5 ms·

The generalized version of this is "take away something they care about". But it's not always easy to do. In many cases, schools have nothing the kids care ab

The generalized version of this is "take away something they care about". But it's not always easy to do. In many cases, schools have nothing the kids care about. If they do, rules often prohibit them from using it as leverage. And in many cases parents also are unwilling to apply any kind of consequence that would make their kid unhappy.

samuell 6mo ago
Which is probably one of the biggest problem with the outsourcing of parenting for half their awake time that is happening with our established school system. Not that I claim it is super easy to find an alternative on a large scale, but I think societies need to think hard about how to enable involving parents to be as much involved as possible in the kid's day. (For parents working full time shifts + commuting in a major city, this is very hard).
- andyferris 6mo ago
  > outsourcing It should also be pointed out that children and teens especially benefit from a range of role models and mentors. Having the parent(s) provide 100% of the (life and academic) lessons is not actually ideal. You say outsourcing, I say providing a range of different people to learn from. (It takes a village to raise a child…). Not saying the current school system is perfect (it’s a rather dystopian “village”!), but keeping the teens locked up at home isn’t going to help.
  - samuell 5mo ago
    I think the village would be a healthy model for sure. But that is something that was pretty much killed in the modern society as well as most people, especially lower/mid-income workers in larger cities, are spending exceedingly little time of their day in their local neighborhoods.
  - graemep 5mo ago
    I think you misunderstand the premise - in fact I struggle to understand how you interpreted the GP that way. No one is arguing that parents should provide 100% of life and academic lessons or that kids should be locked up at home, but that they, rather than schools, should have the leading role. I took my kids out of school when they were eight or nine and up to 16 (the end of compulsory school age in the UK) my experience was that they met a wider range of people, and had a lot more freedom. Instead of being locked up at school they were free to do more on their own or with friends and to go to a wide range of classes and activities. They have done well academically (conditional offer from Oxford for one, the other starting a PhD later this year) and I was complimented regularly on their social skills when they were children, and this seems to be continuing as adults (and my older daughter now has work responsibilities that require soft skills - I would assume she would not have them if her managers had not observed her as having the skills). The problem is not the involvement of other people, it is the outsourcing of responsibility and decision making and the main part of parenting. Parents are frequently little involved.
danpalmer 6mo ago
Yeah exactly, it's hard to do and requires effort. It's a sad state of affairs if there's nothing at school a child cares about, and rules prohibiting using those things as leverage may make sense in some way at a population level (to prevent misuse), but are clearly a bad idea in most individual cases.
armchairhacker 6mo ago
Expel the kid I want everyone to succeed as much as possible, I feel bad for such kids. But at that point, the kid won’t learn, won’t launch, there’s no benefit to keeping them in school and massive consequences for the good kids.
- gambiting 5mo ago
  Two problems: 1) school education is mandatory until 16-18 in most countries, so what do you do with them once they get expelled. They have to be in education somewhere - so do you just put them in one school for all the expelled students, which is just constantly on fire? You made the problem much worse for yourself(as in - the state). 2) " there’s no benefit to keeping them in school and massive consequences for the good kids" - the massive consequences for kicking them out and not dealing with the problem are then on us, the society, because you get dysfunctional kids that got no help and just got kicked out instead. What kind of adults do you think they will grow into? Or is the answer "I don't care"?
  - chr1 5mo ago
    Keeping them in school like it is done now, does not help them in any way, it merely transforms school from a place to learn into a mini prison where dysfunctional kids do not allow other kids to learn too. 15 year old who decides that he doesn't want to learn would be much better off if he gets expelled, goes to work at macdonalds, and comes back later, than the current situation where he gets to go to school and do nothing. Also the mere possibility of being expelled and having to go to work will help many more children to keep studying.
    - gambiting 5mo ago
      >>Keeping them in school like it is done now, does not help them in any way Well of course not, because schools don't have the support they need to help those students in turn. >>goes to work at macdonalds I don't know where you live where employing 15 year olds is legal, but even if we assume some kind of state where it's allowed, what mcdolands would employ a 15 year old that was expelled from school? >>and comes back later, How would that even work? You mean they enroll back at a private school to get their education? With what money? The path isn't "well they get expelled so they just go to work" - most likely the path is that they just stay at home doing nothing all day if their parents let them, or they just turn to vagrancy/crime. No 15 year old is going to go "well I got kicked out of school so I better look for the most basic job" - it's some kind of unrealistic pipe dream of how society works. But either way - you haven't really answered my question. In most places a child has to be in education until they turn 18. So when you kicked them out of school at 15, what is the state supposed to do with them?
jonathanlydall 5mo ago
Community service perhaps? Would be annoying for both the kid and the parents, more so than just detention at school I would think, and if parents are also annoyed will hopefully further incentivise socially appropriate behaviour of the child. Of course if the parents manage to convince the principal or someone else to not enforce, then the problem is with the school.
danpalmer 5mo ago
It is a sad state of affairs if there's nothing a kid cares about at school.

