Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You’re hurting your kid if you’re still checking homework or helping with projects by the end of elementary school.

This is bullshit. Even in many workplaces, there is a level of review: review for content and typos. My briefs and memos and investigative reports get reviewed by 1-3 people depending on who the audience is.

Checking their homework and flagging issues to reconsider or wrong answers is not a problem. That's life. If your doing their work and giving the answers, that is the problem.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You’re hurting your kid if you’re still checking homework or helping with projects by the end of elementary school.

I totally disagree. It depends on the kid and what will help them develop.

Yeah, this. I have 2 boys. I've noticed their standardized testing percentiles are almost identical. But the younger one is super competitive and slightly neurotic while the older one is the nicest, chillest kid but disinterested in school and totally averse to competition. Older one can do fine on his own with a lot of oversight of the MCPS portal and prodding. Younger one needs almost no reminders whatsoever. To those who know us as parents through our older kid, we'd probably look like helicopters by virtue of monitoring his grades near constantly. To those who know us through the younger one, we probably look delinquent. Different kids need different types of parenting at different times in their lives. My older son has such a good personality and innate sense of decency that I know he will do well in life -- but he does need more guidance now. The younger one may sail through school but will probably keep us up nights for other reasons.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing is these type of parents really and truly think they are doing their job. You simply can't convince them otherwise. A friend says her high school daughter is really anxious about school and that's just her personality. I refrain from reminding her how she reviewed and corrected her child's schoolwork every night in elementary and middle school and supervised every project and science fair. She thought her husband was actually neglectful because he didn't do it.

Nothing wrong with checking HW to make sure your kid understands the material, but I draw the line at getting involved in projects, unless it's something the child really does need help with. Luckily, my kids have done their own projects with very minimal help/guidance from me.

One time I tried to make suggestions on a project to my DS, and he started to get agitated so I backed off. Sometimes he does take suggestions, though. I think that's important for them to learn, too, the ability to take criticism and suggestions.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You’re hurting your kid if you’re still checking homework or helping with projects by the end of elementary school.

I totally disagree. It depends on the kid and what will help them develop.

Anonymous wrote:In addition to the suggestions here, ask yourself what you really want for your child. For me, I want my child to grow into a confident, competent, resilient, responsible, kind adult. Doing things for her, clearing her path of obstacles, etc., will not help her develop real confidence--which is not just the confidence that you can do things, but also the confidence that you can solve problems and handle setbacks and adversity. They need to learn that they can make mistakes, they can fail at something, they can have their hearts broken, and they can get back up and keep going, and maybe find something even better down the road, and I think it's better to learn those things when the stakes are lower.

It's hard in the moment, but ultimately it comes down to the fact that you have to have faith in your children. That doesn't mean being totally hands-off--I try to be a sounding board, to help her talk through problems, ask questions, make suggestions, but she has to own her own life. She's always got a safe place to land, but I have to let her figure out how to fly on her own.

The best analogy for me is the story of a person who found a butterfly in the process of emerging from a chrysalis. The butterfly was struggling to get out of a small opening. Thinking to help the butterfly, the person took a small pair of scissors and, with a few snips, made the hole larger. The butterfly quickly emerged. But it looked funny--it had a swollen body and shriveled wings. The butterfly never flew. It turns out that the struggle to squeeze out of the cocoon was necessary to push the fluid out of its body and to strengthen its wings. Without the struggle, the butterfly could not fly.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of my kids just had a project due that is directly in my area of expertise. I could have helped her knock it out of the park.

But I didn't help my kid other than to ask a few questions like "what's your main point?" and "how are you going to explain it?" Then I let her do it all herself. I suggested she re-read the whole thing for spelling and punctuation errors, but I didn't tell her what to change.

She turned it in as is. More than half of the projects in the class were obviously done by parents. How can kids learn if their parents do the work for them? My child got a decent grade. She would have gotten top grades with my help. But it's all HER work, not mine. As it should be.

Did the teacher mark ever single thing that was incorrect and give comments on how to make it better? If not, that is a good reason for parents to step in. When my kids were young, they got great grades for mediocre work, so I stepped in to teach them what they should be striving for. Before turning it in, they were motivated to work with me. If I had waited until afterwards, they would not have been as willing to learn from me. There’s a big difference between teaching and doing a kid’s work for them, so that’s important. It took a lot more time to have to work with me, but they learned valuable stuff.