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The 'Over-Parenting Crisis' in School and at Home (2015)

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Re: The 'Over-Parenting Crisis' in School and at Home (2015)

#51

Post by 1996 »

citizenkeen wrote: post #41
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which leads to the question of how one teaches general parenting skill.

My wife is a pediatric occupational therapist. My dad's always saying "There's no book on parenting." My response if always "Screw you, yes there is. But you went to business school." You can pay someone to fix your injuries, or broken pipes, but you can't pay someone to raise your kids. When my son was born, I went into it with the knowledge of three highly rated books on Amazon I had picked at random. My wife went…

> but you can't pay someone to raise your kids.

Actually, you can. It's called a nanny. If you prefer a cheaper version, it's called au pair.

Re: The 'Over-Parenting Crisis' in School and at Home (2015)

#52

Post by analog31 »

seattle_spring wrote: post #47
aiyodev wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parents who understand what “tracking” is. If you aren’t, you’re setting your child up for failure.

What is "tracking" in this case?

Kids are separated into different classes based on ability, so there's a fast place class and a slower paced class at each grade level. My elementary school was tracked. My mom made damn sure that my brothers and me were placed in the fastest track, whether we belonged there or not.

Tracking has a lot of ominous implications due to bias, and has been abandoned to a considerable extent, but teachers still unavoidably treat different kids with different expectations. And "involved" parents can influence those expectations.

Re: The 'Over-Parenting Crisis' in School and at Home (2015)

#53

Post by charlchi »

stcredzero wrote: post #22
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which leads to the question of how one teaches general parenting skill.

We simply don't live together enough to observe other parents enough to get the right information. We only see surfaces nowadays.

I mean it's obvious that the vast majority of people, parents and their children, are spending too much time in front of a computer, TV or phone screen. I'm 20 now, growing up I barely had any contact with my father besides maybe an hour around the dinner table a day. That's when we actually sat around a dinner table. For the vast majority of my early childhood and teens we never did.

Re: The 'Over-Parenting Crisis' in School and at Home (2015)

#54

Post by analog31 »

nugget wrote: post #45
citizenkeen wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife is a pediatric occupational therapist. My dad's always saying "There's no book on parenting." My response if always "Screw you, yes there is. But you went to business school." You can pay someone to fix your injuries, or broken pipes, but you can't pay someone to raise your kids. When my son was born, I went into it with the knowledge of three highly rated books on Amazon I had picked at random. My wife went…

So what would you recommend for potential parents who don't have the years of hands-on experience that your wife had?

Be born with genes for incredible self discipline and emotional stamina, and your kids are likely to be born with those genes as well. In fact, all the books I read said that you have to apply the techniques with total consistency and regularity, or the method doesn't work. That's something I'm utterly incapable of doing.

Re: The 'Over-Parenting Crisis' in School and at Home (2015)

#55

Post by dragonwriter »

citizenkeen wrote: post #41
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which leads to the question of how one teaches general parenting skill.

My wife is a pediatric occupational therapist. My dad's always saying "There's no book on parenting." My response if always "Screw you, yes there is. But you went to business school." You can pay someone to fix your injuries, or broken pipes, but you can't pay someone to raise your kids. When my son was born, I went into it with the knowledge of three highly rated books on Amazon I had picked at random. My wife went…

> My dad's always saying "There's no book on parenting."

This is both literally factually wrong and basically correct in its underlying message.

There are, of course, very many books on parenting and very many being published every day. What there isn't, though, is something correct, clear, authoritative, comprehensive, accessible, and easily filtered out by the layman from the noise of all the stuff published which meets none of those criteria.

Perhaps more on point, there's no general education on parenting.

Re: The 'Over-Parenting Crisis' in School and at Home (2015)

#56

Post by [deleted] »

privacypoller wrote: post #46
burfog wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a slightly different way to interpret that. Some students, despite being in your classroom, are really being homeschooled. For example, my wife and I both got extra assignments from our parents. The parents aren't just helping. The parents are teaching. You aren't trusted to teach. Other students have parents that trust you to teach. Your job is to teach, and these parents expect you to do it. In theory, the…

Not sure what jurisdiction you're in, but I'm in Canada where we generally have good teachers. The problem we're experiencing is a curriculum that we feel is becoming easier over time and shifting away from core fundamentals. Teachers are powerless to oppose or address this, regardless of how they personally feel or want to teach. Should my 10-yr-old learn coping strategies for anxiety? absolutely, but she should als…

[deleted]

Re: The 'Over-Parenting Crisis' in School and at Home (2015)

#57

Post by laurieg »

analog31 wrote: post #52
seattle_spring wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is "tracking" in this case?

Kids are separated into different classes based on ability, so there's a fast place class and a slower paced class at each grade level. My elementary school was tracked. My mom made damn sure that my brothers and me were placed in the fastest track, whether we belonged there or not. Tracking has a lot of ominous implications due to bias, and has been abandoned to a considerable extent, but teachers still unavoidably…

Tracking (or setting, or grouping) essentially means that the higher level groups are freed from the more distracting characters in the lower groups. Great for them, but terrible for you if you end up in one of those lowers sets and end up with a loud, boisterous and violent class for a year.

Teachers are busy and overworked. I'm sure they try their best to put kids in the correct group for each subject, but you could easily end up in the 'wrong' one with no malice on the teachers part.

My mother was a school teacher and when she found out that I wasn't in the higher group for English she fought tooth and nail to get me up there. She knew exactly what could happen in those lower groups.

Re: The 'Over-Parenting Crisis' in School and at Home (2015)

#58

Post by laurieg »

As someone considering starting a family, I have literally no idea what parenting is anymore. When I was younger I was pretty much left to my own devices, sent off to play with my brother and then packed off to school when old enough. My parents were too busy working, cooking and cleaning to do much fancy extra curricular stuff.

I do wonder now what I should be doing to prepare for parenthood. I feel that perhaps it's not the sort of thing that can be distilled down into an easy to read 200 page paperback.

Re: The 'Over-Parenting Crisis' in School and at Home (2015)

#59

Post by cheez »

laurieg wrote: post #58

As someone considering starting a family, I have literally no idea what parenting is anymore. When I was younger I was pretty much left to my own devices, sent off to play with my brother and then packed off to school when old enough. My parents were too busy working, cooking and cleaning to do much fancy extra curricular stuff. I do wonder now what I should be doing to prepare for parenthood. I feel that perhaps it'…

If you think you were raised well, then by all means reproduce it. If not, fix what's broken. Don't overcompensate for perceived weaknesses in your upbringing, be honest.

For example, were you fat as a teenager? OK, make sure your kids have good eating habits. Notice this is not: put them in crossfit, feed them only vegetables.

Re: The 'Over-Parenting Crisis' in School and at Home (2015)

#60

Post by [deleted] »

tarr11 wrote: post #15

I'm not convinced this is a real problem. The term helicopter parenting was first used in 1990 [0] New Yorker article on same topic from 2008 [1] Articles and posts like this are chock-full of anecdotes and head-nodding, but short on studies or other data to even correlate against. Seems like this "crisis" has been happening for a long time. Is there a longitudinal study on children who have been "helicopter parented…

[deleted]
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