Anonymous wrote:
It applies to some parents, OP, even if it doesn’t apply to you. You’re correct that generalizations are always wrong.

Also:

Schools are accelerators of viral spread and even if everyone wants a return to normal, we can’t have that right now unless we want to kill a million Americans instead of half a million.

So stop saying you want schools to open. It’s not safe.


End of story.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Perspective from a stay at home mom: I feel for the teachers, but even with constant supervision, my kid screws around a lot during asynchronous time. I can stand there and tell him to do his work and he will just sit and find reasons to stall. His teachers praised his work a lot during the regular school year and there is just no way his behavior is just how he is as a student.

When people tell me I just need to parent him more, I have to laugh. There is no way I could parent him any more than I am doing now. I know it must be a nightmare for working parents.

Working parent here and yes, this. My kid is 6. He tried so hard in the fall but at this point he screws around during synchronous AND asynchronous times. I am doing my best to keep him as attentive as i can, but I am also on my own work Zoom calls for most of the school day and cannot leave them every 5 minutes to stand over him saying "put that down, look at the screen, do what your teacher is saying" for 3 hours. Even when i do, some days it isn't that successful.

The only way i could "parent" him full time on the SCHOOL'S preferred schedule is to quit my job. If the minimum level of parenting you think is necessary involves one SAHP per household, you really, really have to rethink your expectations. That is absolutely unreasonable. I said in another thread that this is basically an argument for private school.

This is a pandemic. Private schools are also shutting down for 14 days every time some one gets COVID, which is far more disruptive. It is a crapshoot and it is horrible.

My kids have great teachers for DL, but I have no leisure time anymore because I have to be very involved in the education of the students. Still, I believe that some families will actually utilize this time and give an academic leg-up to their children. We will see some students get exponentially ahead in academics. This will really widen the achievement gap.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This pandemic is nothing any of us signed up for. When most of us became parents, there was a pretty deep expectation that when kids are 5-6, they would be in school and we could work during those hours. When that rug got pulled out from underneath us, we are allowed to be thrown off balance. I realize we're 10 months into it but the goalposts have moved A LOT and none of us have been able to accurately predict what will happen next.

That was your failure as a parent to not realize this is exactly what you signed up for. Life has curve balls, bad things happen as well as good. You are really lucky if this is the worst thing that happened in your family. We've had far worse so a pandemic is a breeze compared to what we've been through.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So true. Its total BS. Then you also hear teachers complain that parents are taking kids to run errands. Are they expecting the world to stop operating because of DL.

Yes when your kid is in school they don't go on errands with you. You do your errands after school or don't take your kids. People need to tell their DH to do some frickin' childcare.

And what errands are people doing in a pandemic anyway?

Really so you leave your 8 year old by themselves to DL and go run errands. The world hasn’t stopped functioning in pandemic and there are plenty of errands that need to be run during school hours.

What errands MUST be run from 9 to 3? Please let me know. I really don’t get it.

Anonymous wrote:This pandemic is nothing any of us signed up for. When most of us became parents, there was a pretty deep expectation that when kids are 5-6, they would be in school and we could work during those hours. When that rug got pulled out from underneath us, we are allowed to be thrown off balance. I realize we're 10 months into it but the goalposts have moved A LOT and none of us have been able to accurately predict what will happen next.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also because they attend school, I use that time to have a job. If we don't want to offer school, then I guess I can stay home to homeschool them and you, teacher, can go find another line of work. But that's not how we're currently set up to function as a society.

Go for it, sweetums!

I challenge parents to start home-schooling their kids or even make their lunch everyday. OMFG! My affluent neighbor is driving down the nearest school to pick up school lunches every day so that they don't have to cook. The school lunch consists of bread, cheese slice and luncheon meat, a fruit and a carton of milk. I am trying to think where is the cooking involved.

If you think DL isn't exactly the same as modern homeschooling you don't know very much about homeschooling. We are all literally homeschooling.

If homeschooling is when your child watches a narrated Google slide deck for 3 hours a day, sure, we're all homeschooling.

