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My kid can’t handle a virtual education, and neither can I

theatlantic.com

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Re: My kid can’t handle a virtual education, and neither can I

#431

Post by kazen44 »

piva00 wrote: post #415
Fezzik wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or French ( https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/why-are-fre... ). Or German, or Spanish (from first hand experience). The idea that every fit a child has is a real existential crisis is uniquely American as far as I can tell. Having lived in both Spain and Germany, in native homes with children... parents there “train” their children as mini-adults far better than parents do stateside. I wish I could pin…

At least here in Sweden I can see parents treating their kids much more like people than just some annoyance that needs to be told what to do or want. It's on the basic day-to-day interactions, kids asking for something in the grocery store or in a restaurant and having a dialogue why they want it and why they can or cannot have it right now, in a way you'd tell another adult (with reservations about vocabulary and c…

the idea that people do not treat their children as other people seems so bizarre to me.

I get it, kids can be annoying and drive you mad, but giving them appropriate responsible (this depends on the age ofcourse) and discourse seems like one if not the major task you have as a parent.

Re: My kid can’t handle a virtual education, and neither can I

#432

Post by kazen44 »

fatherof2 wrote: post #371
dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #40

All of these comments make me think HN has never interacted with a 5 year old. Adults are barely able to make it through a day of Zoom meetings without feeling drained, how do you expect an almost toddler to react when forced to sit in front of a screen? The only reasons adults can do it is years and years of learning impulse controls and suppression of bad emotions for everyone's good. A 5 year old does not have the…

I have 2 kids. One is 4 and the other is 8. I agree that most 5 years probably cannot sit through 30 minutes of a zoom meeting. When the lockdowns first in started in March, my 4 year old, who was 3 at the time, could barely last 15 minutes before wandering off. She has gotten better since then. She can now last 45 minutes online with her teacher, but I don’t think it’s the norm. My wife still needs to sit with her t…

I wonder how people did this before us? pandemics have happened before and while education certainl wasn't universal as it is now, it still happened?

Re: My kid can’t handle a virtual education, and neither can I

#433

Post by emteycz »

kazen44 wrote: post #430
emteycz wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should consider that a lot of families in that country (Finland I assume) are moving abroad because having zero control over education of your child is not good, and schools in Helsinki might be nice, but it's not Helsinki everywhere. Even if the quality is OK, there are many kids that simply can't function in the classic subjects/tests/marks-oriented education system, and then there is bullying.

as someone from another country where homeschooling is not allowed and private education is shunned upon, let me give you the other side of the argument. private education created a large divide between people of different social classes and it absolutely removes social cohesion. (which results in a ton of other problems). Some kids do indeed not function in normal classrooms, but this is the reason why special needs…

As a parent, I couldn't care less about social classes - I care about my child having a joyful and loving childhood. I don't want my child to be a number in a statistic that both the teachers and classmates spit on, like I was.

In my own case, putting me in special needs education (I tried) would do much more harm than good, and would not provide in any way the good experiences alternative schooling could have (sadly that didn't work out for me too).

Some kids thrive in homeschooling, some kids thrive in special needs education, some kids thrive in small group schooling, some kids thrive in democratic schools, etc, this is not a simple normal vs special needs question, and you can't say that homeschooling does not work - it works for the right individuals, and these children don't need to have anything to do with the children that need something else (as long as we don't socialize their education, of course).

Sometimes the kind of school is right but that particular one does not work and you need to put the child in a different but alike school - often impossible in socialized systems (where school is usually assigned based on residence location).

I think it's incredibly sad that we have hard science on each child being an individual with vastly differing needs, hard science on the outsized influence of childhood on later life, and yet we force children into either normal or special needs school and suppress competition and new ideas in the name of class struggle.

This music video is highly relevant, IMHO: https://youtu.be/Kd6lC14gy4c

Re: My kid can’t handle a virtual education, and neither can I

#434

Post by d_runs_far »

It's not just kids - we ran a week long course online for senior military commanders - 4 hours a day of structured discussion, another couple hours per day of self paced - my kid's grade one class was better behaved and more attentive.

Impulse control is tough for all.

Re: My kid can’t handle a virtual education, and neither can I

#435

Post by jbergens »

mrighele wrote: post #184
dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #40

All of these comments make me think HN has never interacted with a 5 year old. Adults are barely able to make it through a day of Zoom meetings without feeling drained, how do you expect an almost toddler to react when forced to sit in front of a screen? The only reasons adults can do it is years and years of learning impulse controls and suppression of bad emotions for everyone's good. A 5 year old does not have the…

> how do you expect an almost toddler to react when forced to sit in front of a screen? I'm sure any parent will say that it is impossible, and the issue is not the screen, but sitting still. I am in fact surprised that the teachers even asked to make video calls at that age. I don't know about USA preschools but here 5 years olds don't study sitting on a desk all day long, so I don't know how they can expect a kid t…

As a parent to teenagers I can say that they seem to be able to sit still in front of a computer for _hours_ as long as it is a game or a tv-show they like.

