School Work - Parents Doing the Work for their Kids

[Virgin-Island-Girl]

I completely underestimated the increase in content and ultimately time required for my son's school reports this year compared to last.

This report contains three parts: Written, oral and a poster and is to include complete bibliographies.

He's been studying and doing the research quite well on his own, but the poor kid doesn't have the skills yet to organize all of this. We were up late last night as I was trying to teach him the best way to do this and to tie it all together; we'll be immersed in it after school till bedtime again today.

The good thing is, he's not put off and he's enjoyed this project. We've been having a lot of fun joking around reading and analyzing the info. I want his learning to be positive, even when the crunch is on. I can't believe how much he's growing up!!!!

But here's the thing: I will not do his work for him!!!!!!!!! I will help him organize, but it needs to be his ideas and his work!!!!!!

The teachers at his school are clear that it needs to be the child's work and that they can tell when parents have done it. It must be a continuing problem for them to have to reiterate this in project instructions.

I find it hard to believe that parents will do their kids work. What does that teach them?

[green1]

Good for you. For teaching and helping your son, but allowing him to succeed or fail on his own.

But the problem you describe does not surprise me at all.

[Carolinadreamin']

We used to joke about science fair projects. We helped but we never actually DID them.

I'm still "helping" my keet who is in high school. Last year she had a huge project that required many, many hours. She did all the research and writing and the project was her vision. I hot glued stuff onto her tri-board while she went to a college library and did research.

I think teachers sometimes think that these kids are only taking their class. They take a bunch of classes and do extra-curricular things (volunteer, sports, etc) to have their high school "resume" look good.

I think we're killing our kids. They have no down time anymore.

[Mr Play]

The teachers at his school are clear that it needs to be the child's work and that they can tell when parents have done it. It must be a continuing problem for them to have to reiterate this in project instructions.

I find it hard to believe that parents will do their kids work. What does that teach them?

My wife teaches 3rd grade. Last week she showed me an assignment that was turned in IN THE PARENT'S HANDWRITING!!!

[chippewa]

The teachers at his school are clear that it needs to be the child's work and that they can tell when parents have done it. It must be a continuing problem for them to have to reiterate this in project instructions.

I find it hard to believe that parents will do their kids work. What does that teach them?

My wife teaches 3rd grade. Last week she showed me an assignment that was turned in IN THE PARENT'S HANDWRITING!!!

My wife also teaches 3rd grade, unfortunately her problem is getting some parents involved at all.
The kids need to use the parents as a learning tool, just like books or the internet, and draw from their experiences. ( I know, most kids already think their parents are tools. ) There's a lot you can learn from your parents, and not just while you're in school.

[kitty]

I will say that I am a very hands on parent...and at times, I can help too much! My younger son, who is in 8th grade and is very smart, but cann be lazy, has come to depend on that too much at times...and I have to restrain myself from doing too much of the work for him.
It is very hard to sit there for hours and let them do everything at their pace and I will admit, in a weak moment, I add more than I should to speed things along!
You want the best for your children...but as a parent, you also have to learn to let them succeed or fail on their own merrit...with support.
So many kids have no one to help them at home...so I am proud that my kids rely on me for advice...even if I do give too much at times.

[SchoolGirlHeart]

I knew parents who used to write their kid's papers and do his homework for him. They bailed him out all the time; never let him fall on his butt. By the time he was 18 they were bailing him out of jail.....

Everyone fails some time in life. Better they should fail in 3rd grade and learn to recover than fail as an adult because their parents rescued them over and over instead of teaching them to work....

[ejr]

The teachers at his school are clear that it needs to be the child's work and that they can tell when parents have done it. It must be a continuing problem for them to have to reiterate this in project instructions.

I find it hard to believe that parents will do their kids work. What does that teach them?

My wife teaches 3rd grade. Last week she showed me an assignment that was turned in IN THE PARENT'S HANDWRITING!!!

They also on to write their kid's college applications, and sometimes skip up and put their own names by mistake (yes, I have seen it-and more than once)

[Tropic_Al]

The teachers at his school are clear that it needs to be the child's work and that they can tell when parents have done it. It must be a continuing problem for them to have to reiterate this in project instructions.

I find it hard to believe that parents will do their kids work. What does that teach them?

My wife teaches 3rd grade. Last week she showed me an assignment that was turned in IN THE PARENT'S HANDWRITING!!!

They also on to write their kid's college applications, and sometimes skip up and put their own names by mistake (yes, I have seen it-and more than once)

They're called "Helicopter Parents". Always hovering over their kids.
It's reached the point where the parents are going on job interviews w/the kids. And doing follow up calls too.

