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Parents are exhausting their children. An eighth-grade boy explains how
- giardini 9y agoThis kid has an anger problem, not necessarily a parent problem. Phrases such as "you want to throw something at them, to yell at them to simply leave you alone" and "hands curl into fists" are angry words. I find them shocking compared to how I felt about my parents. He speaks of "...parent[s] tell[ing] you to get off your ass and start doing something productive..." but both the manner and content of that phrase are over the top. This child needs to learn to communicate how one feels and what has transpired during the day. Now if, when this happens, the parents respond with physical punishment, that is another story. BTW he doesn't write particularly well.
- Jyaif 9y agoWhen your parents treat you like shit and that you know you'd be happier without them, you get angry at having to be around them.
- Retric 9y agoThis is how 8th graders communicate. They really don't think or speak like adults. It's very common for young males to be either have violent thoughts or be at least mildly depressed. As to writing this representative of fairly average writing. http://www.oregon.gov/ode/educator-resources/assessment/Writing38/wrigr8nm-mygrandfather.pdf http://www.oregon.gov/ode/educator-resources/assessment/Writ...
- blatherard 9y agoYou're right that he's still just a kid, though I think he's in eighth grade, so roughly 13 years old rather than 8.
- robteix 9y agoQuick correction: he’s an eight-grader, not 8yo. An eight-grader is more like 13 or 14 years old.
- k2xl 9y agoWhat makes you say he doesn't write particularly well? Most 8th graders that I know don't write this well. I personally thought he communicated very well how he felt and what transpired. I also didn't get the impression that he is blaming his parents - or anyone really, I think he's blaming the system in general. School is exhausting. Don't know about you, but when I got home from school I just needed an hour to unwind. Usually it was watching TV with my sister for an hour before starting homework. Sure, some people may be wired differently and "suck it up" and just put up with it, but I think decompressing after a hard day of work is probably healthy.
- cududa 9y agoIt's the parents job to teach communication and facilitate discussion free of punishment, not the child's.
- coryl 9y agoI like how you deduced a psychological background profile and English writing analysis in one fell swoop.
- tyingq 9y agoI don't get how this one anecdotal example of bad parenting is suddenly worthy of broad attention. Is there a tie to this being common or widespread that I missed?
- Knufen 9y ago''While this scenario obviously doesn’t apply to all kids, it does to plenty of them, and Wiseman wants parents who see themselves in this to take note'' I think the pressure kids and teenagers feel in modern society is worthy of discussion
- mjevans 9y agoI think everyone feels pressured, and not in the same ways. Not just teens or adults. My personal experience growing up and living in a 'Western' society is that we're collectively very bad at empathy and empathizing. It is not obvious that people understand each other; lacking the full context of knowing the ambitions, desires, loathings and fears an individual has. There is no time, common social etiquette, or polite way of limiting parts of interactions that are too sensitive in that moment. It is so pervasive that many movies have these issues as critical dependencies that enable the actual plot. (Often in the form of; keep a secret from family/loved ones to protect them)
- jacobolus 9y agoTo be fair, the families of people I know from most other parts of the world also are often pretty bad at empathy. I’m not convinced that “Western” society is particularly special in that regard.
- justinclift 9y ago> ... keep a secret from family/loved ones to protect them. Keeping secrets from people to protect them hides reality from them, which hinders their ability to understand and make correct decisions. Anyone who does that to a person in real life isn't their friend / doesn't have their best interests at heart.
- deleted 9y ago
- mquander 9y ago> Of course our kids need to do their chores and homework. Citation needed.
- coreyp_1 9y agoI upvoted this comment because it was the first thing today ( a stressful day, I might add) that has made me laugh.
- ramy_d 9y agoI think it's also a legit question.
- zzalpha 9y agoSeriously? Yes, kids need to learn that responsibility sometimes means doing what we don't want to do, often as part of caring for others. That's called growing up. Then again, given the number of "adults" I've met that don't know how to cook or do laundry for themselves, or gripe if they have to sacrifice their own time or energy in service of others, perhaps I shouldn't be surprised by this comment...
- osrec 9y agoThe language used in the letter seems to be written by an exceptionally gifted 8th grader. I'm from the UK, so I'm not sure what the standards are like in the US, but I would be surprised if many 14 year olds in the UK could write a letter of that quality - it makes me a little suspicious as to whether the letter is in fact genuine. Either way, pushy parents are creating unreasonable expectations and anxiety for their children. Kids in large developing countries seem to get the worst of it, where competition and expectations are both off the charts.
