Hellobee Boards

Several points on various topics - I highly encourage involvement by parents and being present with your child’s academics without doing their work for them. There will be many school projects or activities in the future that the parents can help their child by giving time and breaking up the tasks.

I don’t like the fact that if I wanted to send my child to an elite private school I would have to spend thousands on a tutoring program to be extremely competitive on the admissions test and interview. I prefer we all have access to quality public schools and teachers that meet needs of all learners, including the needs of gifted. Right now I see that in a limited capacity in my area.

As for gifted admissions, I don’t think influencing the teachers to get your child into gifted or doing your child’s work is the way it works. The teachers observe what the kid can do and how quickly they grasp and/or display higher level thinking during class time. Almost all teachers I know don’t give homework grades because they assume the parents are giving varying support at home and want to see what the kid can do on their own.

My kid catches on to things right away and doesn’t need to study so I get super excited when there is a project I can finally help her with. We have quarterly home lessons given by the school in which the parents are invited and expected to help. It is designed to reinforce curriculum but also to intentionally increase parent engagement with their child’s academics. It also helps everyone get on the page navigating long term and teamwork goals.

While my kiddo is in first grade I think several things still apply. We have finished our sight words through 2nd grade. I didn't drill her. I handed her the sheets and said read them to me. When she was tired we stopped. When she was ready we started again. We returned them to the teacher and she will never have to touch sight words again.

My kiddo has natural talent that we cultivate. She was an early-ish reader. We encourage reading, we provide her materials to further her skills. We do what we are asked by the school in reading on a daily basis.

We do a lot of our "teaching" at home in an organic manner. We don't "drill", but we talk a lot, we give examples, it's part of our dinner conversations.

My child is being referred for our gifted program. I don't necessarily think she's gifted. But as @gingerbebe spoke about herself, my daughter is similar. She's ahead academically and things click for her easily. But she's socially awkward, is devastated at less than perfection and has big emotions. I don't know how we will navigate a gifted program if she's admitted as we have already selected an alternate education path for her. But we will cross that bridge when we get there. I never inquired about the gifted program.

I do try to be involved with her academics as I really think it makes a difference to be her advocate and have a presence in the school. I also recognize this is a privilege that I have and not all families are able to do some of these things. But I'm also interested in setting up success to the extent I'm able.

All of that to say that I don't consider myself a full blown helicopter parent, but an involved parent. And I would say that most of my daughter's classmates have similarly involved parents.

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@Mrs. Sketchbook: Thank you for starting this thread. I have mixed feelings about this issue. I don't think I will I will worry about it in K because it is still so early. (I hope I am able to maintain perspective!)

I went to a very competitive public school system that lacked economic diversity. Something like 90 or 95% of my graduating class went to college.

My parents were clear that they wanted me to go to an Ivy League school. I loaded up on AP courses -- I think I took like 9-10 AP courses? In the mid-90s when they were less ubiquitous -- and met their goal.

It was a miserable experience, and my parents are still very achievement-oriented and easily impressed my academic and financial success. As a 40yo, I find them really tedious most of the time because our relationship lives in that shadow.

So now with a 3yo I feel lost about how to strike the right balance. And I am going to have a hard time not rolling my eyes at things that I perceive to be silly. For instance, if his school has an award for perfect attendance I will have a hard time not telling my kid that it's ridiculous for the school to encourage children to go to school when they are sick.

My fifth grade teacher made this big deal about her reading log program. She called it the "Bookworm Club". Everyone had a bookworm on the bulletin board and got a new segment for every 100 pages they read. But to get credit you had to write up a synopsis of the book. I found that really tedious. So I did not write up every book I read. (I loved reading fiction books as a child!)

The teacher clearly favored the kids who excelled at the Bookworm Club. (She also really liked the kids with the best cursive handwriting. Eye roll.) I did not connect with the teacher and found her methods really de-motivating and was thrilled to be done with her at the end of fifth grade.

If my son is in a situation like that, I don't know what I will do. If there were no long term stakes like having more opportunities (like a gifted program), then I would not worry too much. If there are long term stakes then that sucks and would make me bitter about having to choose.

I am the parent who blows off the PreK-3 homework. We were supposed to fill out a flag to depict our son's culture. He is 1/4 Hungarian, 1/4 German and 1/2 Jewish from a mix of Eastern European countries. I had no idea where to start, and he is 3 and not that into arts and crafts. The work week went by and I just did not manage to deal with it. Our family is juggling two full time jobs and a preschooler and honestly at this age Mommy's work deadlines and ability to eat dinner trump a school project in our family.