How much should I help with homework?

Short answer: help with the step just beyond what he can do alone, and take the help away as soon as he can.

Lev Vygotsky called the gap between what a child can do alone and what they can do with support the zone of proximal development. Learning happens inside that zone. Wood, Bruner and Ross later watched tutors help young children build a puzzle and named the effective pattern scaffolding: the tutor recruits attention, simplifies the task, keeps the child pointed at the goal, marks what matters, manages frustration, and demonstrates only when needed. The best tutors did less as the child did more.

Two failure modes match your two experiments. Sitting there and doing the thinking is scaffolding that never comes down, so the skill stays with you. Leaving entirely removes the scaffold before the structure can stand.

What it looks like at the kitchen table

• Ask before telling. “What’s the question asking?” beats “It’s asking for the area.”
• Shrink your role on purpose. Sit for the first problem, check in on the third, review at the end. Say the plan out loud so the fade is expected, not abandonment.
• Praise the strategy, not the answer. “You re-read the question” is a move he can repeat.

How emoGlow uses it

Bloom is built to scaffold the parent, not replace them: it asks first, reflects back, and suggests the next smallest step rather than a full script. Compass applies the same idea to hard conversations, letting you rehearse with Bloom playing your child before the real one.

Sources

• Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Harvard University Press.
• Wood, D., Bruner, J. S., & Ross, G. (1976). The role of tutoring in problem solving. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 17(2), 89–100.

This is general information grounded in published research. It is not medical or educational advice.