The homework wars seem to be a hallmark of weekday evenings with school-age kids, and parents are always the ones defeated. As my daughter heads to kindergarten this year, I am dreading this fight. Because there will be a fight ... right? There will be times when she won't want to do her homework, and we'll have to figure out some way to make her do her homework, and everything will be hard. I have been bracing myself.

As a parent, I often feel like a walking stopwatch. "Three more minutes of TV!" "Eight minutes before it's time to brush your teeth!" "Twenty-four minutes until bedtime!"

Helping with homework is part of everyday life once your kid hits school age. For the first couple of years it isn't hard stuff, but you know that one day your kid will have an assignment that stumps them and you. Luckily, you have other options besides furtively googling the answer while your kid isn't looking.