My extraverted ADHD kid (3rd grade) misses friends and loves DL. They school was too noisy and overwhelming for him. He missed instructions often, he could not follow all the rules, he was exhausted by the end of the day. He sees his friends outdoors in an unstructured environment and in an outdoor sports class. The downside is that he can't make new friends and leave some friendships that ran their course, and it's an important skill to have.

Both of my kids are introverts and both ask daily when they can go back to school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My introverted 1st grader is doing fine, but has trouble keeping his camera on because looking at himself is distracting and makes him self conscious.

I am neutral on DL. He’s probably learning less, but it’s not as awful as some parents make it out to be.

My $.02 - My husband and I have both worked to have a super optimistic, positive attitude about DL. We talk about “making it work” and “doing our best”. We have never given our child any indication that he should be unhappy. We don’t talk about DL or potential hybrid in front of him. We are engaged with what is going on and we work with him to reinforce what he is doing during DL. This is not taking a heroic effort - it takes me 30-40 min a day. All of the loudmouth “open schools now” parents seem to also have kids who are melting down and acting out. It’s a bit of a chicken and and egg thing to me.
Do the kids have a bad attitude / sense of entitlement/ learned helplessness because their parents were so negative about DL from day 1? Or are the parents at their wit’s end because of the kids?

Yes! It's all the fault of the parents, in my opinion. If they just shut up about it and let their kids go online by themselves and learn, we'd all be so much better. But no, they couldn't shut up and now look what's about to happen. We'll have more community spread of COVID because they can't control their kids.

You might want to read some parenting books, because "controlling kids" is not good parenting.

The ability to successfully adapt involves managing many aspects of life, including mental health. You can't force a kid who has shut down into being motivated. Trust me, I've tried.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My introverted 1st grader is doing fine, but has trouble keeping his camera on because looking at himself is distracting and makes him self conscious.

I am neutral on DL. He’s probably learning less, but it’s not as awful as some parents make it out to be.

My $.02 - My husband and I have both worked to have a super optimistic, positive attitude about DL. We talk about “making it work” and “doing our best”. We have never given our child any indication that he should be unhappy. We don’t talk about DL or potential hybrid in front of him. We are engaged with what is going on and we work with him to reinforce what he is doing during DL. This is not taking a heroic effort - it takes me 30-40 min a day. All of the loudmouth “open schools now” parents seem to also have kids who are melting down and acting out. It’s a bit of a chicken and and egg thing to me.
Do the kids have a bad attitude / sense of entitlement/ learned helplessness because their parents were so negative about DL from day 1? Or are the parents at their wit’s end because of the kids?

If you only have one child, and he's in first grade, then you have it easier than 99.9% of parents. Your child is in the sweet spot where he doesn't need much supervision, he doesn't NEED to learn anything since the requirements are so low at this age, and if you're a decent parent then he would have learned almost all of the academic work before he started first grade anyway just from having engaged parents. Most parents have either younger kids to deal with as well, or they have older kids who actually need to learn something and can't be okay with "learning less" for a couple of years while having no social or sports interaction either. Have a bit of empathy for everyone else.

My goodness, this is quite a statement. A bit rich talking about empathy, PP.

Anonymous wrote:My introverted 1st grader is doing fine, but has trouble keeping his camera on because looking at himself is distracting and makes him self conscious.

I am neutral on DL. He’s probably learning less, but it’s not as awful as some parents make it out to be.

My $.02 - My husband and I have both worked to have a super optimistic, positive attitude about DL. We talk about “making it work” and “doing our best”. We have never given our child any indication that he should be unhappy. We don’t talk about DL or potential hybrid in front of him. We are engaged with what is going on and we work with him to reinforce what he is doing during DL. This is not taking a heroic effort - it takes me 30-40 min a day. All of the loudmouth “open schools now” parents seem to also have kids who are melting down and acting out. It’s a bit of a chicken and and egg thing to me.
Do the kids have a bad attitude / sense of entitlement/ learned helplessness because their parents were so negative about DL from day 1? Or are the parents at their wit’s end because of the kids?