- cosarara97 9y agoThe boy really spends all day studying, so in the end he got good at writing.
- justinjlynn 9y agoIf they're suitably motivated opportunities exist for early escape.
- cududa 9y agoNot without support of their parents.
- justinjlynn 9y agoYou'd be surprised.
- geetfun 9y agoYes, there really are some extremely articulate 8th graders. In my youth, I spent every week writing 3-4 essays (about 1000 words each) just for fun. I really did enjoy it. Needless to say, I had no problems with the "regular" English courses. Some people enjoy sports. Others... writing.
- erdojo 9y agoThe letter from the kid is full of manipulations. "Seven straight houses of cognitive exercises"? Is that supposed to be code for SCHOOL? Sorry, maybe the parents are putting too much stress on him for the test, but otherwise do your chores and homework before you play video games (which is what he really wants the hour for).
- justinjlynn 9y agoYes, what do you think school is? It's not easy, nor is it a social holiday. Chores are fine, but, if your child can manage their time don't handicap them with micromanagement. If you want respect, you have to grant it where it is deserving.
- erdojo 9y agoFirst world problems.
- Thriptic 9y agoIf someone told me I had to clock a 8 hour day, come home and do several hours more work, and then do a bunch of menial labor five days a week I would be annoyed too. It is totally reasonable for someone to be irked when they are given no autonomy at any point during a day.
- JustSomeNobody 9y agoDon’t be a parent. :) You have to cook, wash dishes, wash clothes, make sure everyone gets baths, etc, etc. Help with homework, etc. A whole bunch of post 8 hour work day labor.
- devereaux 9y agoAs a kid I spend my weekends and my summers doing nothing. "Nothing" was in the perspective of adults of course. Nothing they wanted me to do. To me, doing nothing meant reading all the books I could find, exploring some random subject and if it was fun, experimenting with it, randomly. One year I found a chemistry book. I started reading it and wondering what happens when I mix this and this chemicals? And I did, and oh what a pretty color! But why? Can I predict the outcome of mixing these chemicals? If I let the residue dry, does it burn? It doesn't, but then why is the flame blue when I use copper, red when I use iron? Another year I found an electronic book. Yet another, it was an old book about Basic. After that, many of my summers were spent learning about computers and programming languages, which lead me to where I am now. I don't think I would have done any of this if I had been exhausted by exams, chores etc.
- thegabez 9y agoThis is not the typical behavior of a teenager.
- thriftwy 9y agoActually it is. All the wonders we did when we could put our hands on some calcium carbide...
- devereaux 9y agoBehavior is influenced by environments. Kids have a natural proclivity to experiment with things -- innovate, regardless of the circumstances. Have you never noticed? However, they are not very often left free to innovate. Someone mentioned their kid spent too much time playing videogames. I did too. After I finally got a computer, someday I found this old game called Doom 2. I spent months with it, as it was so smooth on my low end computer. Then I got bored, but I discovered I could create my own levels! I had nothing to model, so I created a level based on my school. I didn't have maps of anything, but my school was easy to remember as I went there every day. Now imagine any of this is a modern context - a teenager doing nothing, mixing and burning random chemicals to see what happens, and finally not just playing "violent" videogames, but making one replicating the school floor plan!! I would be certainly labelled a menace to society!! The environment influences behavior of kids and most of the time, I think it exerts a negative influence. I believe in free time, and being non judgemental. Everyone has to figure out their own path in life.
- thegabez 9y agoThe way that 8th grader writes, I'd say his parents are giving him a gift he yet realizes the value of.
- eropple 9y agoHow do you figure? I wrote like that in eighth grade. I wrote like that because I read a lot and interacted with people who challenged me intellectually ("on the internet, nobody knows you're twelve even when you're arguing with them")--which homework never did until college.
- carb 9y agoI don't think the gift is worth the tradeoff. There are many ways to help your child become a better writer without selfishly burdening them with chores and more stress.
- Teichopsia 9y agoFive comments so far and the opinions are on both ends. Do keep in mind that there have been many articles touting how man X hours one can be productive. It is not only, what, 7 hours or so at school doing work, but the time before to wake up, get ready, commute, school, commute back. Then home, homework and chores. They are children. If we are "complaining" as adults about about workload.... you get the idea.