[ejr]

The teachers at his school are clear that it needs to be the child's work and that they can tell when parents have done it. It must be a continuing problem for them to have to reiterate this in project instructions.

I find it hard to believe that parents will do their kids work. What does that teach them?

My wife teaches 3rd grade. Last week she showed me an assignment that was turned in IN THE PARENT'S HANDWRITING!!!

They also on to write their kid's college applications, and sometimes skip up and put their own names by mistake (yes, I have seen it-and more than once)

They're called "Helicopter Parents". Always hovering over their kids.
It's reached the point where the parents are going on job interviews w/the kids. And doing follow up calls too.

more than familiar with helicopter parents. at a private college prep school I see a lot of that on a daily basis. and it leads to really stressed out kids.

[Brown Eyed Girl]

Sadly this is an all too common problem. Much of the time it occurs because the parents have the kids involved in so many activities that there is no time for school work...it is the low priority. There are far too many parents living their lives vicariously through their kids...and competing with other parents to see whose kid is most "involved".

I had a good friend who was also a coworker. She was constantly doing her kids work for them because they were just too busy to get it all done. And she's a teacher for pete's sake! When I suggested one day that maybe her daughter should give up one of her activities she looked at me like I had said she should cut off her head. Mind you, the daughter was perfectly capable of doing the work and getting everything done in spite of her schedule...she just knew how to play her mom like a fiddle.

My big beef was Mission projects. In 4th grade in Cali you study missions, and most schools have you do some sort of mission project, it's usually a semester project that included building or creating a replica of your chosen mission. You could clearly tell which missions were done by the parents and which ones weren't. And then some Einstein decided to create mission kits...so now all you have to do is buy the freakin kit and put it together. I think they should be outlawed.

I carved my mission out of bars of Ivory soap. And I still have it.

[SchoolGirlHeart]

It's reached the point where the parents are going on job interviews w/the kids.

My son had a job interview at a factory at 11:30 on a Saturday night. I was concerned for his safety, but wanted to avoid the appearance of hovering, so I made him take his younger brother along.

[ph4ever]

I knew parents who used to write their kid's papers and do his homework for him. They bailed him out all the time; never let him fall on his butt. By the time he was 18 they were bailing him out of jail.....

Everyone fails some time in life. Better they should fail in 3rd grade and learn to recover than fail as an adult because their parents rescued them over and over instead of teaching them to work....

I'd be willing to bet he's still in and out of trouble - I used to know someone whose parents did the same thing. At 35 he was still in and out of jail, not holding down a job and had a drug addiction. His parents regretted all the times they bailed him out and wished they could go back and have a do over.

Sadly this is an all too common problem. Much of the time it occurs because the parents have the kids involved in so many activities that there is no time for school work...it is the low priority. There are far too many parents living their lives vicariously through their kids...and competing with other parents to see whose kid is most "involved".

I have to agree with you 1000% I also think it stresses the kid out too much to be involved in so many activities. Parents forget to let their kids just be kids. I know for a while my son's dad tried the vicarious route when my son was young. Thankfully we (myself, his mom, and friends) were finally able to convince him to let our son do what he wanted to do and to not overdo it and to not push him in any direction but to let him find his own likes and desires for school and social activities. As it turned out he really realized the importance of studying and made really decent grades. For a while he also decided that he wanted to be in only one activity which he excelled at.

By his senior year he had become so confident in himself and knew what career path he wanted. I think part of it was that his activities were something liked and wanted to do and not what anyone else wanted him to do and because of that his grades never dropped to where he couldn't participate in those activities.

[Migration Michelle]

It's reached the point where the parents are going on job interviews w/the kids.

My son had a job interview at a factory at 11:30 on a Saturday night. I was concerned for his safety, but wanted to avoid the appearance of hovering, so I made him take his younger brother along.

Good one SGH!!

I just got scolded by my child's first grade teacher for NOT checking her homework! I checked it on the first day of school and it was fine. I said to myself, "Oh Good...another low maintenance homework child!!!"

I explained to the teacher that she is my third child and the 2 older ones have no problem with their work. I always ask if they're finished but I never check. I figured they would have bad grades if they weren't doing their work...

She said, "That's fine when they get older, Michelle, but she is in 1st grade!!"

OOPS!!!!!!! I check now!!

[buffettbride]

It never even occurred to me to do my child's work. When she has a big project, we generally approach it as a family--let her come up with the idea and help with buying materials and assembly and stuff--but it is always her original work.