Yes! It's all the fault of the parents, in my opinion. If they just shut up about it and let their kids go online by themselves and learn, we'd all be so much better. But no, they couldn't shut up and now look what's about to happen. We'll have more community spread of COVID because they can't control their kids.

Anonymous wrote:My introverted 1st grader is doing fine, but has trouble keeping his camera on because looking at himself is distracting and makes him self conscious.

I am neutral on DL. He’s probably learning less, but it’s not as awful as some parents make it out to be.

My $.02 - My husband and I have both worked to have a super optimistic, positive attitude about DL. We talk about “making it work” and “doing our best”. We have never given our child any indication that he should be unhappy. We don’t talk about DL or potential hybrid in front of him. We are engaged with what is going on and we work with him to reinforce what he is doing during DL. This is not taking a heroic effort - it takes me 30-40 min a day. All of the loudmouth “open schools now” parents seem to also have kids who are melting down and acting out. It’s a bit of a chicken and and egg thing to me.
Do the kids have a bad attitude / sense of entitlement/ learned helplessness because their parents were so negative about DL from day 1? Or are the parents at their wit’s end because of the kids?

If you only have one child, and he's in first grade, then you have it easier than 99.9% of parents. Your child is in the sweet spot where he doesn't need much supervision, he doesn't NEED to learn anything since the requirements are so low at this age, and if you're a decent parent then he would have learned almost all of the academic work before he started first grade anyway just from having engaged parents. Most parents have either younger kids to deal with as well, or they have older kids who actually need to learn something and can't be okay with "learning less" for a couple of years while having no social or sports interaction either. Have a bit of empathy for everyone else.

Anonymous wrote:My kids are all extroverts. They also are high performers academically.

I think the reason why they love DL so much is that all of the class fools are completely mitigated online. It has been such a relief to them, from my high schooler to my middle schoolers to my elementary schooler, that the fools are knocked out of the game. The teachers are teaching and my kids are knocking it out of the park. Instruction is "bell-to-bell" so to speak.

Plus my kids have a lot more time for sports and relaxing. I think it helps that they have a wide circle of friends who are all pretty technologically adept.

Do high school classes for high performers really have large populations of class fools in need of muting?

And snacks and PJs. She likes those, too. We just keep saying, “Enjoy this while it lasts!”

My kid likes it because she knows it’s only temporary.

Anonymous wrote:My introverted 1st grader is doing fine, but has trouble keeping his camera on because looking at himself is distracting and makes him self conscious.

I am neutral on DL. He’s probably learning less, but it’s not as awful as some parents make it out to be.

My $.02 - My husband and I have both worked to have a super optimistic, positive attitude about DL. We talk about “making it work” and “doing our best”. We have never given our child any indication that he should be unhappy. We don’t talk about DL or potential hybrid in front of him. We are engaged with what is going on and we work with him to reinforce what he is doing during DL. This is not taking a heroic effort - it takes me 30-40 min a day. All of the loudmouth “open schools now” parents seem to also have kids who are melting down and acting out. It’s a bit of a chicken and and egg thing to me.
Do the kids have a bad attitude / sense of entitlement/ learned helplessness because their parents were so negative about DL from day 1? Or are the parents at their wit’s end because of the kids?

This is the $1M question and answer in a nutshell.

My kids are all extroverts. They also are high performers academically.

I think the reason why they love DL so much is that all of the class fools are completely mitigated online. It has been such a relief to them, from my high schooler to my middle schoolers to my elementary schooler, that the fools are knocked out of the game. The teachers are teaching and my kids are knocking it out of the park. Instruction is "bell-to-bell" so to speak.

Plus my kids have a lot more time for sports and relaxing. I think it helps that they have a wide circle of friends who are all pretty technologically adept.

Anonymous wrote:My introverted 1st grader is doing fine, but has trouble keeping his camera on because looking at himself is distracting and makes him self conscious.

