"Mom, mom!" said my third-grade son, Jake, an edge of panic in his voice. "Do we have any Kenya stuff?" He'd been assigned his first report ever, on Kenya. Spurred by Jake's anxiety, my husband and I scrambled to find anything we could about the country.

But, then we began to wonder, should we be helping him at all? Shouldn't we let him research by himself? Or were we expected to help him not only with this task, but also with any assignment that sailed out of his book bag?

WHAT IS A PARENT'S ROLE?

Nancy Paulu, in her article "Helping Your Child with Homework," writes, "It's not your homework--it's your child's." She adds that too much help with homework will undermine your child's confidence. Doing homework not only builds a sense of competence, but fosters good study habits, responsibility and independence. A parent's role, it seems, is not to teach, but to encourage--by providing a quiet study space, using positive reinforcement, and checking that assignments have been completed.

That's sounds easy enough, until you suddenly find yourself on the homework battlefield: Maybe your child has written an essay using Martian syntax and spelling. Or maybe he's forgotten the assignment altogether--and blames an alien for eating it on the way home from school. Don't despair! We've got seven creative strategies to keep your home from turning into a war zone.