In K-3 I checked her homework every night. In 4th grade they use an assignment notebook so I would sign it every night on her word that she completed the work. It has worked well.

She gets extremely frustrated when she sees work that has obviously been done by a parent because she works so hard to do her own stuff. You know, 'cause she likes to learn and stuff.

[Dezdmona]

I check my son's work (he's in 3rd), but he does it.
Sometimes I check it more thoroughly than others.

We'll go to the library and check out books together for Science Fair, but while we'll brainstorm together, he gets the ideas.
He's in the talented & gifted program, so he needs to be able to work independently.
But having ADHD, sometimes he likes to cut corners.

Last year (in 2nd grade) I helped him type up his Science Fair stuff on the computer (he did the actual typing).
I set the type size & printed it out & we all glued it on the poster board. He & his partner won FIRST prize!

I'm always asking him to teach me how he did the work.
I'm sure he knows that I know how to do it, but it's just an exercise we go through.
By the time he gets into higher grades, I'm sure he'll get into stuff I've forgotten, and he really will be (re) teaching me!

[buffettbride]

What are other parent's thoughts on typing? Victoria is learning but is much more efficient handwriting. Most times, that is OK, but she is submitting an essay that must be typed as part of an "audition" for a performing arts school and she asked if I would type it for her. I think my mom typed my stuff when I was younger too. I dunno. If I typed it for her, would that be "cheating?" I'm also resident proofreader in my house. I don't voluntarily do it for every writing assignment, but I told her if she asks me I will be happy to proofread her papers. I mostly stick to checking for punctuation and spelling unless something really doesn't make sense.

[LIPH]

What are other parent's thoughts on typing?

I'm not a parent, but ...

When I was a kid my mother used to do my typing for me until I got to 9th grade. We got 6 report cards a year and in 9th grade everyone had to take typing for 2 marking periods. Once I took typing, my mother stopped helping.

[Brown Eyed Girl]

What are other parent's thoughts on typing? Victoria is learning but is much more efficient handwriting. Most times, that is OK, but she is submitting an essay that must be typed as part of an "audition" for a performing arts school and she asked if I would type it for her. I think my mom typed my stuff when I was younger too. I dunno. If I typed it for her, would that be "cheating?" I'm also resident proofreader in my house. I don't voluntarily do it for every writing assignment, but I told her if she asks me I will be happy to proofread her papers. I mostly stick to checking for punctuation and spelling unless something really doesn't make sense.

It's a tough call, Mal. Would you be inclined to correct her mistakes, fix grammatical errors etc? Then it wouldn't be her work. On the flip side, if this essay is important in getting into the school, I'm guessing many parents will be typing the essays. What if she is asked by the school if she did the typing? Would it be better to possibly have mistakes and know that she did her own work...or have a perfect paper that someone else did...and could either effect the outcome of the audition? Where's the magic 8 ball when we need it?

In this day and age, we start teaching keyboarding/typing skills in preschool, but we don't give the kids enough time to develop good keyboarding skills before increasing the level of expectation. If you struggle with the concepts of letters/sounds/words, you're going to struggle with typing....and 40 minutes once a week in school computer class is not going to help those skills. Heck, I think the norm for starting typing skills was around 7th grade when I was in school. Even in this day and age of computers, I"m not sure that most kids have the wherewithall to put everything together before then.

[Dezdmona]

What are other parent's thoughts on typing? Victoria is learning but is much more efficient handwriting. Most times, that is OK, but she is submitting an essay that must be typed as part of an "audition" for a performing arts school and she asked if I would type it for her. I think my mom typed my stuff when I was younger too. I dunno. If I typed it for her, would that be "cheating?" I'm also resident proofreader in my house. I don't voluntarily do it for every writing assignment, but I told her if she asks me I will be happy to proofread her papers. I mostly stick to checking for punctuation and spelling unless something really doesn't make sense.

Since it's not a school assignment, technically it's not cheating if you type it but she writes it.

But in the interest of learning...
I'd probably make her do it, have her write it out first.
Maybe type a paragraph at a time if it's taking a long time.
Once she figures out how to backspace to fix her mistakes, and paragraph, she'll think it's cool.

My son thought it was awesome how he could center the title or make the title type bigger.

The kids have computer classes at school and are learning keyboarding.
It took Luke a looong time to get the typing done for his Science Fair project last year but he was only 7.
(And I verbally helped him with punctuation, etc..)

I expect him to keep at it, so by the time he has to do a report on the computer he'll be proficient.
Everything is going to be ont he computer soon, and some schools even have laptops in the classroom.