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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Teacher here: most kids lack good families to raise them…this is the result. [/quote]

So are millennial/Gen-X parents just really poor parents compared to their boomer parents?  Is that really what it comes down to?  I just don't recall my friends parents being super-involved in the 80s either, there were lots of latchkey kids. But the vast majority weren't going apesh-t at school.[/quote]

This is what I don't get. My parents were SUPER lax in the 80s. They didn't teach me manners, they hardly taught me anything. We had a "go outside and play and come home when it gets dark" upbringing. I feel like I learned manners sort of through osmosis at school? Also there were strict expectations at school -- you had to say please and thank you, you couldn't talk back, if you fought with other kids, you'd get in trouble. Not corporal punishment but like detention or sent to the principal. We didn't want those things so we complied.

I think one reason my parents did so little parenting is that we got it at school. I remember being taught to tie my shoes and brush my teeth in preschool. My parents definitely didn't teach me those things. My parents were so lax that stuff the schools didn't teach me (like swimming and riding a bike), I simply didn't learn. But I have good manners. Though not with my parents! I used to talk back to my parents so much! Never to teachers, but my parents were so lax I could say anything to them and never really got in trouble. Or sometimes I'd get in trouble but only after they said worse things to me than I said them, so I didn't learn anything. Again, I learned it at school.

Not saying millennial/Gen X parents don't have issues with parenting. But I can tell you I spend way more time actually parenting than my parents did. I've tought my kid all kinds of stuff that my parents never discussed with me, including stuff like polite manners, keeping hands to yourself, walking away from conflicts rather than engaging, being respectful to teachers and other minders, etc. Also practical things like how to brush teeth or tie shoes. Schools don't teach this stuff anymore, not even the expensive private preschool I sent my kid to for ages 3 and 4.  Schools want kids to show up with this knowledge. They also expected my kid to show up with basic literacy skills for K, so I taught that too.[/quote]

Not the PP, but I definitely think the shifting expectations at school has not helped. In the 80s we all went to half day kindergarten and spent most of the day playing, not sitting. Those who complain about kids not being able to sit still should take a step back and ask how we got here rather than just blame it on parents. Maybe kindergarten and 1st grade shouldn’t be so intense to begin with.[/quote]

No, sorry. Plenty of kids are succeeding in kindergarten. They aren’t asked to “sit still” nonstop all day. Many kids can do and are doing what the teacher asks of them.

It’s parenting.[/quote]

Why can’t it be both? I think the common thread between home and school these days is that young kids aren’t engaging in unstructured play as often as they used to. At home they are handed screens because it’s easier, and/or shuttled from one structured activity to another even by age 3 or 4. At school there’s so much pressure to meet state standards that there’s little to no time for the kind of play from which kids in preschool through 2nd grade would benefit. So many skills are learned through play — self regulation, conflict resolution, putting yourself in someon else’s shoes, and more.

Of course there are many kids who are still doing fine. But clearly what’s going on isn’t working for a growing subset of children. Rather than schools and parents pointing fingers at each other we ought to be looking for ways to work together to improve things.

And yes, I know some parents truly do not care and  will do absolutely nothing or actively make teachers’ lives harder. That is not new. But I think there’s a sizable chunk of parents who would welcome a conversation with their schools’s admin to think about ways to better support children at home and school. Some are just overwhelmed with life but receptive to advice. [/quote]

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