- vacri 9y agoTeenagers are minors, but not "children". Painting them as "children" leads to silly things like a 16-year-old being considered a child right up until birthday 17, at which point they can join the army. Holes appear in the story in the article when things like "seven straight hours" - do kids not get lunch or recess breaks anymore? It's clear the teen is overstating the case to make it sound worse. That doesn't mean there's no problem to address, but I wouldn't take the statement on face value. I'm also not sure I'd take that letter as typical (for an adult, let alone a young teen), given the quality of the prose.
- cududa 9y agoRecess isn't a thing in high school. Most lunches are squeezed in 30-45 minute periods where they often are studying or doing homework. At my high school we got 25 minutes of lunch, including time to get to the cafeteria and back to class
- GlenTheMachine 9y agoAnd also, the classes are so short - the amount of homework the teachers assign sort of makes sense, in that they only see the kids for maybe 45 minutes a day. Which means the kids are being jolted from one intellectual pursuit to another every 45 minutes. How do you teach anything in 45 minutes? How do you learn 7 or 8 different topics in 45 minute chunks, one after the other?
- cududa 9y ago
- cyberferret 9y agoIts all about a balancing act. My 14 year old son spends an inordinate amount of time gaming on his PC. We don't often chew him out for that, but when he ignores routine chores or homework assignments in preference for gaming, then we bring the hammer down. The fact is, a lot of kids are terrible at time management and prioritisation. It is our job as parents to try and teach those skills. Quite often, that ends up with us having to excessively be the 'bad cop'. As much as the kid in the OP's story eloquently described his pent up feelings, I can say that I experience the same sort of rage (complete with balled up fist) when I walk into the house to see an overflowing trash bin in the kitchen, dirty laundry scattered around the living room, front driveway still full of leaves (all my younger son's designated daily chores) and I hear the steady gunfire of CoD coming from his room.
- bitL 9y agoThe issue here might be overload of homework that kids have these days. Teachers are often literally going insane; you can see this at top universities and it's trickling down to elementary schools. Work like crazy, dread finals, do this till you die.
- cyberferret 9y agoI totally agree that the homework load can be crazy. My son I mentioned above used to bring home an inordinate amount of homework a couple of years ago. But it seems that his school has seen the light, as we've noticed that he and his brother do have a much lighter daily homework load this year. But that seems to have been replaced with more longer term projects and assignments (all of which they leave till the last minute - ^sigh^)
- thriftwy 9y agoYou can't expect children to plan assignments! Heck, you don't expect adults to plan anything either, until they hit management. For specialists and even team leaders, they do what's on their plate and everything which isn't, they don't. It is madness to expect from undergrads to not do everything at the last minute, but for school students it's laughable. I can plan one thing. I can't plan five assignments that just fell on me, with due date far in the future. If my work would be structured like that I'd fail it either.
- rrggrr 9y agoA mnemonic device I try to remember as a divorced parent is "SOS": Self-awareness: What are my issues. Objectivity: Am I projecting them on my kid. Selflessness: Its tough being a child of divorce, what sacrifices can I reasonably make to give them as normal a life as possible? But none of this impacts homework, which is mountains higher than I had as a child.
- thriftwy 9y agoWhy can't you just go through the assignments and decide which half your child doesn't have to do?
- GlenTheMachine 9y agoOne of my kids' guidance cousellors once said a very wise things to me: “You know what makes me really excited about a job? Knowing that after spending eight hours a day at work, I have another three hours of overtime after dinner.” Homework has generally been shown to not aid in learning. And as a parent I can guarantee that 90% of both of my childrens' homework assignments aren't really even intended to aid in learning. As far as I can tell, they're mostly useful as a way to sort top performers - being kids who not only understand the material, but who are both willing and able to jump through the necessary hoops - from everyone else. I went to high school in a small rural area in the late 1980's. I had a maximum of one hour of homework a night. Often I was able to finish my homework on the bus home. I spent my free time teaching myself to code, something I wouldn't have been able to do otherwise. I earned a PhD in aerospace engineering; I think I turned out OK, educationally.
- Clubber 9y agoI believe it's purpose is to reinforce the material. Having said that, our kid has 8-12 pages of worksheets to complete a week, and we have to fight her every night to get her to do it. It seems excessive to me for an elementary student. It reminds me of the saying, "kids are naturally curious and eager to learn until school beats it out of them."
- GlenTheMachine 9y agoI believe the teachers think it's to reinforce the material. But much of the research says it's ineffective. AFAIK the research doesn't say why, exactly; but I would guess it has something to do with not being able to effectively engage in demanding intellectual pursuits for more than a few hours a day.
