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NORTON -- Stuart Peskin had the group of about 20 people, mostly parents of elementary school children, on their feet doing an exercise based on the game of Simon Says.

"Put your hand on your head," he said. "You're out!" he exclaimed, pointing to several folks who put their hand on their head without Peskin saying the two required words. He executed a few more exercises, calling the parents on their mistakes.

Peskin, who has spent more than 40 years in education, performed the exercise to show that, just like in Simon Says, kids will follow visual and other cues from their teachers and parents. And often, there can be different interpretations, missed cues and miscommunications.

This is particularly true when it comes to homework and that can lead to confrontation, or "homework horrors," as Peskin titled his presentation last week at the Solmonese Elementary School.

The retired teacher and principal, now director of the non-profit Title 1 dissemination program, offered some advice to parents who often times find themselves arguing until they're blue to see a child's homework through. Peskin said what parents communicate to their child about homework plays a role in determining how the child approaches it. In addition, communication and discipline will help diffuse those battles. "Then there will be no more fights," he said.

Rule number one, he said: "You are not the teacher." Rule number two: "You are not the teacher." And rule number three: "You're not the teacher."

Different dynamics are in play between when a teacher tells a student to do homework and the child actually goes home and does it.

Among the practices suggested by Peskin is for parents to expect homework every night, including vacations and weekends. Even if there's a night when a child does not have homework, a parent can say, "Well, good. Then you have more time for reading."

Also, set a specific time, a specific place and the specific circumstances under which the child is required to do his or her homework on a daily basis.

"Do I know some kids need to decompress when they come home from school? Do you (parents) need a chance to decompress when you come home? Do I know kids have soccer, hockey, ballet, CCD classes, trapeze lessons? Yes," Peskin said.

Parents should set a time that's convenient for them, he said. "But you set the time, not them."

Siblings should be separated while doing their homework, especially if an older child lags behind a younger one academically. It will mean one less hurdle to jump in getting a hesitant learner started on his or her homework.

Parents, he said, should also make sure children have the proper materials close at hand - don't be borrowing their scissors or their pen for your own convenience so that it's missing when the child needs it.

"You know a child can spend two hours sharpening a pencil," he noted humorously, pointing to the importance of preventing any delays once the child is settling in to do his or her assignment. And don't give in and give them the answer if they struggle or say they can't do it, Peskin said.

"What do parents do when a kid misspells a word? They correct them." Parents should allow children to self-correct. That means if a child looks at a word and gets it wrong, the parent should probably say, "That's an error. What else could it be?"

Children will not only learn better, but also gain more independence in solving problems.

Parents, he said, should be monitoring homework, not doing it for the child or fighting over it with them.

He used learning to ride a bicycle as an analogy to parents' roles in their child's homework: First, the parent is there to hold the bike up, then to slowly let go, and then eventually, to let go completely. Although, "certainly, you can give them that propping up when they start to falter," Peskin added.

He said an almost instant cure to the constantly forgotten homework is bringing that child to school to apologize to the teacher for not submitting his or her homework that same day. "Children do not want to have to apologize to a teacher for not bringing in homework."

"The child will not be scarred for life," nor will he or she forget his or her homework again, Peskin assured.

Never fail to get in touch with the child's teacher, whether it's by note or in person, if there is a troubling pattern. Teachers don't have the time to zero in on every child and what they may be missing or misunderstanding, he said.

"Homework is a method of communication," Peskin said. "Why send a child back to fail?"

For those children who offer more of a challenge and resistance to doing homework, Peskin said communication with a dose of discipline is needed. A child needs to know there will be consequences if homework is not being completed. However, parents needn't say what those consequences will be, especially in the heat of the moment.

"Do not tell them because whatever you decide at that moment is probably not right. Just let them know there will be consequences," because for children, "the anticipation of the consequence is worse than the consequence," Peskin said.

It might not work the first time, he said. But "consistency, consistency, consistency," is key.

Also, avoid threats and "remember, louder doesn't mean they'll hear you any better."

Parents need to do their homework too, including noting error patterns in their child's homework, something they wouldn't necessarily garner from class test results with only checkmarks to go by.

Parents should also know what their child's assignments are and should check their backpacks for notes and other papers. They should also help children figure out a strategy for completing assignments, like doing the most difficult one first, and manage their time. "You run the clock; the clock doesn't run you," Peskin said.

Parents also need to register that their level of understanding a homework assignment is much different than that of their child's. They need to remember that they can ask a child to explain how they are working out the problem or what in particular may be giving them difficulty. Peskin recalled when his daughter was young and went three weeks misspelling the first two of every 20 vocabulary words. When he asked why she was consistently spelling the first two words on her weekly list incorrectly, she responded: "Because if I get all 20 correct, then I'll have 25 vocabulary words the next week."

Parents said the forum gave them at least a couple of tips they planned to employ at home to avoid the homework head-to-heads.

The suggestion that stuck with Jennifer Beaulieu was having her children do their homework at the same time, in the same place, every day. "And separating siblings, that would have never occurred to me," she said. Her husband Paul said he particularly liked the idea of setting expectations that there will be homework every night, including reading on the nights there may be no homework.

Suzanne Linehan, mother of twin 5-year-olds, said she will take up the tip of resisting correcting her children as they are trying to do their homework. And while they are still young, she said she will keep in mind separating the two when there's homework to be done.

The pointers for parents are something Peskin said can calm troubled waters when it comes to homework. And if things aren't working out right now, it's time to change things.

Drawing from a comment attributed to Albert Einstein, Peskin said, "Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the height of insanity."