian Platzer

Taking the Stress out of Homework by Abby Freireich and Brian Platzer is a great book for helping kids with executive functioning, which is something that becomes extremely important in the later elementary and middle school years. In fact, when I was writing my book, and my kids were getting older and I had several in middle school, I decided that if I ever wrote a follow-up book geared towards helping parents of middle schoolers, it would focus on executive function skills. While kids are in the earlier elementary school years, parents mostly need to help their kids with math and reading. When the kids get into middle school, parents primarily need to help them develop organizational, time-management, and other executive functioning skills.

In addition to that, this book has good advice for helping guide kids through their homework. The authors mention many common stress points that parents face while helping with homework and how to overcome those stress points. There is especially good instruction for helping students with writing assignments, including organizing their thoughts, getting started, and understanding what the teacher expects of the assignment.

There is also a nice section on the various standardized tests kids face: ISEE, SSAT, SAT, and ACT, and a section with printable resources to help you with creating a homework schedule or getting started on that writing assignment.

Taking the Stress out of Homework is a great asset for parents of upper elementary school kids and middle and high schoolers.