Reply to Can we please stop with the “you don’t want to parent your kids” bs

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]As a please parent your kid person - and I was this way prior to the pandemic too. If your kid comes into my home and breaks shit and you and the kid don’t care (obviously not toddlers) then you aren’t parenting your kid.  It doesn’t mean getting them to do DL it means getting them to be happy, to deal w the situation at hand, to get them to learn something (omg maybe not grade level but something).

It means saying maybe my kid won’t do specials because it’s too mucus. Maybe I ask the teacher for extra assignments because that works for my kid.  Having a toy for your kid to play w when they need a distraction (but teaching your kid to do it off camera). Asking the teacher if you can do a drive by so your kid can see them in real life (some kids love this and some don’t).

The parents who are going to say it’s a snow day and skip work and school (the horror) and just play a that’s parenting too.

DL sucks - no child should do it well - but reminding your kid that they are amazing for doing this, being strong. That’s parenting.[/quote]

You are talking about something else. But actually, this is worth responding to because I think these issues get confused a lot.

Yes, there are some parents who, even before Covid, just aren't parenting their kids. All the other parents know this. These are the kids we run into on the playground who have no social skills and do whatever they want and their parents just stand by and talk to each other and never bother to teach or guide their kids. These are the kids who are disruptive in class or in activities, who have never done the homework, who don't have indoor voices, etc. And before you yell at me: yes, I know that many of these kids likely have undiagnosed (or maybe even diagnosed) ADHD or learning disorders and they are acting out because they just aren't getting what they need. That's the whole point -- these kids aren't getting what they need, and its frustrating because the people who are positioned to give them what they need (their parents) just... don't. So I get PP's sentiment.

But the "please parent your kid" folks during Covid are taking this sentiment and applying it to families who are struggling, no matter how hard that family is working to try and make it work. A family that can't afford tutors or full-time childcare for their elementary age kids are not failing to parent their kids, they are just under-resourced. And they know they are, so they are trying to compensate with the resources they do have, and it's miserable. When they say "We need more from the schools, we need help" they don't mean help with the fundamentals of parenting, they mean resources so that they can give their kids what they need.

Slowly, some of the schools in this area have started to figure this out and offer some of that help. The CARES classrooms in DCPS are one such example, and I am so glad that finally that is being implemented. But it took forever and in the meantime, all the parents who needed CARES classrooms were being yelled at to "please parent your kid!"

And truthfully, DL is just bad for young kids. Like actively bad for them. So "parenting your kid" in this situation sometimes means turning off the computer and finding another way. But when parents do that (and many of us are doing that), we get hounded by the teachers and then schools for absences and told our kids aren't fulfilling their requirements and that we are failing as parents. In other words, by doing exactly what this PP is saying -- responding to our kid's needs and finding a way to meet them with what resources we have available -- we are viewed by the school as failing to parent correctly.

When "parent your kid" means finding a way to force a child who hates DL and is seriously deprived (of outdoor time, social interaction, non-screen time, and just unstructured time) to sit in his chair and stare at his computer screen and meet rigid requirements for participation in a DL curriculum that is not appropriate for his age or his learning needs, then the words have no meaning anymore. Schools are forcing parents to choose between parenting their kids and fulfilling school requirements. There has always been some of that going on, but now it's pretty much the heart of the relationship between parents and schools because what schools are offering to kids is so, so bad for them. In what other circumstance would a "good parent" be one who convinces their kid to do something that is actively bad for their well being? It's so messed up.[/quote]

DL is not bad for all kids.  Its bad for some, especially those who don't have an active parent involved but for other kids its been great for a variety of reasons.[/quote]

It sounds like the pandemic is a dream come true for you. How lucky you are.[/quote]

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