I am neutral on DL. He’s probably learning less, but it’s not as awful as some parents make it out to be.

My $.02 - My husband and I have both worked to have a super optimistic, positive attitude about DL. We talk about “making it work” and “doing our best”. We have never given our child any indication that he should be unhappy. We don’t talk about DL or potential hybrid in front of him. We are engaged with what is going on and we work with him to reinforce what he is doing during DL. This is not taking a heroic effort - it takes me 30-40 min a day. All of the loudmouth “open schools now” parents seem to also have kids who are melting down and acting out. It’s a bit of a chicken and and egg thing to me.
Do the kids have a bad attitude / sense of entitlement/ learned helplessness because their parents were so negative about DL from day 1? Or are the parents at their wit’s end because of the kids?

I think both contribute. If we look at this objectively, for many of us, the problem may not be DL or not DL, but more about the experience our family is having and how we are impacted by the pandemic. DL fits into that.

One of my kids has straight As and got into every college he applied to. I am fine with DL continuing for him, although I worry about socialization. However, in the fall, when he was down, belligerent, and we were fighting everyday about applications, I was cursing the school district for forcing the kids to be a home, isolated, and away from things that would normally motivate them. I know that some of the most desperate parents have kids who are extremely depressed, or who are failing classes which the parents then fear will result in ruining their lives, or are being forced to make huge and possibly permanent choice about leaving their jobs, or risking the health of family members to provide childcare. Some have lost their jobs and feel trapped by DL obligations and unable to find a new one. People with a tribe to support them may fare better; those who are isolated might be under more stress. Some of us won't ask for help because we are keeping our bubbles small or not socializing with others; others are thriving because their kids are out in the world socializing as usual.

So many factors play into this. It's not limited to parenting issues, but involves family issues and each child's general learning style or attachment to school and overall approach to the pandemic and what risks we have to take or are willing to take.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think it matters so much about introvert / extrovert, but how bullied and chaotic the kid finds their grade or school.

I still think that except for extreme examples it's probably still more dependent on their learning style more than anything else.

The two go together. Some learning styles do not work well in a regular classroom because it is too chaotic. Other kids need things to be more active to find school engaging. Some kids can brush off the bully and are not the target. Other kids cannot and become the target. Some of it has to do with confidence. DS was really quiet in the classroom in K and First Grade. Something happened during the summer before Second grade because his Teachers did not have any problems with his level of participation. We can hear him participating this year and he likes having his camera on.

Some kids need to be away from their home environment because it is distracting, too many toys or preferred activities to school. Other kids can more easily concentrate even with their favorite toys or activities near by.

That said, I would be surprised if too many of the kids who are doing fine and say they like DL would be happy staying with VL if their friends are back in school. There is a certain percentage that might benefit from DL/VL but I think that is a pretty small percentage.

Anonymous wrote:I don't think it matters so much about introvert / extrovert, but how bullied and chaotic the kid finds their grade or school.

I still think that except for extreme examples it's probably still more dependent on their learning style more than anything else.

My introverted 1st grader is doing fine, but has trouble keeping his camera on because looking at himself is distracting and makes him self conscious.

I am neutral on DL. He’s probably learning less, but it’s not as awful as some parents make it out to be.

My $.02 - My husband and I have both worked to have a super optimistic, positive attitude about DL. We talk about “making it work” and “doing our best”. We have never given our child any indication that he should be unhappy. We don’t talk about DL or potential hybrid in front of him. We are engaged with what is going on and we work with him to reinforce what he is doing during DL. This is not taking a heroic effort - it takes me 30-40 min a day. All of the loudmouth “open schools now” parents seem to also have kids who are melting down and acting out. It’s a bit of a chicken and and egg thing to me.
Do the kids have a bad attitude / sense of entitlement/ learned helplessness because their parents were so negative about DL from day 1? Or are the parents at their wit’s end because of the kids?