Anonymous wrote:Op here. Appreciate all the varied and many earnest perspectives. It does seem to be a maturity issue and not an ability or disability issue, but that will probably just take a couple more years of growing up. Specifically things like writing ‘IDK’ in a blank instead of trying the problem, doodling and just generally not taking the work very seriously. We talked about it, we did re-do some work, and we discussed how to ask for clarification when a question confuses you or try using whatever you learned as your best guess. The grades have improved since then. It’s our first year with letter grades so just wondered how much weight other parents gave to them. We only spend about ten minutes on homework at night.

Grades are an indication of where your kid is. I took the 1-4 seriously, a 2 was a red flag. We only saw a few of those and they were in hand writing but those were immediate set up a conference to discuss and see what we could do to help DS improve.

The emphasis should be on the effort, which sounds like it is lacking in your son’s math work. I wouldn’t re-do some work, I would re-do all the work. What you are describing is a kid who is blowing off work in third grade. Until he stops with the doodling and not taking his work seriously there would be more then 10 minutes of homework. If he complained I would tell him that understanding and mastering these math concepts is the founndation of all future math. He has the ability to do better and needs to make his best effort. If he won’t make his best effort at school then we need to work on it at home.

A third grader understands when he is trying his hardest. That is what we have asked DS to do. When he finished his assigned work, he had time to doodle or read or do whatever the teacher had out for kids to do silently while others finished their work. The first thing we commented on was DSs effort scores. If a teacher had told us he was doing sloppy work and was rushing and wasn’t trying, that would have been a problem.

I would be concerned about the C but more concerned about your child’s effort level.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If he's not trying - yes.
If he needs help with learning, habits - no, work with him instead.

For Cs we just didn't $$$ reward, only As and Bs.

You pay your kids for expectations? Explains a lot

Yes school is their "job", guess you've never gotten a bonus for performance

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kids in gifted classes, if truly gifted, often do not know how to study or check work. Things come easy until the devil is in the details. I know. My story.

A truly gifted third grader should not NEED to study or check work for a third grade gifted class.

Do some of you folks even hear yourselves?

My kid who is really strong in math learned to write out his work and check it because it was what was expected. It is a skill that kids will need as they get into higher math. It helped that my kid loved math competitions and the math competition teacher required that the kids show all of their work. This reinforced the importance of writing out your work.

That’s great, but has absolutely nothing to do with the comment to which you replied.

The response was to a post that said “a truly gifted third grader should not NEED to study or check work.” Writing out your answers is a part of checking your work and is something that a third grader should be doing, gifted or not. A gifted child, or just a smart kid who grasps math easily, needs to learn proper study skills. For math that means writing out the answer even when you can do it in your head. This practice, which a lot of kids and parents seem to think is unnecessary, was reinforced in a math competition class because the teacher in that class knew that the kids in the class didn’t see the point in writing out or checking their answers.

Too many people think that students shouldn’t have to write out answers when they can do the math in their head. This creates issues later because kids have not developed good study skills that follow them into higher math classes.

For the OP, if her son writes out the answers, like they are supposed to, they are less likely to make mental math mistakes. That is why the parent needs to work with the child on how they are approaching the subject.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kids in gifted classes, if truly gifted, often do not know how to study or check work. Things come easy until the devil is in the details. I know. My story.

If they can’t be taught how to study and how to check work then they aren’t gifted.

Third grade is all about memorization. Multiplication tables, simple addition and subtraction, learning very basic math skills so they can go on to the difficult math problems.

That's not true. There's also a lot of word problems and figuring out how to set up and solve a problem from a verbal description of a situation. Memorizing math facts helps do that faster. Mine would have to work out problems like "Dweezil has seven bags of mushrooms and each bag has nine mushrooms. Moon Unit secretly takes one mushroom from each bag and gives Dweezil a new bag containing ten mushrooms. How many does Dweezil have in total?"

That’s true but word problems started in 2nd grade. The memorization is tough.

Your child just needs supportive help with his issues…which I find to be no big deal at his age. But if you must do something, make it positive.

Op here. Appreciate all the varied and many earnest perspectives. It does seem to be a maturity issue and not an ability or disability issue, but that will probably just take a couple more years of growing up. Specifically things like writing ‘IDK’ in a blank instead of trying the problem, doodling and just generally not taking the work very seriously. We talked about it, we did re-do some work, and we discussed how to ask for clarification when a question confuses you or try using whatever you learned as your best guess. The grades have improved since then. It’s our first year with letter grades so just wondered how much weight other parents gave to them. We only spend about ten minutes on homework at night.

Anonymous wrote:Having you as a parent is punishment enough.

+1. This is why so many people need therapy… or this is a troll. Hope it’s a troll.

Anonymous wrote:My sister killed herself over a bad report card. Put this grade in perspective for a child. C is average. It does not matter. If you know why he got the grade, work on a plan to fix the issues in a non-punitive way. He already knows he disappointed the people he loves the most. It’s a grade, not his self-worth.

This makes my heart hurt. I am so sorry

Anonymous wrote:If he's not trying - yes.
If he needs help with learning, habits - no, work with him instead.

For Cs we just didn't $$$ reward, only As and Bs.

You pay your kids for expectations? Explains a lot

Anonymous wrote:3rd grader likely getting a C on report card in math. What should be consequence (if any?) Teacher said mostly due to rushing, not trying, and making careless mistakes. He’s in the gifted classes and hasn’t had to study much before.

Should we take away a privilege? put him in math tutoring? Was previously in mathnasium but hated it. Likes robotics and programming.

How do you handle disappointing grades when student is capable of better?

Sounds like he's not ready for gifted. To punish him is asinine.

Seriously my Asian immigrant parents wouldve been pissed. You need to have high expectations and make them known. If you want to go tiger parent-light you don't have to punish, but they don't get a reward either.

If it’s an Asian kid you disown him immediately

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kids in gifted classes, if truly gifted, often do not know how to study or check work. Things come easy until the devil is in the details. I know. My story.

If they can’t be taught how to study and how to check work then they aren’t gifted.

Third grade is all about memorization. Multiplication tables, simple addition and subtraction, learning very basic math skills so they can go on to the difficult math problems.

That's not true. There's also a lot of word problems and figuring out how to set up and solve a problem from a verbal description of a situation. Memorizing math facts helps do that faster. Mine would have to work out problems like "Dweezil has seven bags of mushrooms and each bag has nine mushrooms. Moon Unit secretly takes one mushroom from each bag and gives Dweezil a new bag containing ten mushrooms. How many does Dweezil have in total?"

Anonymous wrote:He needs help for his ADHD, OP.

What a terrible parent you are.

F—k off, troll.

Anonymous wrote:Kids in gifted classes, if truly gifted, often do not know how to study or check work. Things come easy until the devil is in the details. I know. My story.

If they can’t be taught how to study and how to check work then they aren’t gifted.

Third grade is all about memorization. Multiplication tables, simple addition and subtraction, learning very basic math skills so they can go on to the difficult math problems.