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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Genuine question. I don't have school aged kids yet so maybe the answer will magically present itself to me when I do, but I've been thinking about it for a long time. Life is hard. There are a ton of challenges. Why are we so focused on our kids being challenged especially in elementary school? Why don't we just want them to play? Is it that people want to give their kids the best shot of succeeding-based on our own personal standards, not the ones that our children may eventually have?
Hoping for honest nonjudgemental conversation here. I am genuinely curious. I feel like I don't want my children to be bored, but I don't necessarily want them to feel challenged either--certainly not all the time. Some of the time, yes, of they will be intolerable adults, and I do think some level of challenge is necessary for growth. But I don't think I really want my young children to feel academically challenged. It seems like life offers up more than enough non academic challenges, perhaps especially for young children who have to learn to navigate a world that can be very confusing and overwhelming.
Very curious to hear other thoughts!
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Great question OP. I wonder this too when I hear people lamenting that their kids aren't challenged. My daughter is in 5th grade and so far school has been a breeze for her. I'm so glad she's able to finish her homework in class and come home to be free to do what she wants. Oh and she's not "bored" in school either. She finishes her assignments quickly and then moves on to what she really wants to do - read, write, or draw. I'd be thrilled if it could stay this way through high school, but I'm sure things will become  "challenging" soon enough. [/quote]

Congratulations, it sounds like you've got a system that works for your daughter.   I do get where you're coming from.   School was a breeze for me in elementary too.  After my work I would just read (I wasn't much for writing and I  certainly can't draw.)  There was enough new content to keep me challenged, but it was easy to learn and then I would read.

However, if there isn't enough new content, (and the school is responsible for setting the curriculum), then it becomes a problem.  Imagine attending a week of training, mastering the material, and then going back the next week for the same course, and then the next, and then again a fourth time.  Now imagine if it wasn't for a week but a year.  After the fourth year of covering essentially the same material that she had learned the first time (actually she'd probably figured out most of it herself) she asked her teacher for the chance to learn something new because she already knew it (and was refused).  Yes, it didn't take her long to do the work and she did like to read, but she also wanted to learn some math.

On the other hand I had another daughter who was complacent when selecting books to read.  Although, she read at about a 10th grade level in 3rd grade, all she wanted to read were the young Nancy Drew books (a different series than the classics) and a series about fairies, both of which I would estimate were at a second grade level.  They had no substance at all.  Now, I read my share of fluff when reading for leisure, and I didn't object to her reading those books sometimes, but I didn't want her to limit herself.  I will forever be grateful to the teacher who gave her something more challenging to read.  It hooked her and opened up a whole new world.  She started seeking out books with more depth.  She may have still read the occasional fluff, but it was only part of a much broader selection.

A miscellaneous point:

Please don't require x minutes/day of reading.  It turns something delightful into a chore.  I can think of no faster way to turn children off reading.  Require them to read certain books/stories if you like:  a.  You can set the level of reading so that they are challenged and b.  They can resent the assignment that's keeping them from what they want to do, rather than resenting reading.  I always fought the reading requirements but I feel in the long run my kids read more because they enjoyed it.  Yes, sometimes they got busy and didn't read at all.  On particularly glorious days I'd encourage them to go play outside.  But there were also those days where they'd be hooked on a series and you couldn't pry them out of a book.

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