> 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 hi

> 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.