When does school stop being fun?

[Anonymous]

My oldest is a rising 4th grader (DCPS) & seems like she should like school: is very social, reads constantly, likes to learn new things in her spare time, tests well, etc. But she reports that school is “blah” or sometimes “sucky.” Is she saying this just to say it? Or does school lose its luster at this age? Does DCPS become more of a downer once standardized tests start? This isn’t a crisis, but more of a bummer …

[Anonymous]

School has always sucked. Congrats on your child for making it this far.

[Anonymous]

Depends on the kid and the school and the teachers, etc. I was miserable by 1st grade. Kindergarten was okay.

[Anonymous]

Somewhere around 3rd or 4th when expectations go up. Or in middle school if lucky.

[Anonymous]

That's right around the time I started to hate it too!

[Anonymous]

My son has never liked it. (He’s a strong student academically, but finds it repetitive and boring)

[Anonymous]

It varies. My 11 and 13 yos have always enjoyed school. My sister and I enjoyed school all the way through the end. My 6 yo (recent K graduate) already does not like school because “he has to do so much learning” and he will likely have a long road ahead (he has various disabilities). Dh never liked school. He is extremely smart but school was just something to get through. He didn’t really enjoy most of his classes. He likes to read but never liked any of the books they assigned. I imagine it is all over the place

[Anonymous]

2nd grade or so for all 3 of my kids.

[Anonymous]

I thought math became hard in 4th grade.

There seemed to be something every grade that sucked. For me learning to tell time in 2nd grade was hard. Cursive handwriting in 3rd grade sucked. Math sucked in 4th grade. 5th grade seemed to be ok.

[Anonymous]

It can always suck, but usually 5th or 6 th grade are the last fun years in school.

[Anonymous]

3rd grade, probably not much to do with the school or school system. It's just not as fun anymore.

[Anonymous]

Middle school, which starts in 7th in our school. DC loved school until MS sucked all the joy out of learning. Looking into private for HS, which I really didn’t want to do.

[Anonymous]

I never found that school stopped being fun. Other kids could suck, but learning was always fun. I'd go back to take high school classes now if I could.

[Anonymous]

Probably MS, when the social stresses/behaviors of other kids start really affecting everyone + there is a lot more academic pressure as well, and the teachers hate and distrust everyone so it’s just a very negative environment. Then HS, the academic pressure ramps up even more although the relations with teachers/admin gets better as juniors/seniors. So I guess 6th/7th through 10th is the worst time.

I thought ES was overall fairly enjoyable as a kid.

[Anonymous]

Jr High and High School are the toughest times, due to 2 reasons, puberty and work load.

4 years in the average high school is much tougher than 4 years in the average university now.

University degrees have been dumbed down and made easier to get more people into college and make more money selling those diplomas. I breezed through my B.A. and M.A. and didn't even have to study much. High School however was intense and always had homework in certain classes like Trig, English-Lit, etc.