Helping with Homework (teenager, teaching, activities, playing)

[lkb0714]

Originally Posted by LiLShorty4lyfe

1. Thank you for that perspective. Half of me felt that way to begin with, and the other half of me comes from a family of teachers. I am NOT the teacher type but its ingrained in me. I will back off that.

2. AGREED! She is rewarded handsomely for good, respectful behavior. On the other hand, she does spend quite a bit of time reaping the consequences of her mouth.

3. Thank you for this, too. She acts mature for any age, possibly because she's an only child but my saying "You are nine years old and have no right to speak to your parents that way" is different than showing her, hey you're 9, it doesn't really matter what you think about what im saying right now.

I was not very studious, yet she loves school. I did not excel until I reached college and now, I am always striving to do my best and I think I keep wanting to instill that into her. But like I said, her drum beats differently in a lot of aspects. I hope the teacher will work with me to instill what she needs to succeed this year. It would be much better received from the teacher than myself. Something I just have to accept. But not the attitude. It just boils my blood.

The thing is children who ARE mature for their age don't speak that way to their parents. One of the signs of maturity even in teens, is self control especially in how they speak to others.

Is it possible that you are unknowingly sending a message that being sassy is something older teens do? If so that maybe subtlety reinforcing the behavior.

[Hopes]

Originally Posted by LiLShorty4lyfe

Really? I guess I could try that. Doesn't that go against all the people constantly saying it isn't the teachers job to help your child succeed, its the parents? If she doesnt understand it, but I never check that, won't she just continue to get it wrong?

I felt it was important for them to work independently and have a sense of being fully responsible for their own work. We'd give special instruction for specific things they struggled to understand. They usually came to us with questions. Things they thought they understood but didn't became obvious in a short time.

Originally Posted by Meyerland

I am a teacher and I let my child do most of her homework independently, unless she needs support. I do check over it, and I help her fix the glaring errors.

When I was checking to see if it was done, I would explain glaring errors. Definitely. I didn't check each question/answer for 100% accuracy.

[BirdieBelle]

Originally Posted by LiLShorty4lyfe

Really? I guess I could try that. Doesn't that go against all the people constantly saying it isn't the teachers job to help your child succeed, its the parents? If she doesnt understand it, but I never check that, won't she just continue to get it wrong?

She's already been in school a full day. The last thing she needs is to sit down and have "night school" with Mom.

Let her do her homework, and let her make the mistakes.

Keep checking it for completion, but let the teacher do her thing.

[Jayerdu]

Yep, I'm on the "let her be" bandwagon. The only thing I do is check my son's work that was graded and returned home. And if needed, go over what he missed. By doing this, you can gauge how she's doing school and determine whet here or not you need to take a more active role during homework. Good luck.

[Hopes]

Originally Posted by LiLShorty4lyfe

Really? I guess I could try that. Doesn't that go against all the people constantly saying it isn't the teachers job to help your child succeed, its the parents? If she doesnt understand it, but I never check that, won't she just continue to get it wrong?

I just want to touch on this again. Helping your child succeed means ensuring she's well rested and well nourished for school, she has a quiet place and enough time to do her homework, you'll assist when she has problems, and you'll read all communications from teachers and follow up when appropriate.

Believe it or not, there are kids in families where the parents keep their children up until all hours, send them to school hungry, don't have enough structure at home to ensure homework is done, never look at their children's corrected homework and tests, never communicate with the teachers, etc.. Helping your child succeed does not mean being the person who literally teaches your child every single thing.

Heck, some of us can't because we weren't taught "new math," and we would confuse our children when we tried to teach them the way we know how to do things. There are parents who aren't very bright and can't check homework for accuracy, but they can still help their child succeed by stressing the importance of homework and providing their children with a healthy environment so they are prepared to learn while they are at school.

I knew a women who didn't even speak English, and she would look over her child's homework every single night. She didn't understand a word of it, but her checking that it was done sent a message that education was important to her, and she was going to check every night to make sure her children did their homework. That's powerful.

You'll know if she doesn't understand it by looking over the papers the teacher returns home corrected and graded.

