Anonymous wrote:DC seems fine, but I hate his school. I listen to it every school day since we have 1-bedroom and I have nowhere to go. It is so painful that I want to scream. I ask him to hang in there and promise him a massage after a day is over.
Again, the kid is fine, but I'm dramatized. I didn't grow up in the states and what they are taught and asked to do, is simply horrific.
DC will turn out fine, but school is complete crap.

Headphones for you or him?

Teacher here: we were told we could not ask the kids about their break or allow them to share because for some kids the break might have been rough or stressful.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a parent, in the end, it is up to you to make sure your child can reduce the anxiety. You see it, you need to confront it. Ask your child why their anxious. Remove the stressors if possible, even a little helps. Praise your child. Encourage your child. Give them attainable goals. Give them more frequent breaks. Give them rewards related to desired behavior and outcomes. Set AM and PM targets. Have you told the teacher? Have you asked for help from the administration or mental health services at your school? It's not easy being a parent, even harder under these circumstances. Complaining might help short term, but start attacking the long term. Stay positive and good luck.

Oh, so THIS is what I should have been doing all this time! Thanks so much! Completely doable to do all this as well as my day job. Thanks for the tips!

Meh, I simply told my kid I would gladly attend his classes tomorrow if he did my job for the day. He decided against the offer

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone else have young kids who are dreading starting "school" tomorrow?
Any changes planned in the way you manage or participate?
Looking for helpful ideas.

Did anything interesting happen over break your kid might be excited to share with the class - Did Santa bring an exciting toy? Did she watch a funny new movie or did he lose a tooth? I’m trying to get my younger DC pumped for tomorrow using that as a tactic (similar to what we’d do during non-covid times after holiday break).

Getting excited about the rest of the week will be another story, but one day at a time.

Do NOT ask kids if Santa brought a toy. Way to alienate kids whose families don't have a lot of resources (especially given the financial state of many people) while also making it awkward for kids who don't celebrate Christmas, while simultaneously reminding people that they may not have had the chance to see family or that their family went against public health guidelines to visit family outside their home.

Little kids are going to talk about what they did (or received) over the break, just like they have for generations.

Anonymous wrote:I am a teacher and I am looking forward to it. The sooner we get started again, the sooner it will all be over. It will be a slow week for us. I do not plan on overloading them and instead, just doing some review type of work with no homework and only participation grades. Lots of fun activities and keeping it short.

We are at a bilingual charter school and my kids are online 2 hours a day broken into bits. Part of our issue is that in person class time is so short that they have no time to really learn anything and then the asynchronous learning is watching little videos that they finish in 30 minutes. There is no learning which is less stressful during vacation when that's expected but so depressing the rest of the time. They are young and even feel and hate it. We have lost faith in our school and it's so sad.

Ok so I’m gonna log in and just listen to when the teacher actually begins true academic instruction and then call my first grader to the table for reading. We are going to skip the social emotional crap with the awful music by Jack Hartmann. MCPS ‘s plan for young children is demoralizing, depressing and neglectful.

Anonymous wrote:As a parent, in the end, it is up to you to make sure your child can reduce the anxiety. You see it, you need to confront it. Ask your child why their anxious. Remove the stressors if possible, even a little helps. Praise your child. Encourage your child. Give them attainable goals. Give them more frequent breaks. Give them rewards related to desired behavior and outcomes. Set AM and PM targets. Have you told the teacher? Have you asked for help from the administration or mental health services at your school? It's not easy being a parent, even harder under these circumstances. Complaining might help short term, but start attacking the long term. Stay positive and good luck.

Oh, so THIS is what I should have been doing all this time! Thanks so much! Completely doable to do all this as well as my day job. Thanks for the tips!

I’m shocked there is no plan in sight for young kids, and am feeling abandoned by our government and community. Kids will be out of school for about 18 months at this rate and DC is too scared to say it or admit the repercussions for K-2 in particular.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a teacher and I am looking forward to it. The sooner we get started again, the sooner it will all be over. It will be a slow week for us. I do not plan on overloading them and instead, just doing some review type of work with no homework and only participation grades. Lots of fun activities and keeping it short.

Which grade to you teach? The activities my son's 1st grade teachers comes up with probably sound like a lot of fun but it just doesn't work out in practice, unless the kid has a parent there to help out. My kid doesn't and feels like a failure every time he is not able to accomplish the "fun" activity on those old clunky laptops they are using.

