7 ms·

There are also plenty of boys and girls who don't have this problem. I was a bit of a trouble maker in elementary and middle school - enough to get a call home

by blkhp19 12y ago

There are also plenty of boys and girls who don't have this problem. I was a bit of a trouble maker in elementary and middle school - enough to get a call home from the teacher once or twice a year - but I always did my work and gave a damn about my performance. I don't understand this parent. "I let my son play minecraft in the morning before school" - so your son is slacking off in school, but you're still giving him everything he wants? He's your son. He needs to be shown that sometimes, you have to suck it up and work, even when you don't want to. That's a tough lesson to teach an 8 year old, but it's something that parents should enforce early. Eventually, their kid will see that hard work and self control will pay off. Here's a novel idea - don't let your kid play minecraft until he starts doing better in school. That being said, I do think physical activity should be more common. If it's rainy or cold out, kids should be able to go to their school's gym for an extra PE class - or maybe be able to play minecraft on the school computers. Boys and girls needs to be able to do something like this throughout the day. Article like this will hopefully make schools rethink some things - but until change actually happens, this mom needs to take control instead of just throwing her hands up and telling her son "it's not your fault. now go play minecraft."

dugfresh 12y ago
I agree 100% with blkhp19
user_0001 12y ago
>If it's rainy or cold out, kids should be able to go to their school's gym for an extra PE class Nothing wrong with a bit of cold or wet. It's character building :) Send em outside
- blkhp19 12y ago
  As a kid, I would have loved that! But can't you just picture the musty smell the classroom would have with 20 soaking wet kids? :p
bjt 12y ago
> so your son is slacking off in school, but you're still giving him everything he wants? I don't see how you get from playing Minecraft in the morning to her letting her son do "everything he wants". You're assuming that playing Minecraft is frivolous or negative or that shouldn't be allowed in the morning, much less encouraged. And you have little information on what other activities she has encouraged, permitted, or forbidden. It's tempting to pass judgment on other people's parenting. This temptation should be resisted.
- corin_ 12y ago
  If there's ever a time it's OK to judge someone's parenting techniques, it's when they write an article like this - that's practically asking to be commented on. And while you're right that it doesn't give a full picture, I suspect blkhp19 is right based on the entire premise of "it's not his fault" in the article.
bhewes 12y ago
So nothing in the article says her son is doing academically poorly in school. Simply that he has been labeled with the classic "behavioral problem" catch all and the author believes it is because of her son's lack of physical movement.
vaishaksuresh 12y ago
I agree with what you say. Kids should learn to follow rules even when they don't like them. Society cannot function if everybody does only the things they like. Schools should focus on building solid character in kids and teaching them responsibility and hard-work not coddle them and let them play all the time. Personally, I think asian kids achieve more things because their culture enforces discipline, hard-work and obedience from a young age.
- phkahler 12y ago
  >> I think asian kids achieve more things because their culture enforces discipline, hard-work and obedience from a young age. What do they achieve more of? I keep hearing how the US needs to change education to be more like other countries so they can compete on tests, but why change when you're winning on innovation? Or do we attribute that to something else?
  - vaishaksuresh 12y ago
    I am just going to give you one example. At least 11 out of the last 15 spelling bee champions are of asian descent[1]. I don't know about changing the education system. I actually don't agree with the author of the original article but to answer your question, the innovation that US is so proud of has major contribution from Aisans also and is not something you can attribute entirely to Americans. The reason there is so much innovation could also be due to the fact that US is a developed county with abundant resources and most asian countries are not. When you don't have to worry about pollution, population, food etc, the mind gets freed up to think about innovation and creativity. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Scripps_National_Spelling_Bee_champions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Scripps_National_Spelli...
    - jff 12y ago
      I used to do the spelling bee thing. I did ok, would generally make it from my school -> local -> regional, but not beyond that. That's because I was good at spelling from all my reading, but I didn't study for the bee at all. Now, the kids who did really well at the spelling bee, they didn't have time to read. Their moms were making them spend 3 hours a night with the little spelling bee booklet, learning how to spell every possible word that could be asked, and forcing themselves into the rhythm: "'Rote'. May I have the language of origin? 'Rote'. Can you use the word in a sentence? 'Rote'. May I have the definition? 'Rote'. R-O-T-E". (Hilariously, I once watched a girl do the whole routine over the word "talons", even getting "the eagle had sharp talons" as the sentence, then spelling T-A-L-E-N-T-S. Her mom made a fuss over microphone placement and got her back into the round) Is this a worthwhile thing to do? What useful things does this method teach? Spelling is extremely good, but like I said I'm pretty good at spelling because I read a lot. Maybe I could have been the Spelling Bee Champion if instead of reading, I'd memorized the entire word list. Then I would be extremely good at spelling "prestidigitation", that's for sure.
civilian 12y ago
You're right that kids need to buckle down at some point, but it doesn't help to fight their biology at the same time. Just like how high schooler's sleep rhythm is such that they want to stay up late and sleep in, yet we still make them get to school by 7:40am. http://www.aap.org/en-us/about-the-aap/aap-press-room/Pages/Let-Them-Sleep-AAP-Recommends-Delaying-Start-Times-of-Middle-and-High-Schools-to-Combat-Teen-Sleep-Deprivation.aspx http://www.aap.org/en-us/about-the-aap/aap-press-room/Pages/...
- corin_ 12y ago
