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@Mrs. Sketchbook: I'm rereading this thread because I'm still confused on what the problem is. It sounds like what you want is a self-contained educational experience where you as the parent don't need to do anything outside school hours. (Not to say that you're not involved in teaching your kid life skills and other things). You seem to want this for a lot of reasons, like because you don't agree with homework from a pedagogic standpoint, you want your kid to learn independently and on his own pace, and because you have things you'd rather be doing, like community activism. Which is all fine.

But I don't get where the rant end of this comes in.

You speak about being against a curriculum built around parental willpower, but I dunno. I agree parents shouldn't do their kids homework and turn in perfect work for their kids. But parental involvement and concern IS important to learning - you said so yourself with regards to not feeling like your parents supported your learning and need to be challenged. Parents need to be involved their kids' learning journey. But a lot of times we need to learn how to adjust for that in our lives. And thus, I really think homework is for us.

We joke about homework being extra work for parents, but I think it IS true and that honestly we need it. It's a lifestyle change and adjustment that requires a balancing of time and resources like every other stage of parenting. Homework helps us stay on top of what they are learning during the day, it forces us to identify what our kids need, and teaches the PARENT to build time into their lives to help their kid learn.

Do some parents spend more time doing this than others? Sure. Can it be taken to excess and abused for stupid reasons? Absolutely. But might we, as parents, need time to adjust to having a school age child just like the child needs time to adjust to school? And might learning activities and homework train us to do that?

Here's an example. My 3 year old got a paper scarecrow sent home from school with a note attached to it, instructing parents and kids to design and color in the scarecrow together and that the kids would share them in class during the week.

1. The paper was in his cubby where his typical coloring sheets and art projects are left to take home. We check it like once a week bc it's just finished art.

2. So I didn't even realize there was some homework waiting for us. And DH grabbed it at some point and left it in a pile of other crafts.

3. Several days go by and I finally sort through them for recycling, see (on Thursday night) that the assignment was due for show and tell during THIS WEEK.

4. I swear and grab the crayons and run upstairs, announcing to my husband we had homework. Messed up the whole evening routine we had and the 18 month old was running around breaking all the crayons and throwing them down the stairs.

5. Chaos ensued. Scarecrow got done. 18 month old grabs it and rips it and runs around the house.

6. Mommy consoles 3 year old and is taping said scarecrow back together at 1040pm. I tell all morning to remind DH to turn the scarecrow in. DH triumphantly turns homework in and DS1 shares his scarecrow the last day of the week. I'm sure some other kid turned in a spangled amazing scarecrow with hay hair and button eyes and whatever. My son turned in a scotched taped crayon squiggle.

DH and I were like holy hell, we need to handle that better next time. Not because the scarecrow matters at all, but because WE have to start getting in the habit of being more involved with this kind of crap. It was a drill for us as the parents. Do we want to? Eh. Do we need to? Definitely. Was our son pumped that we were doing a project together? Yep. Is this experience going to train us to pay more attention to his cubby and schedule quiet time without our baby to do some art projects with Mommy or Daddy in the future? Yes. And that's a good thing. Because I need to learn to do this crap in the future.

I think I get the main point of your post, but I think the reaction you're getting is because of the title and the bit about other parents. I don't think the problem is the other parents, I think it's the stuff you're being asked to do by the school. You think that stuff is silly or worse (and when it comes to reading logs, incentive programs, and sight word lists, I agree!). The idea that my child's school needs to 'train' me to do something a certain way is an idea I... don't love. You're allowed to think for yourself! But I didn't really feel like that was the message I got from our school experience. The thing is, it's hard to have it both ways. It's sort of you play the school game by the school rules...or you don't. But I'm fairly sure it's not going to be much fun to stay in the school system and be unhappy about it. Maybe that's another way to look at the issue?

I was horrible at filling out the reading log too. Did almost everything else though. Some of it, pretty well!! I feel ok about it but I expect I will make more mistakes in the future and therefore I don’t get a big head about things! I don’t need or want a judge to tell me what is right or good. I think I already know, based on what I learned in my limited lifetime. My main advice is you can’t control the perceptions of the teachers or other parents, even if you try in vain, and we just move forward from mistakes. We learn and give lessons about we are not perfect and we still take responsibility and do our best. Comparing ourselves and keeping up with others will always end you up in a bad place. Embrace your choices even if it goes against what others are doing and saying. There may be others that feel as you do but you just don’t know it. If it doesn’t work, shift gears and go down a different road. Your choice yesterday is not always the same choice tomorrow. That said, I give a lot of credit and gratitude for those who are actively growing in their journey as a parent and not throwing in the towel or throwing it in another’s face. Respect yourself and others is the motto when differences arise.

