Why do so many parents say their kids are bored at school?

[Anonymous]

Hilarious:

1. OP has one kid in Kindergarten. Harvard is just around the corner!

2. She's very proud of her child. Who can read in K. Literally no other child has ever been so gifted.

3. And everything is always about her and her child. No one should ever say anything that she could ever interpret personally and negatively. Except she will. People, either you shut up around OP or you shower her with compliments about her child, who is READING in KINDERGARTEN!!!

[Anonymous]

I definitely don't understand being offended if someone mentions that their child is bored. As previously stated, there are a bunch of reasons a kid could be "bored" in school. As a former teacher, a lot of the students I had that were constantly bored were that way because they were used to being on screens 75% of the day at home but there are so many factors that could cause this, only one of which being the advanced angle.

However, I also have a friend who frequently says her DS is bored in 3 year old preschool specifically because he's so much more academically advanced than all of the other children so he doesn't even like to play with them. I could see how this might be borderline insulting (if my DC was also in the class) but to me it's more laughable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Hilarious:

1. OP has one kid in Kindergarten. Harvard is just around the corner!

2. She's very proud of her child. Who can read in K. Literally no other child has ever been so gifted.

3. And everything is always about her and her child. No one should ever say anything that she could ever interpret personally and negatively. Except she will. People, either you shut up around OP or you shower her with compliments about her child, who is READING in KINDERGARTEN!!!

Op here. I actually have 3 kids. Dh and I both are ivy educated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Hilarious:

1. OP has one kid in Kindergarten. Harvard is just around the corner!

2. She's very proud of her child. Who can read in K. Literally no other child has ever been so gifted.

3. And everything is always about her and her child. No one should ever say anything that she could ever interpret personally and negatively. Except she will. People, either you shut up around OP or you shower her with compliments about her child, who is READING in KINDERGARTEN!!!

Op here. I actually have 3 kids. Dh and I both are ivy educated.

Of course you are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have heard parents say this in preschool, elementary and now middle school. The worst behaved kid at our preschool was supposedly bored so he acted out and hit and bit classmates. I have a kindergarten child who loves kindergarten and I find it insulting when parents say their kid is bored. They are implying that their kid is so much smarter and more advanced than the other kids in the class. I have 3 kids and they all do well in school. They are happy and don’t complain they are bored. They get good grades with minimal effort.

There’s a big difference between a kid who gets “good grades with minimal effort” and a kid who gets “good grades with no effort”. Those of us with kids in the second group are the ones dealing with bored kids. You just have average kids who can keep up with school. That shouldn’t be much of an achievement but sadly it is these days so I see why you’re so impressed with yourself. But yes, our kids are smarter than yours.

However, being bored in school is never an excuse for violent behavior and those kids should be kicked out of mainstream classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP you sound insecure.

Some kids are bored because they are too advanced, and some kids are bored because of the way material is presented, and some kids are bored because they have adhd. If you're a 5 year old who wants to be playing and your teacher has you memorizing sight words, that's boring. Sorry if that offends you.

I am not insecure. I think my child is amazing. She went to a play based preschool where they played outside all day. When she talks about kindergarten, she talks about her friends and tells me stories about the other kids in her class. She loves school.

We are considering private for many reasons. I want my child to be outside and play more! Other parents are considering private for other reasons like their child being bored in public. I know my child will do great in public or private.

Let's revisit your original quote: "I find it insulting when parents say their kid is bored. They are implying that their kid is so much smarter and more advanced than the other kids in the class."
Why would you feel INSULTED if someone said their child was bored in class? As mentioned above, there are many reasons a child might find school boring. They aren't implying what you think they are. Also, if your child is amazing and you believe that, it wouldn't bother you if someone else was implying that their child is smart by saying that the child is bored.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP you sound insecure.

Some kids are bored because they are too advanced, and some kids are bored because of the way material is presented, and some kids are bored because they have adhd. If you're a 5 year old who wants to be playing and your teacher has you memorizing sight words, that's boring. Sorry if that offends you.

I am not insecure. I think my child is amazing. She went to a play based preschool where they played outside all day. When she talks about kindergarten, she talks about her friends and tells me stories about the other kids in her class. She loves school.