  I'd hope that AAP would have this right, but since they don't cite any studies - my instinct would be to assume that teenagers don't have a specific problem getting to sleep earlier other than social/cultural. It's generally understood for adults that you can train yourself to fit a different schedule (to become a "night person" or a "morning person"), what is it that makes this different for teenagers? Certainly when I was a teenager my failings to be alert in the morning were based on not going to bed early enough because of things I wanted to do and lack of self-discipline, not because of biological reasons. And therefore, if school times were moved back would teenagers not just stay up later and still not sleep enough?
  - bryanlarsen 12y ago
    http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829130.100-why-teenagers-really-do-need-an-extra-hour-in-bed.html#.VOeVsXVGjUY http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829130.100-why-teena...
    - corin_ 12y ago
      Thanks - though that still doesn't offer any details on why they believe there is a biological cause, not just a social cause. > Adolescents are increasingly using stimulants to compensate for sleep loss, and caffeinated and/or sugary drinks are the usual choice. The half-life of caffeine is 5 to 9 hours. So a caffeinated drink late in the day delays sleep at night. Tiredness also increases the likelihood of taking up smoking. > Collectively, a day of caffeine and nicotine consumption, the biological tendency for delayed sleep and the increased alertness promoted by computer or cellphone use generates what Carskadon calls a "perfect storm" for delayed sleep in teenagers. Having looked at the full paper about school start times from AAP [1] it cites three papers on this subject [2] [3] [4], I'll come back with another comment if I manage to dive deeper into the rabbit hole on those... (I'm not saying there isn't a biological cause, just that since my gut instinct is that it would be caused by cultural reasons I'm interested to see the reasoning behind thinking there are biological reasons too.) [1] http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2014/08/19/peds.2014-1697 http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2014/08/... [2] Frey S, Balu S, Greusing S, Rothen N, Cajochen C. Consequences of the timing of menarche on female adolescent sleep phase preference. PLoS ONE. 2009;4(4):e5217 [3] Carskadon MA, Acebo C, Seifer R. Extended nights, sleep loss, and recovery sleep in adolescents. Arch Ital Biol. 2001;139(3):301–312 [4] Roenneberg T, Kuehnle T, Pramstaller PP, et al. A marker for the end of adolescence. Curr Biol. 2004;14(24):R1038–R1039
dreamweapon 12y ago
You're not just leaving out important context -- you're missing the main point, entirely: This morning, as always, my son was up and dressed before the rest of the household; he likes time to play Minecraft before school starts. But he also cleaned the dirty glass on the woodstove, started the fire and brought wood into the house. Because he wants to. The whole point is that they let him "slack off" sometimes because they've chosen to let him feel empowered to make his own decisions about how he spends his time generally. And they've seen that it pays off -- sometimes he plays minecraft, but most of the time he's on the ball, helping with chores and such. And (they say) he's doing it because he wants to, not because he's told to. Here's a novel idea - don't let your kid play minecraft until he starts doing better in school. Again, you're missing the main point of the article -- it's not that kid is failing school (and needs to be disciplined back into shape); it's that the school is failing the kid.
- ForHackernews 12y ago
  That's not how life always works, though. Sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do. Sometimes you don't get to decide how you spend your time. It's great to raise a child who does some valuable things because they chose to, but it's also important to raise a child who understands duty, responsibility and obligation: because those are also part of life.
  - dethstar 12y ago
    >That's not how life always works, though. Why? What makes life that? Nature? A social construct? I'm willing to bet is the second thing, and I don't believe questioning such things is bad.
    - zzalpha 12y ago
      No, it's just... life. If I did only the things I wanted to do in any given moment, I pretty well guarantee you our lawn would never be mowed, the dishes would go undone, dinner would frequently not get made, etc. Not to be too snarky, but... that you're questioning that makes me wonder if you've ever actually had to run your own household, or work in a real-life job, or generally operate as an adult, which is practically defined as finding that balance between doing what you want and doing what is needed.
copsarebastards 12y ago
> I don't understand this parent. "I let my son play minecraft in the morning before school" - so your son is slacking off in school, but you're still giving him everything he wants? He's your son. He needs to be shown that sometimes, you have to suck it up and work, even when you don't want to. That's a tough lesson to teach an 8 year old, but it's something that parents should enforce early. Eventually, their kid will see that hard work and self control will pay off. Here's a novel idea - don't let your kid play minecraft until he starts doing better in school. That's a pretty narrow view of how and why their son is doing poorly at school. How do you know he's "slacking off"? As an adult, one of the most valuable lessons I've learned is to take time for myself. I've watched quite a few of my peers go full tilt into the startup industry and burn out, switching careers, and in one case, having a full mental breakdown. Depression, anxiety, and other mental problems, not to mention physical ailments, are well-documented within the working class. Meanwhile, I work 8 hours a day, and if that doesn't get my work done by the deadline, I miss the deadline. I take all my PTO, and some unpaid time off also. Maybe I'm "slacking off", but I'm a senior developer in charge of people making 6 figures at a profitable company, so I think I'm doing okay. When I was in high school I went to school 7:30AM to 3:00PM, plus a few hours of homework (AP classes are a bitch). On average I'd say I was working 10 or 11 hours/day. I did very well in school, but I also had very little social life and came out of high school overweight and socially maladapted--problems which only fixed themselves when I had a breakdown in college and sought mental help. I'm actually glad I had my breakdown earlier than some of my peers because that's where I learned to set boundaries on my work/life balance. But I wish I had parents more like the OP, who were sympathetic to the fact that schools are really putting a huge amount of pressure on kids, and teach their kids to take some time to themselves.

