Why do your affluent kids "need to be in school?"

[Anonymous]

I want my kids in school because they don’t learn effectively at home, from me, or from a computer program. They are early elementary age. On top of that, they have a school teacher for their summer sitter and even she can’t tolerate their moodiness and fighting. They are much happier at school with peers.

I wear a mask for 8 hours a day at work. After a short while you don’t notice it any more.

[Anonymous]

Because people prioritize how they choose to spend their money and want vs. need are two different things. They can but they don't want to. Its easier to send them to school.

If its a mental health issue, you need to change what's going on in your home and make a better family dynamic. This is such a great time to spend time as a family.

[Anonymous]

Why do non affluent kids need to be in school any more than affluent kids. Classism.

[Anonymous]

I agree OP. One semester, or even one year or more of what is essentially home school is not detrimental to kids, especially those in stable, wealthy families. People homeschool kids. This is okay. They will be okay. Would you rather them be home schooled for a year or get coronavirus and be one of the unlucky ones? We’re staying home for now and then will reassess.

For those of us who have the means to keep our kids home and do not, I’m not sure I could stomach something happening to my child that I could have tried harder to prevent.

I’ve been reading these articles about how kids are low transmitters, but that’s not what my friends in the urgent care field are saying. They’re saying they’re starting to see more and more kids come in.

[Anonymous]

I'm affluent. My SN kid needs his teachers who understand how to teach kids with SN, know him well, and whose hands are really tied when it comes to distance learning. He needs to be around other peers, and learn from actual people, not a youtube video of math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ultimately it's because parents (myself included) want the best for their kids, even at the expense of public health. School gives kids a sense of normalcy, and the absence of school has been extremely hard on them. I think it's easy for people who don't have kids to underestimate that.

But, my kids attend private school, and for 40K per kid, they were already in large classrooms with 12-15 kids per class. So they are likely to return full time, or close to it, anyway.

The "wealthy" families who insist their kids "must" return to school (but apparently were not wealthy enough to send their kids to private school) should take a hard look at what public schools were offering in the first place. They've long been overcrowded, and the pandemic is just highlighting that problem.

Re: the bold: If families would actually sacrifice for real, for a shorter but intense time, by doing serious isolation -- no grocery runs, no takeout, no distanced visits, no vacations to the beach "in a safe way," no playdates with neighbor kids because "they'll stay apart!" -- then we ALL could be returning to normalcy sooner. But because of "parents who want the best for their kids, even at the expense of public health," people insisted on a fake isolation with socializing, playdates, seeing the relatives, beach trips, restaurants "because we're in Phase Whatever now so it's safe" and "My kids NEED all this!"

And all over, cases are rising. Now it's all about school -- I must send my child to school because it's what's best for MY child and damn public health.

Before you say, "Well, people with kids don't understand all this," I have a kid. And i get that we are not the center of the universe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree OP. One semester, or even one year or more of what is essentially home school is not detrimental to kids, especially those in stable, wealthy families. People homeschool kids. This is okay. They will be okay. Would you rather them be home schooled for a year or get coronavirus and be one of the unlucky ones? We’re staying home for now and then will reassess.

For those of us who have the means to keep our kids home and do not, I’m not sure I could stomach something happening to my child that I could have tried harder to prevent.

I’ve been reading these articles about how kids are low transmitters, but that’s not what my friends in the urgent care field are saying. They’re saying they’re starting to see more and more kids come in.

Isolating at home for a year, that's not what homeschooling is. Or rather, that's the bad kind of homeschooling.

Send your children to school, since you don't seem to understand what you're doing to them at home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm affluent. My SN kid needs his teachers who understand how to teach kids with SN, know him well, and whose hands are really tied when it comes to distance learning. He needs to be around other peers, and learn from actual people, not a youtube video of math.

Then, hire a tutor or teach him. That's what we are doing with our SN child and its actually worked better given how little school really provides. Even at school its often videos.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ultimately it's because parents (myself included) want the best for their kids, even at the expense of public health. School gives kids a sense of normalcy, and the absence of school has been extremely hard on them. I think it's easy for people who don't have kids to underestimate that.

But, my kids attend private school, and for 40K per kid, they were already in large classrooms with 12-15 kids per class. So they are likely to return full time, or close to it, anyway.

The "wealthy" families who insist their kids "must" return to school (but apparently were not wealthy enough to send their kids to private school) should take a hard look at what public schools were offering in the first place. They've long been overcrowded, and the pandemic is just highlighting that problem.

Re: the bold: If families would actually sacrifice for real, for a shorter but intense time, by doing serious isolation -- no grocery runs, no takeout, no distanced visits, no vacations to the beach "in a safe way," no playdates with neighbor kids because "they'll stay apart!" -- then we ALL could be returning to normalcy sooner. But because of "parents who want the best for their kids, even at the expense of public health," people insisted on a fake isolation with socializing, playdates, seeing the relatives, beach trips, restaurants "because we're in Phase Whatever now so it's safe" and "My kids NEED all this!"

And all over, cases are rising. Now it's all about school -- I must send my child to school because it's what's best for MY child and damn public health.

Before you say, "Well, people with kids don't understand all this," I have a kid. And i get that we are not the center of the universe.

This is honestly the first I have heard this. I have not heard that intensely quarantining for a short period of time will lead to returning to normalcy.

[Anonymous]

They don’t. My kids won’t be physically in school in September.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because people prioritize how they choose to spend their money and want vs. need are two different things. They can but they don't want to. Its easier to send them to school.

If its a mental health issue, you need to change what's going on in your home and make a better family dynamic. This is such a great time to spend time as a family.

Lol! You don’t work, do you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, first of all, I don't agree it's "to the detriment of public health" given the data on child-to-adult infection.

Second, I already did hire someone to help with distance learning, but it is clear my child did not do well with DL.

+1.

I agree with the above. I didn’t hire help, but I did take time off work, and I need to go back at some point.

[Anonymous]

This is a bad argument. All our kids need to be back at school (if their parents aren't deliberately trying to homeschool.) We don't need to have all this fighting about the needs of the well off versus poor.

We need to work together as a state, county, country to reduce spread for the benefit of every single one of us.

[Anonymous]

I work with kids. You need to step out of your bubble OP and take a bigger picture of “public health.” For a lot of kids (those experiencing abuse, neglect, incest, witnessing violence, etc), school is the only normal part of their day.
There is good evidence that kids aren’t transmitting this illness to adults. If you weigh the pros and cons, it’s clear that kids need to go back to school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do non affluent kids need to be in school any more than affluent kids. Classism.

Because mostly their parents are not able to work from home.

Also, leads kids in school.would be safer for all kids.