We are considering private for many reasons. I want my child to be outside and play more! Other parents are considering private for other reasons like their child being bored in public. I know my child will do great in public or private.

OP, you have very limited experience with public school so far, so you're making incorrect assumptions. Some teachers are especially good at engaging advanced kids, exempting them from the rote tasks that they mastered ages ago, or at least letting them bring in their own materials. Other teachers do nothing for advanced kids or give them obvious busywork. Some teachers are engaging. Some are just flat out boring.

Both of my kids were reading well before K and advanced in all subjects. K was fine. They both loved K due to all of the playtime and socialization. First grade, on the other hand, was a complete slog for both kids. The teachers were focused on the bottom, ignored the advanced kids, and just forced them to do a lot of rote tasks that they had mastered in preschool. There was also much less playtime and much more sit at desks and do busywork time. For grades after first, they've had a mixed bag of teachers who tried to engage the more advanced kids in the room and the teachers who did nothing whatsoever for them.

My daughter's worst grade was 2nd because there was such a push to get the non-fluent readers reading well before 3rd. That seemed to be the only real goal that year. Kids who could already read well were ignored.

Correct, and similar experience with us. All students are supposed to get "small group instruction by level" with the teacher in reading. In reality, the way behind kids were getting "small group" 3-4x a week and kids who could read (but still absolutely deserved their own reading instruction) were left to do "reading centers" (aka busywork) and only got to go to the teacher's table every other week or so. They call this "equity" which I've learned is a synonym for bull4hit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Hilarious:

1. OP has one kid in Kindergarten. Harvard is just around the corner!

2. She's very proud of her child. Who can read in K. Literally no other child has ever been so gifted.

3. And everything is always about her and her child. No one should ever say anything that she could ever interpret personally and negatively. Except she will. People, either you shut up around OP or you shower her with compliments about her child, who is READING in KINDERGARTEN!!!

Op here. I actually have 3 kids. Dh and I both are ivy educated.

If this is a troll playing extremely 'insufferable and insecure mother of academically average' kids, kudos.

If OP is genuine, then this is exactly why I never talk about my kids' academics with other parents, especially the ones who fish for information so they can make an unofficial ranking in their heads. There are a quite of few of those parents in my oldest kid's grade (the worst are the parents with high prestige jobs.) We privately do enrichment and acceleration in math and our kid is really far ahead. But I've never said a peep about it to anyone except my family and the teachers. My oldest doesn't complain about being bored, and that is due to demeanor, not intelligence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Hilarious:

1. OP has one kid in Kindergarten. Harvard is just around the corner!

2. She's very proud of her child. Who can read in K. Literally no other child has ever been so gifted.

3. And everything is always about her and her child. No one should ever say anything that she could ever interpret personally and negatively. Except she will. People, either you shut up around OP or you shower her with compliments about her child, who is READING in KINDERGARTEN!!!

Op here. I actually have 3 kids. Dh and I both are ivy educated.

If this is a troll playing extremely 'insufferable and insecure mother of academically average' kids, kudos.

If OP is genuine, then this is exactly why I never talk about my kids' academics with other parents, especially the ones who fish for information so they can make an unofficial ranking in their heads. There are a quite of few of those parents in my oldest kid's grade (the worst are the parents with high prestige jobs.) We privately do enrichment and acceleration in math and our kid is really far ahead. But I've never said a peep about it to anyone except my family and the teachers. My oldest doesn't complain about being bored, and that is due to demeanor, not intelligence.

I am the OP. I am not a troll. I have three kids in public and considering private school for our three kids. My youngest is in kindergarten. Dh and I are ivy educated. We live in a wealthy neighborhood where most people have high prestige jobs and everyone thinks their kids are gifted. Many of our kids’ friends have friends with ivy educations. When my older kids were younger, there were parents who would often say their kids were bored in school. They don’t say this as much as kids get older. Now I’m again hearing it in kindergarten. At our highly regarded preschool, I did not hear anyone say their kid was bored because our kids played all day. Nothing boring about that.