@Mrs. Sketchbook: I’ve been following this thread and I’ve found it very interesting but I think you got down to the crux of it in your last post “it might take drilling sight words to give him that edge” so yah I think you just have to figure out how you feel about that, how you can fit it into your day if you decide it’s important. So maybe you ease your tablet preference and let him do sight words on there in the car or instead of tv time or whatever. Maybe you do sight words about the kitchen or food while you make dinner etc. or maybe you decide it’s not worth t right now and that’s fine too. But I think it’s good to be thinking about how you want to handle this and then see how you can make it work for your family

@gingerbebe: I am dying laughing about your scarecrow experience, because the same thing happened to us in preschool. By the time kindergarten rolled around, I had changed my approach and basically stockpiled supplies. Now, the idea is that my husband and I teach my son how to do projects and homework, not that we do it FOR him. My son used to just sit down and start the project, but now, he plans it out, determines what materials he needs, takes inventory of what we have, makes his list, does the shopping and then finally makes the project. I guide him along the way, because he doesn't know what materials are available to him yet, or even what to do with them. Eventually, he will know and my involvement will be limited to going to the store with him. I really looked at it as laying the foundation for him to be able to do these projects later on.
Same with homework (we don't have it any longer). I didn't look at it as the material, I looked at the process to complete it...gathering your materials, sitting in a location that is conducive to completing it, reading the instructions. I never corrected it and sent it in as he completed it. It was all about establishing the routine.

@Mrs. Sketchbook: I just don't know how to respond. Your thoughts on this issue are all over the place so I can't seem to focus my response on any one thing. Here's what I'm seeing:

You don't know if your kid is gifted.
You frankly don't care if your kid IS gifted.
You want him to be an independent learner.
But you want your kid IN gifted.
But you don't think you should have to play the system to get your kid into gifted.
But you think other kids who really aren't gifted may get advantages that your kid won't get because their parents played the system.
Meanwhile we still don't know if your kid really is gifted.
And you don't want to play the system because it adversely affects your mental health and you want to do other things in the community instead.
You resent other parents who can and are playing the system.
But if you don't play the system you might ruin your kid's life.
But you don't want to move or find another school that might have a system that works better for your family.

I'm not saying I don't have sympathy for the tension and internal struggle you're dealing with - every parent weighs this - but I just dont know how to help constructively. Perhaps what you just wanted was someone to join in and commiserate say parenting is complicated and hard and I don't know what the answer is. If so, I apologize - I never meant to imply you weren't being active or helping or whatever. I am just extremely logical in nature and was trying to figure out what exactly the problem was and see if I could offer some kind of solution.

If you hate your town and the school system so much, why stay there? Also, I think you have to come to terms with the parenting choices you make and know that you can’t have your cake and eat it too. You can’t both spend your evenings involved in the community and whatever else and then get mad that other parents are choosing to do extra learning with their kids. You can’t be fine with your kid learning at their own pace and also mad that other kids are getting pushed at a faster pace.

Accept the choices you’ve made or make different ones.

@Mrs. Sketchbook: I've been reading this discussion with interest, and I'll just throw my thoughts in.

Re: your original post, is it possible that some of these kids already knew all the sight words going into K (early readers) and it's not actually that their parents are coaching them or drilling them to make sure they get ahead?

My other thought is that it might be productive to have a thoughtful discussion with the school administration about the homework policy and incentives. My kid's school has a no-homework policy in general, but it's up to the teacher as to how to implement that. In first grade we have a reading log, but we don't record minutes read. There are usually 1-3 math problems that get sent home during the week, and the kids are also encouraged to practice spelling words. None of it is for a grade. It's very appropriate and we often squeeze in 5 minutes of spelling or 1 math problem in the morning before school. I really appreciate that our principal understands the research behind the no homework policy, and perhaps your principal would be open to a discussion that could ultimately change the culture of your son's school.

Also, for the gifted thing...at least for my child, the gifted program is very different now from when my husband and I were in school. There are about 4-5 children in each grade who are identified as gifted. It's an extremely thorough identification process involving multiple standardized assessments, a parent and teacher survey of gifted behaviors, and writing and creativity are also evaluated. It would be very difficult for a parent to "coach" their child into being identified as gifted...and in our case, the parents were not notified of the screening and evaluation process until it was over. If it's a concern, I would talk with the gifted teacher about what the identification process entails in your district. But I would suggest that allow yourself to relax a little bit, in that regard, because whether he is gifted is probably out of your control

Call me crazy, but this is why I am glad there is no gifted program in my son's school. He's bright, but is he gifted? I don't really think so, but I also think the majority of kids are not gifted that test into those programs. When I think of gifted, it's not about what you can teach them, it's that they grasp concepts that are well above their level without being taught. That's a very small subset of the students out there.

I also seek out the advice of the more experienced parents, those with older kids. It's a valuable resource, but it's also important to balance it with the system as it is set up today. Things change and I think the best investment you make in your child is understanding the current environment and how to work within it.

