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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)

#111

Post by btilly »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #99
ktsmith wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teachers often have no say in wether homework is assigned. The district in which my wife teaches and my son attends had a mandatory homework policy put in place by the school board. In addition to mandating that homework be assigned Monday through Thursday they specify that it should contain at least 10 minutes of reading per grade level (10 for k, 20 for 1st, 30 for 2nd, etc) as well as additional materials for othe…

> it should contain at least 10 minutes of reading per grade level Dear god, by the time a kid is in grade 5 or 6 they've lost an hour a night to reading alone. In my experience homework was rarely of use - the in class practice was enough, and home time was for the fun you didn't have while in school.

What homework does is lets the school tell parents, "Your kid's test scores may suck, but you can see that we are trying everything that we can."

In other words, they prioritize visible effort over achieved results.

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

#112

Post by bunderbunder »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #99
ktsmith wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teachers often have no say in wether homework is assigned. The district in which my wife teaches and my son attends had a mandatory homework policy put in place by the school board. In addition to mandating that homework be assigned Monday through Thursday they specify that it should contain at least 10 minutes of reading per grade level (10 for k, 20 for 1st, 30 for 2nd, etc) as well as additional materials for othe…

> it should contain at least 10 minutes of reading per grade level Dear god, by the time a kid is in grade 5 or 6 they've lost an hour a night to reading alone. In my experience homework was rarely of use - the in class practice was enough, and home time was for the fun you didn't have while in school.

By the time they're in high school, they'll be doing more reading per night than I was doing while working on my master's.

After devoting so much time to education theater, do the kids even have any energy leftover to put into actual learning?

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

#113

Post by semafour »

dragonwriter wrote: post #55
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…

> 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…

For an authoritative source, you might try "Caring for your Baby and Young Child: Birth to Age 5", by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

https://www.amazon.com/Caring-Your-Baby-Young-Child/dp/05533...

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

#114

Post by fatnoah »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #99
ktsmith wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teachers often have no say in wether homework is assigned. The district in which my wife teaches and my son attends had a mandatory homework policy put in place by the school board. In addition to mandating that homework be assigned Monday through Thursday they specify that it should contain at least 10 minutes of reading per grade level (10 for k, 20 for 1st, 30 for 2nd, etc) as well as additional materials for othe…

> it should contain at least 10 minutes of reading per grade level Dear god, by the time a kid is in grade 5 or 6 they've lost an hour a night to reading alone. In my experience homework was rarely of use - the in class practice was enough, and home time was for the fun you didn't have while in school.

As the parent of a smart 10 year old with ADHD, homework has actually been invaluable. We use the larger assignments to help him learn to manage his time and attention level. For example, we take a 5 minute scooter break after 20 minutes of work. For very large assignments, we also break things up into manageable chunks.

The homework is also very useful to have a chance to review topics and ensure understanding of things that maybe he missed in class due to not paying as close attention as he needed to.

It's been very gratifying to see his confidence levels improve and for him to start to self-manage his time or even decide to skip a scooter break because he was on a roll.

Clearly all of these are probably ancillary to the stated purpose of homework and are my own specific situation.

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

#115

Post by rayiner »

bunderbunder wrote: post #110
rayiner wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm working on kid #2, and my takeaway is this: "parenting science" is like "nutritional science." It's almost entirely bullshit, and little to no progress has been made in the field ever. There is no use paying attention to it, other than doing/not doing the obvious things. (Don't eat too many calories; don't emotionally destroy your kids.) Your kids will turn out how they are going to turn out. Instinctively, you'l…

> "parenting science" is like "nutritional science." It's almost entirely bullshit, and little to no progress has been made in the field ever. Your analogy is a good one, but it goes a layer deeper than I think you realize. "Parenting science" is like "nutritional science" in that, based on what you can get out of the popular sources, it is almost entirely bullshit. It's also similar in that the science has continued…

I disagree with that characterization, for the reasons stated here: https://www.vox.com/2016/1/14/10760622/nutrition-science-com.... In my view, if you can't develop mathematical models and test them against properly conducted experiments, then your field is not a "science." Nutrition is not a science, neither is parenting, or anything else that relies primarily on observational studies and lacks a theoretical model to connect observations together into a coherent theory.