(I agree that it was a bit optimistic to expect this of 5 year olds)

Re: My kid can’t handle a virtual education, and neither can I

#436

Post by jdietrich »

kleiba wrote: post #407
jdietrich wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>All of these comments make me think HN has never interacted with a 5 year old. Your comment makes me think that you've never interacted with an East Asian 5 year old. Kids are a lot smarter than we give them credit for; long before they take their first steps, they've started decoding the incentive structures around them. Western kids live in a weird bubble that is totally devoid of any meaningful agency, so they ac…

Western kids live in a weird bubble that is totally devoid of any meaningful agency, so they act like bored inmates. Seriously?

Yes. Just like adults, kids thrive on meaning - having a role to play, being useful, seeing the impact they have on the world. Kids very quickly figure out the difference between real responsibility and make-work and act accordingly. Our beliefs about the abilities of children are powerful self-fulfilling prophecies.

Re: My kid can’t handle a virtual education, and neither can I

#437

Post by JackMorgan »

learc83 wrote: post #97

Kids can't learn all day long in a classroom. I don't know why we expect them to be able to do it remotely. School has always been 1/3 learning 2/3 baby sitting. When my parents were kids, they only went to kindergarten for half a day.

As a former middle school teacher, I can concur that most of the day is "educational themed day care" primarily about teaching kids to submit to authority and keep their heads down. Actual learning can be accomplished with far greater value by having mostly quiet reading sessions interspersed with outdoor play. Even fiction reading is a huge benefit, as most of our "reading" classes are all about talking about reading, not actually practicing it, so most students only improve their BS skills.

Re: My kid can’t handle a virtual education, and neither can I

#438

Post by dj_mc_merlin »

jbergens wrote: post #435
mrighele wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how do you expect an almost toddler to react when forced to sit in front of a screen? I'm sure any parent will say that it is impossible, and the issue is not the screen, but sitting still. I am in fact surprised that the teachers even asked to make video calls at that age. I don't know about USA preschools but here 5 years olds don't study sitting on a desk all day long, so I don't know how they can expect a kid t…

As a parent to teenagers I can say that they seem to be able to sit still in front of a computer for _hours_ as long as it is a game or a tv-show they like. (I agree that it was a bit optimistic to expect this of 5 year olds)

Five year olds are equally able to do that. The same can be said of forty year olds (barring back problems).

Re: My kid can’t handle a virtual education, and neither can I

#439

Post by chrisjs96 »

piva00 wrote: post #415
Fezzik wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or French ( https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/why-are-fre... ). Or German, or Spanish (from first hand experience). The idea that every fit a child has is a real existential crisis is uniquely American as far as I can tell. Having lived in both Spain and Germany, in native homes with children... parents there “train” their children as mini-adults far better than parents do stateside. I wish I could pin…

At least here in Sweden I can see parents treating their kids much more like people than just some annoyance that needs to be told what to do or want. It's on the basic day-to-day interactions, kids asking for something in the grocery store or in a restaurant and having a dialogue why they want it and why they can or cannot have it right now, in a way you'd tell another adult (with reservations about vocabulary and c…

I'm reading the book called unconditional parenting and it teaches a lot of this. It has an amazing effect on my 4 year old. You just literally tell them stuff and ask stuff like you would a friend or another adult. It works great. Other than that we kind of let him do things that he wants and as long as the potential danger isn't death we don't intervene.

Re: My kid can’t handle a virtual education, and neither can I

#440

Post by amerkhalid »

function_seven wrote: post #26

I'm amazed how dismissive all the comments are here. I read the article and it seems totally normal for a little kid not to be able to do "school" on a laptop. Kindergarten is so much different than later years of schooling. It's not about lectures and subjects, or homework and tests. It's about much more fundamental lessons, interspersed with creativity, socialization, and learning to be separated from your parents.…

> You give me the most well-behaved kid, ...

As a first-time father of 2.5 years old, I worry a lot about his behavior like when he hits me for no reason and then laughs. That cannot be normal, or so I used to think.

His pediatrician assure us that this is normal toddler behavior. In fact, lack of such behavior is cause of concern. Another thing she told us is that social workers look out for extremely well-behaving kids because they might be suffering abuse.

At this stage, I personally don't have experience with school age children but I imagine it is not normal for 5 years old to be able to sit in front of laptop for several hours.

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