samuell 6mo ago

Which is probably one of the biggest problem with the outsourcing of parenting for half their awake time that is happening with our established school system. Not that I claim it is super easy to find an alternative on a large scale, but I think societies need to think hard about how to enable involving parents to be as much involved as possible in the kid's day. (For parents working full time shifts + commuting in a major city, this is very hard).

andyferris 6mo ago
> outsourcing It should also be pointed out that children and teens especially benefit from a range of role models and mentors. Having the parent(s) provide 100% of the (life and academic) lessons is not actually ideal. You say outsourcing, I say providing a range of different people to learn from. (It takes a village to raise a child…). Not saying the current school system is perfect (it’s a rather dystopian “village”!), but keeping the teens locked up at home isn’t going to help.
- samuell 5mo ago
  I think the village would be a healthy model for sure. But that is something that was pretty much killed in the modern society as well as most people, especially lower/mid-income workers in larger cities, are spending exceedingly little time of their day in their local neighborhoods.
- graemep 5mo ago
  I think you misunderstand the premise - in fact I struggle to understand how you interpreted the GP that way. No one is arguing that parents should provide 100% of life and academic lessons or that kids should be locked up at home, but that they, rather than schools, should have the leading role. I took my kids out of school when they were eight or nine and up to 16 (the end of compulsory school age in the UK) my experience was that they met a wider range of people, and had a lot more freedom. Instead of being locked up at school they were free to do more on their own or with friends and to go to a wide range of classes and activities. They have done well academically (conditional offer from Oxford for one, the other starting a PhD later this year) and I was complimented regularly on their social skills when they were children, and this seems to be continuing as adults (and my older daughter now has work responsibilities that require soft skills - I would assume she would not have them if her managers had not observed her as having the skills). The problem is not the involvement of other people, it is the outsourcing of responsibility and decision making and the main part of parenting. Parents are frequently little involved.

danpalmer 6mo ago

Yeah exactly, it's hard to do and requires effort. It's a sad state of affairs if there's nothing at school a child cares about, and rules prohibiting using those things as leverage may make sense in some way at a population level (to prevent misuse), but are clearly a bad idea in most individual cases.

armchairhacker 6mo ago

Expel the kid I want everyone to succeed as much as possible, I feel bad for such kids. But at that point, the kid won’t learn, won’t launch, there’s no benefit to keeping them in school and massive consequences for the good kids.

gambiting 5mo ago
Two problems: 1) school education is mandatory until 16-18 in most countries, so what do you do with them once they get expelled. They have to be in education somewhere - so do you just put them in one school for all the expelled students, which is just constantly on fire? You made the problem much worse for yourself(as in - the state). 2) " there’s no benefit to keeping them in school and massive consequences for the good kids" - the massive consequences for kicking them out and not dealing with the problem are then on us, the society, because you get dysfunctional kids that got no help and just got kicked out instead. What kind of adults do you think they will grow into? Or is the answer "I don't care"?
- chr1 5mo ago
  Keeping them in school like it is done now, does not help them in any way, it merely transforms school from a place to learn into a mini prison where dysfunctional kids do not allow other kids to learn too. 15 year old who decides that he doesn't want to learn would be much better off if he gets expelled, goes to work at macdonalds, and comes back later, than the current situation where he gets to go to school and do nothing. Also the mere possibility of being expelled and having to go to work will help many more children to keep studying.
  - gambiting 5mo ago
    >>Keeping them in school like it is done now, does not help them in any way Well of course not, because schools don't have the support they need to help those students in turn. >>goes to work at macdonalds I don't know where you live where employing 15 year olds is legal, but even if we assume some kind of state where it's allowed, what mcdolands would employ a 15 year old that was expelled from school? >>and comes back later, How would that even work? You mean they enroll back at a private school to get their education? With what money? The path isn't "well they get expelled so they just go to work" - most likely the path is that they just stay at home doing nothing all day if their parents let them, or they just turn to vagrancy/crime. No 15 year old is going to go "well I got kicked out of school so I better look for the most basic job" - it's some kind of unrealistic pipe dream of how society works. But either way - you haven't really answered my question. In most places a child has to be in education until they turn 18. So when you kicked them out of school at 15, what is the state supposed to do with them?

jonathanlydall 5mo ago

Community service perhaps? Would be annoying for both the kid and the parents, more so than just detention at school I would think, and if parents are also annoyed will hopefully further incentivise socially appropriate behaviour of the child. Of course if the parents manage to convince the principal or someone else to not enforce, then the problem is with the school.

danpalmer 5mo ago

It is a sad state of affairs if there's nothing a kid cares about at school.