[Momma_bear]

Originally Posted by LiLShorty4lyfe

Really? I guess I could try that. Doesn't that go against all the people constantly saying it isn't the teachers job to help your child succeed, its the parents? If she doesnt understand it, but I never check that, won't she just continue to get it wrong?

I may have a micromanaging problem. It comes with the territory of ADHD (in my experience) only because otherwise your child could end up harming themselves or doing something really bad unintentionally (not homework related) but I've preprogrammed myself to micromanage some things. Not what I wanted to do, it was like survival of the fittest as she was growing up. To avoid the major messes and trips to the ER I stayed on top of things. I hear you loud and clear.

I think that when it comes to homework it is important to be there to help your child if she needs it but not necessarily to check it. ADHD does require a bit of micromanaging.

[MaryleeII]

Look, both my kids are in HS, have after-school athletics, and both work jobs. We're talking about 10th and 12th grades, and they still send home those $*&% projects, with barely enough time to do them, let alone run all over getting just the right materials, etc. Look, teachers, you know at the beginning of the school year what your plans are, why can't you include all that at the beginning, also, on the supply lists, instead of giving people an unreasonably short time to respond? And why do you insist we get all that crap at the end of the month, when many of use only get paid once/month? Teachers are great at whining they are "overworked and underpaid" but just a little consideration that students and parents do have other obligations other than to wait for you to throw stuff at us and make it our number one priority

Look, I do those silly da**ed projects. Ok, I know, how will the kid learn? Learn to do what---make posters? My dd is an honors student, my ds has adhd and has a full schedule already, I spend my days running around buying all that crap and making pretties to please the teacher. One of my kids got literally a 2-day notice to make a brain Out of what? oh, the usual answer....stuff you have around the house. Sorry, no unused brains around here! Geez! The kid is supposed to put his life on hold, run out with mommy to Hobby Lobby and buy stuff to "make a brain". He also got called in to work tonight, so, he's supposed to say sorry, I can't come in I was given 2 days to make a brain? I told him go on, don't worry about it. I took apart a Christmas ball, cut it in half, hand drawed some stuff on the outside and labeled various parts, then tore up an old tee shirt to cover it, glued t on, make "parts" for the inside using stuff I've collected over the years, look.....that took hours, and wha would he have learned, cutting, glue, paste, draw, I was hoping that stuff would end with HS, guess it never does. I figure as long as he knows the parts of the brain, can spell them, where they are located and what they do, he doesn't learn anything more by playing artsy fartsy half the night

Guess I'm a bad momma! I don't consider making that dam*ed thing any different than hemming his pants! Teachers, if you want your stupid projects taken seriously, then get real, and give a person enough time to do it

[germaine2626]

Originally Posted by MaryleeII

Look, both my kids are in HS, have after-school athletics, and both work jobs. We're talking about 10th and 12th grades, and they still send home those $*&% projects, with barely enough time to do them, let alone run all over getting just the right materials, etc. Look, teachers, you know at the beginning of the school year what your plans are, why can't you include all that at the beginning, also, on the supply lists, instead of giving people an unreasonably short time to respond? And why do you insist we get all that crap at the end of the month, when many of use only get paid once/month? Teachers are great at whining they are "overworked and underpaid" but just a little consideration that students and parents do have other obligations other than to wait for you to throw stuff at us and make it our number one priority

Look, I do those silly da**ed projects. Ok, I know, how will the kid learn? Learn to do what---make posters? My dd is an honors student, my ds has adhd and has a full schedule already, I spend my days running around buying all that crap and making pretties to please the teacher. One of my kids got literally a 2-day notice to make a brain Out of what? oh, the usual answer....stuff you have around the house. Sorry, no unused brains around here! Geez! The kid is supposed to put his life on hold, run out with mommy to Hobby Lobby and buy stuff to "make a brain". He also got called in to work tonight, so, he's supposed to say sorry, I can't come in I was given 2 days to make a brain? I told him go on, don't worry about it. I took apart a Christmas ball, cut it in half, hand drawed some stuff on the outside and labeled various parts, then tore up an old tee shirt to cover it, glued t on, make "parts" for the inside using stuff I've collected over the years, look.....that took hours, and wha would he have learned, cutting, glue, paste, draw, I was hoping that stuff would end with HS, guess it never does. I figure as long as he knows the parts of the brain, can spell them, where they are located and what they do, he doesn't learn anything more by playing artsy fartsy half the night

