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MistyRiver · 7 answers · 5y

A younger sibling frequently seeks help for a subject you're good at for homework. Your help usually significantly improves their mark -- is there a point where you should stop so they earn their own marks or is it always best to help when you can?

I don't have any faith in the collective wisdom of forcing children to go to school and do homework, giving them marks, etc., so I think donating my time so that they don't have to go through that mental torture to get good marks is a generous and helpful thing to do, even if it means they never really learn the subject as well as they would have. Chances are they'll never need to know it anyway.

I'd be pretty thorough in walking them through it at first but if they come to me for help for every other assignment, I'ma get tired. I like to teach self-sufficiency study skills so they eventually don't have to keep coming to me, or they come to me for some more insightful feedback on their work and not just "are my answers right? did I do this right?" I like to help, but people need to remember that people (tutors, teachers, etc.) literally get paid to help you, and I'm here doing it for free, so be careful about how much you ask for tbh

Well for me there's a difference between 'helping' and just doing it for them - I will help them and try to show how I'm getting to my answers until the heat death of the universe but I will never do it for them

I always help to make them help themselves, I never do their work, but I support them to do it by themselves. Help doesn't mean you have to do it on behalf of someone. If you do it that way, you take away the chance to let the other be and learn like they deserve.

Help them in a way that they learn to help themselves so you can gradually leave them to their own devices. The teach a man to fish proverb comes to mind.

Umm I'd stop once its their final exam. Thats when they need to prove themselves.

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