by blkhp19 12y ago

dugfresh 12y ago

I agree 100% with blkhp19

user_0001 12y ago

>If it's rainy or cold out, kids should be able to go to their school's gym for an extra PE class Nothing wrong with a bit of cold or wet. It's character building :) Send em outside

blkhp19 12y ago
As a kid, I would have loved that! But can't you just picture the musty smell the classroom would have with 20 soaking wet kids? :p

bjt 12y ago

> so your son is slacking off in school, but you're still giving him everything he wants? I don't see how you get from playing Minecraft in the morning to her letting her son do "everything he wants". You're assuming that playing Minecraft is frivolous or negative or that shouldn't be allowed in the morning, much less encouraged. And you have little information on what other activities she has encouraged, permitted, or forbidden. It's tempting to pass judgment on other people's parenting. This temptation should be resisted.

corin_ 12y ago
If there's ever a time it's OK to judge someone's parenting techniques, it's when they write an article like this - that's practically asking to be commented on. And while you're right that it doesn't give a full picture, I suspect blkhp19 is right based on the entire premise of "it's not his fault" in the article.

bhewes 12y ago

So nothing in the article says her son is doing academically poorly in school. Simply that he has been labeled with the classic "behavioral problem" catch all and the author believes it is because of her son's lack of physical movement.

vaishaksuresh 12y ago

I agree with what you say. Kids should learn to follow rules even when they don't like them. Society cannot function if everybody does only the things they like. Schools should focus on building solid character in kids and teaching them responsibility and hard-work not coddle them and let them play all the time. Personally, I think asian kids achieve more things because their culture enforces discipline, hard-work and obedience from a young age.