+1. My 2nd and 4th do not enjoy ‘fun’ activities online and ‘slow’ just means tedium. They would rather the teacher teach something substantive and interesting and then let them get off the call and do something that is actually fun.

Well, take that up with administrators that push teachers to keep elementary aged students in live sessions all day and begin curriculum as soon as winter break ends. One of my colleagues ended a session 15 minutes early because his students were drained and got a nasty email from admin about it.

Remember we have bosses that dictate most of what we do. Please don’t blame teachers.

And you know why he got a nasty email from admin? Leaving aside the minute possibility (seriously, tiny) that an admin happened to be remotely obseverving his class at that exact moment -- he got that email because A BITCHY PARENT COMPLAINED.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a parent, in the end, it is up to you to make sure your child can reduce the anxiety. You see it, you need to confront it. Ask your child why their anxious. Remove the stressors if possible, even a little helps. Praise your child. Encourage your child. Give them attainable goals. Give them more frequent breaks. Give them rewards related to desired behavior and outcomes. Set AM and PM targets. Have you told the teacher? Have you asked for help from the administration or mental health services at your school? It's not easy being a parent, even harder under these circumstances. Complaining might help short term, but start attacking the long term. Stay positive and good luck.

Er, the stressor is DL.

Yep, and that's why my kid doesn't log in to DL classes anymore. We log into Canvas and do the asynchronous work. I will even send the videos of my child working on certain activities as requested by the teacher, and we do submit assignments. But the actual live sessions are excruciating and my kid hates them. She does a 1:1 with her teacher once a week that is okay because once they are connected, there are minimal tech issues or interruptions. But not even the small group session was worthwhile, so we stopped. It's been much better since then.

But I only work PT and have the time to dedicate to this, most parents understandably can't (and I only can because I was partially furloughed in April, so we're working down half my salary and can't afford any outside childcare).

DL for this age group is garbage.

Anonymous wrote:As a parent, in the end, it is up to you to make sure your child can reduce the anxiety. You see it, you need to confront it. Ask your child why their anxious. Remove the stressors if possible, even a little helps. Praise your child. Encourage your child. Give them attainable goals. Give them more frequent breaks. Give them rewards related to desired behavior and outcomes. Set AM and PM targets. Have you told the teacher? Have you asked for help from the administration or mental health services at your school? It's not easy being a parent, even harder under these circumstances. Complaining might help short term, but start attacking the long term. Stay positive and good luck.

Er, the stressor is DL.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone else have young kids who are dreading starting "school" tomorrow?
Any changes planned in the way you manage or participate?
Looking for helpful ideas.

Did anything interesting happen over break your kid might be excited to share with the class - Did Santa bring an exciting toy? Did she watch a funny new movie or did he lose a tooth? I’m trying to get my younger DC pumped for tomorrow using that as a tactic (similar to what we’d do during non-covid times after holiday break).

Getting excited about the rest of the week will be another story, but one day at a time.

Do NOT ask kids if Santa brought a toy. Way to alienate kids whose families don't have a lot of resources (especially given the financial state of many people) while also making it awkward for kids who don't celebrate Christmas, while simultaneously reminding people that they may not have had the chance to see family or that their family went against public health guidelines to visit family outside their home.

As a parent, in the end, it is up to you to make sure your child can reduce the anxiety. You see it, you need to confront it. Ask your child why their anxious. Remove the stressors if possible, even a little helps. Praise your child. Encourage your child. Give them attainable goals. Give them more frequent breaks. Give them rewards related to desired behavior and outcomes. Set AM and PM targets. Have you told the teacher? Have you asked for help from the administration or mental health services at your school? It's not easy being a parent, even harder under these circumstances. Complaining might help short term, but start attacking the long term. Stay positive and good luck.

Mine are older but my hs freshman just told me he’s dreading tomorrow because it’s so boring staring at a screen all day not talking to anyone 😢

Joining the add-on of fourth grader kid and parent despair. I don't know how this generation of DCPS kids is ever *not* going to hate school. And it's not as easy as saying, "they'll get to see their friends! They'll be happy to be back!" While that's true, there's also, I imagine, going to be lots of separation anxiety and some hard adjustments for everyone when (if anytime in the near future?) they go back into the buildings.