Guess I'm a bad momma! I don't consider making that dam*ed thing any different than hemming his pants! Teachers, if you want your stupid projects taken seriously, then get real, and give a person enough time to do it

First of all, even students in HS learn and retain information longer when they do "hands on activities otherwise, every Biology class in America would watch a movie about how to dissect a frog rather than to do it as a "hands on experience", ditto with chemistry and physics experiments.

I really, really doubt that your child had just "two days" notice about making the brain. I bet that if you investigate you will discover that the project was announced the first day of the unit, probably in writing, in the unit syllabus and most certainly during class time several times in advance.

It reminds me of situation that I observed last fall, when I was a substitute teacher who was a co-teacher in a history class. This was the day before Thanksgiving and the teacher reminded the class that a major paper was due the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. Several students immediately started to complain and said things like "I can't do the paper, I am going on vacation over Thanksgiving". "Hey, you never told us about this paper", "That's not fair we have less than a week to do the paper".

This teacher must have heard things like this before and immediately (but politely) started to list all of the times that the class had been notified of the paper. There were something like four different written notifications, starting six weeks in the past, and at least once a week, a verbal "heads up" concerning all upcoming major assignments. After class, the teacher remarked to me "I bet that a few students will go home and tell their parents that they were first told about the paper the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and it is due the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, and their parents will be upset with me!"

And, why did you, the Mom, do the project?

[MaryleeII]

Originally Posted by germaine2626

First of all, even students in HS learn and retain information longer when they do "hands on activities otherwise, every Biology class in America would watch a movie about how to dissect a frog rather than to do it as a "hands on experience", ditto with chemistry and physics experiments.

I really, really doubt that your child had just "two days" notice about making the brain. I bet that if you investigate you will discover that the project was announced the first day of the unit, probably in writing, in the unit syllabus and most certainly during class time several times in advance.

It reminds me of situation that I observed last fall, when I was a substitute teacher who was a co-teacher in a history class. This was the day before Thanksgiving and the teacher reminded the class that a major paper was due the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. Several students immediately started to complain and said things like "I can't do the paper, I am going on vacation over Thanksgiving". "Hey, you never told us about this paper", "That's not fair we have less than a week to do the paper".

This teacher must have heard things like this before and immediately (but politely) started to list all of the times that the class had been notified of the paper. There were something like four different written notifications, starting six weeks in the past, and at least once a week, a verbal "heads up" concerning all upcoming major assignments. After class, the teacher remarked to me "I bet that a few students will go home and tell their parents that they were first told about the paper the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and it is due the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, and their parents will be upset with me!"

And, why did you, the Mom, do the project?

No, really, that's exactly the amount of time given. Students and parents were emailed details of the project, and that IS the first notice we received,. Why did I do it for him? Like I said, he didn't have time to pull it together in the time frame allowed, unless you expected him to give up his job for that night----ummmm, see, you aren't the only one working for a paycheck. Oh, BTW, dissecting a frog is usually done in class, not sent home for the kids/parents to do at home

[Mattie]

Originally Posted by MaryleeII

No, really, that's exactly the amount of time given. Students and parents were emailed details of the project, and that IS the first notice we received,. Why did I do it for him? Like I said, he didn't have time to pull it together in the time frame allowed, unless you expected him to give up his job for that night----ummmm, see, you aren't the only one working for a paycheck. Oh, BTW, dissecting a frog is usually done in class, not sent home for the kids/parents to do at home

I hope this boy isn't heading to college. He'll never make it if his mother is still doing his projects in 12th grade.

Yes, he should have told his boss he couldn't work.

OP, I'm with the group that was pretty hands off on homework. I did tell teachers at conference time that although I would make certain it was done, I didn't want to correct it. Usually the teacher told me they didn't want the parents to correct work, because they needed to know when the students hadn't grasped the lesson.