Homework Isn’t the Problem — Dependency Is

It is 8:30 p.m. Dinner is done. The house should be winding down.
Instead, the dining table has become a battlefield.

On one side sits a tired Standard 4 child, staring blankly at a stack of Buku Latihan. On the other side sits an even more exhausted parent, wondering how homework has turned into a nightly emotional marathon — and why a primary school syllabus suddenly feels harder than what you remember from your own school days.

At Zekolah, we hear this concern often. Parents talk about homework feeling overwhelming, especially in SJKC, where the volume can be relentless. And yes, the workload can be heavy. But very often, the exhaustion parents feel does not come from the amount of homework.

It comes from how the homework is being done.

More specifically, it comes from the fact that many children cannot — or believe they cannot — complete even a single page without an adult sitting right next to them.

Homework isn’t the real problem.
Dependency is.

The “Sit-With-Me” Habit That Slowly Becomes a Trap

This pattern almost always begins with good intentions.

In Standard 1, your child struggles to read instructions. You sit beside them and help. You read the question aloud, explain what it means, and guide their hand as they write the answer. When they hesitate, you give a hint. When they make a mistake, you correct it immediately.

This support is appropriate — even necessary — at that stage.

But fast forward a few years. Your child is now in Standard 4. They can read perfectly well. They understand basic instructions. Yet the routine has not changed. They open their book, stare at the page, and wait. They wait for you to sit down. They wait for you to interpret the question. And when a difficult Maths problem appears, their instinct is not to check their textbook or try a formula — it is to look up and say, “I don’t know how to do this.”

This is the “Sit-With-Me” trap.

Without realising it, constant presence teaches children a dangerous lesson: learning is a two-person activity. Instead of building confidence, we quietly remove the very struggle that creates it. Children stop practising thinking. They start practising compliance — waiting for reassurance, hints, and confirmation before every step.

Why This Becomes a Crisis in Upper Primary and Secondary School

The Malaysian education system changes expectations faster than many parents realise.

By upper primary and especially secondary school, teachers assume students can work independently. Homework is no longer guided line by line. Instructions are not repeated multiple times. Exams offer no prompts, no hints, and no second chances.

This is why parents often say, “My child understands in tuition, but cannot do homework alone.”

This is not a content problem. It is a dependency problem.

This same pattern often becomes painfully clear during assessments like UASA, which don’t simply test knowledge but expose the daily learning habits children have quietly developed over the years.

When students are used to external guidance, the moment it disappears, they freeze. Homework becomes emotional, not because it is too difficult, but because the child has never learned how to sit with uncertainty and work through it independently.

Support vs Carrying: A Line Many Parents Don’t Realise They’ve Crossed

Breaking this cycle feels uncomfortable because it feels like bad parenting.

If you step back, your child may cry. They may get answers wrong. They may not finish the page. But there is an important difference between supporting a child’s learning and carrying it for them.

Support means providing structure — a routine, a quiet space, the right materials. It means reviewing work after it is completed and identifying gaps calmly.

Carrying means removing obstacles before the child has a chance to climb them.

When a child freezes the moment something feels hard, it is often a sign of learned helplessness. They have learned that if they wait long enough, or look distressed enough, help will arrive with the solution. To change this, parents must become comfortable with allowing struggle — not as punishment, but as training.

Independence Is a Skill, Not a Personality Trait

Children are not born independent learners. Independence is a muscle, and homework is where it is built.

When your child says, “I can’t do it,” the most important question is not whether they are right, but whether they have tried. Sitting with that discomfort — the pause before the answer appears — is where problem-solving pathways form.

This is also why the type of practice matters.

Children cannot learn independence using confusing or poorly aligned materials. They need resources that reflect what they see in school and in exams, so effort feels meaningful rather than random.

At Zekolah, our Textbook-Aligned Exercises are designed to follow the KSSR syllabus closely, allowing students to attempt familiar concepts independently before parents review them. For older students, Past Year Papers shift the dynamic entirely. The struggle becomes “child versus the paper”, not “child versus parent”. Your role changes from rescuer to coach — reviewing performance after the attempt is made.

That shift is powerful.

Let Them Get It Wrong — That’s the Point

Homework is not meant to be perfect. It is meant to be honest.

A flawless homework book that was heavily guided tells the teacher nothing. The class moves on, and the child’s real gaps stay hidden. A homework page filled with genuine mistakes, on the other hand, provides valuable information — to teachers, to parents, and to the student themselves.

Tonight, try a small change. Set a clear time window. Tell your child you are available to review, not to pre-teach. Let them attempt the work first. They may complain. They may sit quietly doing nothing for a while. That pause is not failure — it is the sound of independence being formed.

Homework isn’t the problem.
Dependency is.

And the good news is this: dependency is learned — which means it can be unlearned, one uncomfortable homework session at a time.