phkahler 12y ago
>> I think asian kids achieve more things because their culture enforces discipline, hard-work and obedience from a young age. What do they achieve more of? I keep hearing how the US needs to change education to be more like other countries so they can compete on tests, but why change when you're winning on innovation? Or do we attribute that to something else?
- vaishaksuresh 12y ago
  I am just going to give you one example. At least 11 out of the last 15 spelling bee champions are of asian descent[1]. I don't know about changing the education system. I actually don't agree with the author of the original article but to answer your question, the innovation that US is so proud of has major contribution from Aisans also and is not something you can attribute entirely to Americans. The reason there is so much innovation could also be due to the fact that US is a developed county with abundant resources and most asian countries are not. When you don't have to worry about pollution, population, food etc, the mind gets freed up to think about innovation and creativity. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Scripps_National_Spelling_Bee_champions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Scripps_National_Spelli...
  - jff 12y ago
    I used to do the spelling bee thing. I did ok, would generally make it from my school -> local -> regional, but not beyond that. That's because I was good at spelling from all my reading, but I didn't study for the bee at all. Now, the kids who did really well at the spelling bee, they didn't have time to read. Their moms were making them spend 3 hours a night with the little spelling bee booklet, learning how to spell every possible word that could be asked, and forcing themselves into the rhythm: "'Rote'. May I have the language of origin? 'Rote'. Can you use the word in a sentence? 'Rote'. May I have the definition? 'Rote'. R-O-T-E". (Hilariously, I once watched a girl do the whole routine over the word "talons", even getting "the eagle had sharp talons" as the sentence, then spelling T-A-L-E-N-T-S. Her mom made a fuss over microphone placement and got her back into the round) Is this a worthwhile thing to do? What useful things does this method teach? Spelling is extremely good, but like I said I'm pretty good at spelling because I read a lot. Maybe I could have been the Spelling Bee Champion if instead of reading, I'd memorized the entire word list. Then I would be extremely good at spelling "prestidigitation", that's for sure.

civilian 12y ago

You're right that kids need to buckle down at some point, but it doesn't help to fight their biology at the same time. Just like how high schooler's sleep rhythm is such that they want to stay up late and sleep in, yet we still make them get to school by 7:40am. http://www.aap.org/en-us/about-the-aap/aap-press-room/Pages/Let-Them-Sleep-AAP-Recommends-Delaying-Start-Times-of-Middle-and-High-Schools-to-Combat-Teen-Sleep-Deprivation.aspx http://www.aap.org/en-us/about-the-aap/aap-press-room/Pages/...

corin_ 12y ago
I'd hope that AAP would have this right, but since they don't cite any studies - my instinct would be to assume that teenagers don't have a specific problem getting to sleep earlier other than social/cultural. It's generally understood for adults that you can train yourself to fit a different schedule (to become a "night person" or a "morning person"), what is it that makes this different for teenagers? Certainly when I was a teenager my failings to be alert in the morning were based on not going to bed early enough because of things I wanted to do and lack of self-discipline, not because of biological reasons. And therefore, if school times were moved back would teenagers not just stay up later and still not sleep enough?
- bryanlarsen 12y ago
  http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829130.100-why-teenagers-really-do-need-an-extra-hour-in-bed.html#.VOeVsXVGjUY http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829130.100-why-teena...
  - corin_ 12y ago
    Thanks - though that still doesn't offer any details on why they believe there is a biological cause, not just a social cause. > Adolescents are increasingly using stimulants to compensate for sleep loss, and caffeinated and/or sugary drinks are the usual choice. The half-life of caffeine is 5 to 9 hours. So a caffeinated drink late in the day delays sleep at night. Tiredness also increases the likelihood of taking up smoking. > Collectively, a day of caffeine and nicotine consumption, the biological tendency for delayed sleep and the increased alertness promoted by computer or cellphone use generates what Carskadon calls a "perfect storm" for delayed sleep in teenagers. Having looked at the full paper about school start times from AAP [1] it cites three papers on this subject [2] [3] [4], I'll come back with another comment if I manage to dive deeper into the rabbit hole on those... (I'm not saying there isn't a biological cause, just that since my gut instinct is that it would be caused by cultural reasons I'm interested to see the reasoning behind thinking there are biological reasons too.) [1] http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2014/08/19/peds.2014-1697 http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2014/08/... [2] Frey S, Balu S, Greusing S, Rothen N, Cajochen C. Consequences of the timing of menarche on female adolescent sleep phase preference. PLoS ONE. 2009;4(4):e5217 [3] Carskadon MA, Acebo C, Seifer R. Extended nights, sleep loss, and recovery sleep in adolescents. Arch Ital Biol. 2001;139(3):301–312 [4] Roenneberg T, Kuehnle T, Pramstaller PP, et al. A marker for the end of adolescence. Curr Biol. 2004;14(24):R1038–R1039

