<p>I am clueless about what my kids are doing at school. I would like to have helped them when they were young, but they always said, "I can do it myself", so that was that. Plus, since I work, they like dto get their homework done before I got home.They may have gotten slightlky better grades with parental help - I actually believe they would have, especially with essays - but on the other hand I have never received a note from school that they were unprepared, didn't hand in homework on time, etc and they are now 15 and 17. As my daughter gets ready to go off to college next year (wherever that will be), at least I am not worried about how she'll do "on her own", since she has always worked on her own.</p>