I think parental support is super important and we’re hands on with our kids. But..... I have gotten annoyed sometimes with the way extras are handled - and taking time to check when I could go in and read (a couple hrs from when the email was sent) meant some parents had already signed up 2-3x before I have a date to go in. I hadn’t had her use the school computer program at home but I guess a lot of parents do, and then they read the same book at school and it appears skewed on whose already read the story. Overall it’s minor annoyances for me, I can see how you can play the system but since we still work with her on other things I’m not sure that gaming the system is always in the child’s interest. Right now we’re just worried about foundation and not bothering with gifted testing until at least 3rd grade. And lots of kids are more gifted in some areas and not others so it’s always going to be a tricky balance of nurturing their particular curiosity. But that’s also why parental support is important bc no one will see you kid as much of an individual as you will.

@Mrs. Sketchbook: my two cents to your original post: it does seem like you have some multi pronged worries going on here. But before I get into that, I'm just curious about the site word issue specifically-- do you know that these parents are actually spending a lot of extra time at home "drilling"? Is there a chance some of these kids just have a natural ability/affinity for reading and have just picked it up more quickly than other kids in class? Or are your friends with the parents and have inside intel?

To address your larger concerns: the reality is that there are some Tiger parents out there who may be doing everything they can to help their children succeed. There are also going to be students who just naturally excel. Sometimes those two categories intertwine and sometimes they don't--it's definitely not always a direct link.

I used to teach only gifted students--it was a large program and the kids were completely seperated from "regular" students for all core classes. This was in middle school. The thing is, at some point, usually right around middle school, it starts to become clear that all the parental pressure in the world does not make a gifted student. I had plenty of students who were on a spectrum--some weren't gifted at all and were just early readers, tested well in K or 1st and then turned out to be average once all the other kids caught up around 2-3rd grade. By the time I had them in middle school, they tended to be very demotivated in school because they'd had several years under their belt if being the worst (worst grades, last to learn a new concept) in the gifted class. That's a crappy place for a kid who could be thriving in an honors class to be in. I also had not-gifted-but-highly-motivated kids who could keep up and sometimes even be at the top of the class, but it came at a price of extremely long hours of schoolwork and a lot of anxiety and obsessiveness over grades. And then I had the truly gifted kids who basically could just coast. One of the best students I ever had--brilliant guy even as an 8th grader--is now an actual rocket scientist with a PHD from the top school in what he does-- told me once that his parent gave him a strict bed time of 9pm. That was unheard of for our program, where kids were often complaining of staying up till midnight to study or do homework. 9 pm! And he did a lot of extracurriculars. He didn't need all the time the other kids needed, he just turned in his first draft and raced through his math homework (he was working two grade levels above and doing high school coursework) and get them all right on the first try; he was mastering a third language (he grew up speaking two). I guess my point is--there's no faking real giftedness. But probably 70% of the kids in a public school gifted program aren't gifted anyway, they are high achievers.

So there's sort of a few things a parent might do---do nothing and let your kids natural pace determine their placement. Make the best out of wherever that might be. 2) Tiger parent strategy. Stay on top of the kiddo, always ask for extra work, note every test and project and keep tabs on progress. I've seen this strategy both succeed wildly and totally backfire with kids 3) be uninvolved (as you pointed out with your examples of your own upbringing, this one probsbly isn't the most recommended). You may find a balance that's good for your son and also works for you.

My older sister also lives in a smaller city in your state (I think) and her strategy was Tiger parent strategy and so far it seems to be paying off. My niece is a junior in HS and my nephew is an 8th grader and while they are both August birthdays in a district where school starts in early August (so they are a full year younger than some classmates), they are high achieving kids. Straight As, my niece is gunning for one of the top 3 spots in her class, she takes all AP classes and scored a 5 on 2 of her AP exams this year. My sister insisted they be tested for GT in elementary because neither of them were ever nominated by their teachers. They got in, it's worked fine for them. I'm not sure if they are gifted, but they are really bright and they work hard and it works. But it's definitely been calculated and there haven't been any 9pm bedtimes!

http://www.bookitprogram.com/About/ourprogram.asp About those pizza certificates....it is pretty much the only tangible incentive kids get in school these days. At a young age, concrete gifts often go farther than praise at times of perseverance. Pizza Hut is amazing and has given every school in my area free pizza certificates for each month of the year for each student for around the past 30 years.Teachers give them out monthly with the only requirement being they have to be used to promote literacy. Teachers want an easy give away so what better way than to have parents read books and give them away for 'free.'

@Anagram: You wrote "I guess my point is--there's no faking real giftedness. But probably 70% of the kids in a public school gifted program aren't gifted anyway, they are high achievers."

This, exactly. If a child is truly gifted, they do not need to be coached to get into the program. Once parents start talking about needing to do that, it tells me that the kid isn't really gifted.

@gingerbebe: agreed, truly gifted kids are sped kids in my home district. The label helps them get the services that they need in order to achieve.