- jacobolus 9y agoIt’s not just that it’s mentally tiring. The bigger problem is that the work is dreadfully boring and trivial and disconnected, there’s little feeling of accomplishment when finished (just sometimes relief), the kids aren’t allowed to choose what to work on, there are few chances for them to work at their own pace or level of ability, the feedback is delayed (often by a week or more), mistakes are punished instead of celebrated as learning opportunities, and there is a huge weight of parental and societal expectation hanging over grades and exam scores.
- pier25 9y agoI work at an education company doing tech. Our main product is an education system that goes from prefirst to high school (we're in Mexico so it's different here). One of the principles of this system is that there should be as little homework as possible. We focus more on building cognitive skills. Since this is radically different from classic education our biggest challenge is actually coaching and training the teachers.
- perseusprime11 9y agoHomework is not really the problem. Our bulky textbooks and overflowing amount of content in our curriculums is the real problem. Cut our curriculum to the most basic things and you will see everything falling into its place.
- pier25 9y agoLike I said the principle is focusing on building cognitive skills. Removing homework is a consequence of that. As for the content in many cases it is becoming less relevant these days in the K12 segment. What remains later on in life are skills and not so much the content itself.
- WalterBright 9y agoHow do you build cognitive skills without doing work?
- pier25 9y agoThe work is mostly done in the classroom. There is also a bit of homework, but much less compared to public education or older methodologies. Everyone (students, parents, teachers) is surprised how well this works.
- subwayclub 9y agoFeedback. Speed and clarity of feedback trumps effort in honing a skill. Note that parent didn't say "no work" but "no homework". Most forms of homework give unclear feedback to the student with few ways to check work before turning it in. I cannot count the number of times in middle and high school that I got a homework assignment with poor directions that was assigned the day before it was due, leaving no opportunity to correct course - just a lot of nervous "I guess this is what they want?" Hours and hours of time wasted on a concept that I might have actually understood how to apply but not how to present in the way they wanted.
- brightball 9y agoIn high school, I looked at the beginning of each class to see how much homework counted. If it was about 5-6% or less, I didn’t do it. To this day, don’t regret it even a little. The big projects I did. The busy work I skipped. In college I actually dropped the same English class 4 times after the first day because the teacher insisted we write a daily journal. Finally got one that didn’t do that. If the work is pointless busywork, I’ve never gotten along well with it. Probably one really good reason I’m a programmer is because if I have to do the same thing more than once...I automate it.
- notacoward 9y agoThe thing that leapt out at me here was not the amount of work, but the feeling of being harassed, ambushed, denied even a chance to take a breath before the next demand is made. Go read the "you know what would be awesome" part again, but instead of a parent saying it to a child imagine you're on the receiving end and it's your child or your spouse or your boss saying "wouldn't it be awesome" to you. No, it's not awesome. What would be awesome would be a shred of empathy, but none of that is evident. Would you handle that situation with grace or equanimity? Could you have when you were 13? Doubtful. I know I didn't, and don't. Maybe some children are being worn out by the actual workload we give them, but AFAICT the article's real point is that they're also worn out by the emotional labor of being a repository for all of their parents' expectations and insecurities and frustrations. Parents should be responsible for their kids' mental health, not the other way around.
- ScottBurson 9y ago> the article's real point is that they're also worn out by the emotional labor of being a repository for all of their parents' expectations and insecurities and frustrations Stunningly well said.
- cerealbad 9y agochildren tend to become their parents. you get less than 10 years to raise your child, then most of the big blocks are carved. a lot of human learning is imitation play. pushback naturally occurs for all parents because civilisation extends by destroying it's foundations. the child's naive critique is sound, most people have never stopped to question their own motivations and have no refutation to certain truisms except to feel frustration at cliches. explaining to your child that what they are doing is perpetuating the cycle they are unconsciously criticizing is pointless. instead if you ever get into an argument with your teenager, take their hand, show them its shadow then say this "there are five things you can become in life: a shadow, a hand, or a light..." "i'll tell you about the other two when you're older." (the other two are patient when they become parents, and
- nsainsbury 9y agoA wonderful related read that has stuck with me ever since I read it (and hope to apply when my 1yr old grows up a bit more): http://carolblack.org/on-the-wildness-of-children/ http://carolblack.org/on-the-wildness-of-children/
- agnivade 9y agoMost of what I understand is just parents venting their frustration and despair in life through their kids. Because that is the only thing they have control over. Because they are unhappy and unsuccessful in their life they will force their kids to study continuously so that the kid fails and they get to scold him/her again. Just my personal experience.