No homeschooling would be you made the deck yourself; you source the curriculum yourself; you figure out which way is best for your child to learn (maybe it 5 pm outside; maybe it 6 am on the couch); figuring out which items needs to be wrote memorization vs. deeper learning; making literally everything you do a learning experience; ensuring your child gets proper socialization with camps and church groups; figuring out where your child's real reading level and having them go higher; teaching them chemistry because they need it but you know they aren't going to be a chem major and they need a well rounded education; figuring out if something they are doing is developmentally appropriate vs. them being lazy or having a delay.

Homeschooling is not watching another person teach your kid regardless of how good or bad you think it is.

BTW teachers get to fail and have bad days and weeks in their careers just like all of us. They get to phone it in too.

Do you think that they aren't phoning it in here and there in the classroom. Right now you get ot see it, maybe its better they do a half ass job now when things are just so jacked up vs. regular times.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work out of the house full time. So does my husband. My kids are 11 and 14 - they handle distance learning by themselves. Every day. Even though they are “doing well”, I, like most, realize the material they are covering and their methods of assessment are pretty sub par with DL. I want my kids back in school ASAP.
I’m parenting them exactly as I would have during “normal” times, if they were in person in school. So please please stop with the nonsense that people only want kids in school because they can’t/don’t want to parent them, or are sick of them, or want someone else to parent them. It’s just a stupid baseless so called argument.

Well you should not be parenting them just like "normal times" ... these are not normal times.

You are exactly the person that people are complaining about, you don't want to be bothered to "parent your kids".

If they are falling back in school, help them.
If they need more socialization, set up outdoor gatherings so they can carry on friendships.
If they need a sport, sign them up for a sport.
If they need their arts, get together with other parents and continue with their arts.

The government is not there to solve all your problems. Do your job as a parent.

DCUM DL forever folk in the summer and fall: You are terribly selfish for allowing your kids to play sports or do other activities. If you want schools to reopen, do your part and stay home.

DCUM DL forever folk 2021 - If your kids are suffering, sign them up for activities. Play sports. Don't expect the government to solve all your problems.

There's no winning.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work out of the house full time. So does my husband. My kids are 11 and 14 - they handle distance learning by themselves. Every day. Even though they are “doing well”, I, like most, realize the material they are covering and their methods of assessment are pretty sub par with DL. I want my kids back in school ASAP.
I’m parenting them exactly as I would have during “normal” times, if they were in person in school. So please please stop with the nonsense that people only want kids in school because they can’t/don’t want to parent them, or are sick of them, or want someone else to parent them. It’s just a stupid baseless so called argument.

Well you should not be parenting them just like "normal times" ... these are not normal times.

You are exactly the person that people are complaining about, you don't want to be bothered to "parent your kids".

If they are falling back in school, help them.
If they need more socialization, set up outdoor gatherings so they can carry on friendships.
If they need a sport, sign them up for a sport.
If they need their arts, get together with other parents and continue with their arts.

The government is not there to solve all your problems. Do your job as a parent.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Perspective from a stay at home mom: I feel for the teachers, but even with constant supervision, my kid screws around a lot during asynchronous time. I can stand there and tell him to do his work and he will just sit and find reasons to stall. His teachers praised his work a lot during the regular school year and there is just no way his behavior is just how he is as a student.

When people tell me I just need to parent him more, I have to laugh. There is no way I could parent him any more than I am doing now. I know it must be a nightmare for working parents.

You need some new tools. Parenting is hard and we need to learn and grow to handle challenging situations.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So true. Its total BS. Then you also hear teachers complain that parents are taking kids to run errands. Are they expecting the world to stop operating because of DL.

Yes when your kid is in school they don't go on errands with you. You do your errands after school or don't take your kids. People need to tell their DH to do some frickin' childcare.

And what errands are people doing in a pandemic anyway?

Really so you leave your 8 year old by themselves to DL and go run errands. The world hasn’t stopped functioning in pandemic and there are plenty of errands that need to be run during school hours.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So true. Its total BS. Then you also hear teachers complain that parents are taking kids to run errands. Are they expecting the world to stop operating because of DL.

Yes when your kid is in school they don't go on errands with you. You do your errands after school or don't take your kids. People need to tell their DH to do some frickin' childcare.

And what errands are people doing in a pandemic anyway?