That is not to say that observational research may not be valuable. Both nutrition and and parenting could, in theory, be developed into sciences. But until then, the fields are just collections of (often unreproducable) observations. They cannot provide general principles for say raising kids, in the same way that fluid dynamics can provide general principles for building airplanes.

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

#116

Post by fatnoah »

ergothus wrote: post #44
fosco wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this perspective interesting and I think this discussion needs to be taken further as I think it is unclear on both sides what the final expectations are to be upon completion of class/grade. that being said, I am concerned that some parents expect that teachers are also doing the 'parenting' side of things which may be unrealistic. I think that in most public schools (the one I went to) some parenting needs t…

The "teachers shouldn't parent; parents stopped parenting" lesson is one I've heard from more than a few. What if teachers ALWAYS "parented", and as societies grow more tolerant and diverse this obviously doesn't scale (parents disagree with teachers on what should be taught). Thus we decide on this image of teachers giving knowledge and means of learning, while parents give morals and social structures. But has this…

>A child is learning from EVERYTHING. Is it truly reasonable to expect that teachers aren't "parenting"?

This is precisely why, as a non-religious parent, I actually appreciated attending a Catholic school and sent my son to a non-denominational Christian school. It wasn't about religion, but it was about being in an environment where elements of characters were also emphasized.

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

#117

Post by bunderbunder »

ameister14 wrote: post #97
btilly wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me turn this around. As a parent, I think that teachers should pay attention to research on homework that says there is on average no academic benefit, but there is a huge cost in family conflict. You have enough time in the classroom to teach and provide practice time. Free family time up for what parents see best.

There's actually another way entirely to do it - have the time in class for working and have the time after for actively learning. So the students read and learn new concepts at home and practice them in group settings at school. Unfortunately, that depends on the home environment being conducive to learning.

A big part of the idea behind an inverted classroom model is to try and smooth over those problems. If a kid has a home environment that's not conducive to concentration, but they're just reading or watching videos or whatever in that time, then the damage is fairly limited and is something the teacher will get a chance to smooth over the next day.

Whereas if they're supposed to be working on homework during that time, it will not only prevent them from cementing what they're supposed to be learning, there's not really any further recourse, and it will also immediately result in poor marks, which will then engender further trouble on down the line. Especially in the Taylorist nightmare that US schools have become over the past couple decades.

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

#118

Post by fatnoah »

war1025 wrote: post #64
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'…

Be present. That's about the sum total of it I think. If you are there, you will pick up on what is and isn't working, and you can work to make it better. Really kids just want someone to love them and teach them how to be a person.

>Really kids just want someone to love them and teach them how to be a person.

This is basically my philosophy. My wife and I have an acknowledged goal of releasing a fully functional human into the wild in about 8 more years. That means teaching him how to be a self-sufficient person. There's a lot to it, but for me it distills down to giving them the confidence to fail, encourage their interests, and setting/adjusting boundaries.

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

#119

Post by astura »

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?

I have a nanny friend. FWIW her advice is always (paraphrasing):

"Kids are like dogs, you reward and encourage behavior you want and punish and discourage behavior you do want."

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

#120

Post by fatnoah »

1996 wrote: post #82
tc7 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's more implied in 'raising' children than keeping them alive and transporting them to their scheduled activities, which is what I'd expect from a nanny or au pair.

Quite the contrary, a nanny will not just keep them nourished and on schedule, but also provide emotional comfort and educational activities. It is less frequent now in the west, but in many countries kids are raised by nannies or relatives. Kids get very attached to their nannies- see Mary Poppins. It is a fictional tale, but it shows you how it was also the case in the West. If your expectations are limted to keepi…

>Quite the contrary, a nanny will not just keep them nourished and on schedule, but also provide emotional comfort and educational activities.

When my son was younger, we had a part-time nanny (about 15 hours/week) who was simply wonderful. She was always "present", focused on enrichment, and truly loved our son. Even though she hasn't been our nanny for many years, we still keep in touch and occasionally get together.

I've also seen the other side, where a nanny or au-pair is literally just an adult ensuring the kids are alive at the end of the day. Definitely one case where you'd want a solid reference!

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