[Anonymous]

I'll give you a different perspective, OP. Many of the kids who are bored in K are the ones who don't enjoy arts and crafts. K involves a lot of coloring sheets or cutting and pasting projects, and some kids are not at all into that.

[Anonymous]

Also, OP, if you're suddenly hearing a lot of parents in K complaining that their kids are bored, it most likely means the K teacher is terrible. Some of the kids there are reading chapter books. The teacher is probably making them slog through BOB books, which are way beneath their level and will do nothing at all for them. Of course, the kids who are at a BOB books level will not be bored, and the kids who are fluent with chapter books will find school excruciating if the teacher is unable or unwilling to adapt for varying levels of students.

[Anonymous]

OP, if you can comfortably afford private, I would at least look into it and see what your options are.

My kids are now in 6th and 9th and I'm really wishing they had gone to private school. We live in a wealthy neighborhood where most people use public school but there are still a lot of issues with public education and the inability to advance the curriculum for kids who learn more quickly. My kids are too old and don't want to switch schools now, plus where we live there are no good private options within a 20 minute drive. So we try to push them as much as we can, but school is just really easy and boring for them. Its such a disappointment and if I had it to do all over again, I'd probably move somewhere closer to a good private school and buy a less expensive house to make it more affordable. Hindsight is 20/20.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also, OP, if you're suddenly hearing a lot of parents in K complaining that their kids are bored, it most likely means the K teacher is terrible. Some of the kids there are reading chapter books. The teacher is probably making them slog through BOB books, which are way beneath their level and will do nothing at all for them. Of course, the kids who are at a BOB books level will not be bored, and the kids who are fluent with chapter books will find school excruciating if the teacher is unable or unwilling to adapt for varying levels of students.

Op here. That is fair.

I do find these parents quite annoying. I learned to read at 3 and my mom used to brag about how smart I was my entire life. This bothered me throughout my childhood. I’m sure I’m projecting my childhood hate for my mom’s bragging onto these parents. I don’t remember being bored at school. I breezed through school with little to no effort and was a naturally good test taker. Dh was not flagged gifted at a young age and was an extremely hard worker. He runs circles around me professionally.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, if you can comfortably afford private, I would at least look into it and see what your options are.

My kids are now in 6th and 9th and I'm really wishing they had gone to private school. We live in a wealthy neighborhood where most people use public school but there are still a lot of issues with public education and the inability to advance the curriculum for kids who learn more quickly. My kids are too old and don't want to switch schools now, plus where we live there are no good private options within a 20 minute drive. So we try to push them as much as we can, but school is just really easy and boring for them. Its such a disappointment and if I had it to do all over again, I'd probably move somewhere closer to a good private school and buy a less expensive house to make it more affordable. Hindsight is 20/20.

Op here. We moved to this school district for the supposedly excellent schools. We live in a multi million dollar home and have spent almost another million on renovations to make it our exact style. The privates we are considering are 20+ min away while we currently live 1-2 miles from our zoned elementary, middle and high school. I feel like we have sunk so much money into this house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, if you can comfortably afford private, I would at least look into it and see what your options are.

My kids are now in 6th and 9th and I'm really wishing they had gone to private school. We live in a wealthy neighborhood where most people use public school but there are still a lot of issues with public education and the inability to advance the curriculum for kids who learn more quickly. My kids are too old and don't want to switch schools now, plus where we live there are no good private options within a 20 minute drive. So we try to push them as much as we can, but school is just really easy and boring for them. Its such a disappointment and if I had it to do all over again, I'd probably move somewhere closer to a good private school and buy a less expensive house to make it more affordable. Hindsight is 20/20.

Op here. We moved to this school district for the supposedly excellent schools. We live in a multi million dollar home and have spent almost another million on renovations to make it our exact style. The privates we are considering are 20+ min away while we currently live 1-2 miles from our zoned elementary, middle and high school. I feel like we have sunk so much money into this house.

Huh, with TWO Ivy League educations and the fact that you learned to read at 3, you'd think you'd have been decision making skills that this. Maybe when you were sitting around reading chapter books while the other children learned their letters, the teacher should have noticed and taught you some common sense.