dreamweapon 12y ago

You're not just leaving out important context -- you're missing the main point, entirely: This morning, as always, my son was up and dressed before the rest of the household; he likes time to play Minecraft before school starts. But he also cleaned the dirty glass on the woodstove, started the fire and brought wood into the house. Because he wants to. The whole point is that they let him "slack off" sometimes because they've chosen to let him feel empowered to make his own decisions about how he spends his time generally. And they've seen that it pays off -- sometimes he plays minecraft, but most of the time he's on the ball, helping with chores and such. And (they say) he's doing it because he wants to, not because he's told to. Here's a novel idea - don't let your kid play minecraft until he starts doing better in school. Again, you're missing the main point of the article -- it's not that kid is failing school (and needs to be disciplined back into shape); it's that the school is failing the kid.

ForHackernews 12y ago
That's not how life always works, though. Sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do. Sometimes you don't get to decide how you spend your time. It's great to raise a child who does some valuable things because they chose to, but it's also important to raise a child who understands duty, responsibility and obligation: because those are also part of life.
- dethstar 12y ago
  >That's not how life always works, though. Why? What makes life that? Nature? A social construct? I'm willing to bet is the second thing, and I don't believe questioning such things is bad.
  - zzalpha 12y ago
    No, it's just... life. If I did only the things I wanted to do in any given moment, I pretty well guarantee you our lawn would never be mowed, the dishes would go undone, dinner would frequently not get made, etc. Not to be too snarky, but... that you're questioning that makes me wonder if you've ever actually had to run your own household, or work in a real-life job, or generally operate as an adult, which is practically defined as finding that balance between doing what you want and doing what is needed.

copsarebastards 12y ago

> I don't understand this parent. "I let my son play minecraft in the morning before school" - so your son is slacking off in school, but you're still giving him everything he wants? He's your son. He needs to be shown that sometimes, you have to suck it up and work, even when you don't want to. That's a tough lesson to teach an 8 year old, but it's something that parents should enforce early. Eventually, their kid will see that hard work and self control will pay off. Here's a novel idea - don't let your kid play minecraft until he starts doing better in school. That's a pretty narrow view of how and why their son is doing poorly at school. How do you know he's "slacking off"? As an adult, one of the most valuable lessons I've learned is to take time for myself. I've watched quite a few of my peers go full tilt into the startup industry and burn out, switching careers, and in one case, having a full mental breakdown. Depression, anxiety, and other mental problems, not to mention physical ailments, are well-documented within the working class. Meanwhile, I work 8 hours a day, and if that doesn't get my work done by the deadline, I miss the deadline. I take all my PTO, and some unpaid time off also. Maybe I'm "slacking off", but I'm a senior developer in charge of people making 6 figures at a profitable company, so I think I'm doing okay. When I was in high school I went to school 7:30AM to 3:00PM, plus a few hours of homework (AP classes are a bitch). On average I'd say I was working 10 or 11 hours/day. I did very well in school, but I also had very little social life and came out of high school overweight and socially maladapted--problems which only fixed themselves when I had a breakdown in college and sought mental help. I'm actually glad I had my breakdown earlier than some of my peers because that's where I learned to set boundaries on my work/life balance. But I wish I had parents more like the OP, who were sympathetic to the fact that schools are really putting a huge amount of pressure on kids, and teach their kids to take some time to themselves.