Putting Parents In Their Place: Outside Class
Posted in General by George
I just read an article in the Washington Post about parents who micromanage their children through elementary, middle, high school, and even college.
When I was in elementary and middle school, I definitely noticed this. My parents were never the type to “call in” and tell a teacher that I needed extra credit so I could get a good grade, but I had a ton of friends who did. They ended up being the ones who became really needy later on in high school when things weren’t going right. I don’t keep in close contact with a lot of them, but I sure hope they’re not that way in college and beyond.
I also noticed this a lot when I was working at a community pool. There are many parents who hover over their child’s swimming lessons and interrupt the swimming teacher when they want their child to do something else. This is just not cool because it annoys the swimming instructor and prevents them from doing a good job. Furthermore, it probably embarrasses the child for being a “momma’s boy.”
Anyways, just thought I’d post something. Let me know what you all think.
Link to article in the Washington Post: Putting Parents In Their Place: Outside Class
March 21st, 2006 at 10:50 pm
If I don’t get involved in Little Jonnie’s education and life, he’s going to grow up a screwed up liberal by all the gay, evolutionist teachers and the ACLU. A mom’s gotta do what’s necessary in this liberal world — it can’t be left to others to teach values and gun skills to little Jonnie; it’s my responsibility if I want a waspish little man that hates immigrants, blacks, gays, Jews and other America-bashers.
Left alone they’ll turn my boy gay and I can’t have that. Little Jonnie may not appreciate it now, but he’ll thank me later.
March 22nd, 2006 at 8:45 am
I suppose this is a theory for why some parents act the way they do…
March 22nd, 2006 at 8:35 pm
I think there are two issues here. Some parents are overinvolved because there is no much emphasis placed on success, competition and getting ahead that some parents are afraid to leave anything to chance. I was very annoyed at the teachers in my son’s high school who kept telling the kids that if they didn’t get top grades they’d never get into a good college and they’d end up not being able to support themselves. He laid awake nights so afraid of this. He was a hard working student, but was not a straight A student in spite of his hard work. And you’re telling me it’s just the poor teachers and administrators who get grief from parents, or that only parents cause problems in their children’s lives? Teachers do also. At a multicultural meeting for teachers and parents, another teacher said she was going to teach the class that blacks were okay by saying, “It’s like getting a present. The wrapping may be very old and ugly, but what’s inside may be wonderful.” I pointed out to her that I think blacks can be beautiful, and she said, “Oh I didn’t think of how that sounded. I won’t use it.” If I hadn’t been at the meeting for some reason, she would have! This is awful. These are just two examples.
Of course there are the kind of parents who really are obnoxious and will yell at a teacher for not giving her kids good grades, but don’t mix them up with parents who are involved and concerned for good reason. When I volunteered in my child’s class, it was at the invitation of the teacher. Three of us moms took turns and we were able to conduct small group classes which gave the children more individual attention. I really saw them make great gains, which the teacher was smart enough to attribute to more parent involvement.
Cynthia
March 22nd, 2006 at 8:37 pm
As for the lady who as talking about Little Jonnie and the America bashers, she was obviously just being sarcastic. The invovled parents I know are MORE liberal, tolerant people than the racist, small-minded people this woman is protraying.
Cynthia
March 22nd, 2006 at 9:47 pm
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/03/21.html#a760...
Sarcastic? I don’t think so…right on cue, the Great American, Pat Robertson proves my point.
ROBERTSON: Ladies and gentleman this is a fascinating book. If you want to, you’d better take your blood pressure medicine before you read it, but it’s “The Professors: The 101 most dangerous academics in America” and that’s just a short list of the 30-40,000 of them, they’re like termites that have worked into the woodwork of our academic society and it’s appalling. This is available at CBN.com and book stores everywhere, and you really ought to read it and be informed.
TERRI: It’s interesting that so many conservatives haven’t seen this because decades ago we were told that infiltrating education was the way to take over the country, we should have been on alert.
ROBERTSON: They gamed it, these guys are out and out communists, they are radicals, you know some of them killers, and they are propagandists of the first order and they don’t want anybody else except them. That’s why Regent University for example is so terrifically important and why we’re setting up an undergraduate program that hopefully will see shortly 10,000 students, and then from there 250,000 because you don’t want your child to be brainwashed by these radicals, you just don’t want it to happen. Not only brainwashed but beat up, they beat these people up, cower them into submission. Ahhh! “The Professors”, read it.
Check it out on Crooks and Liars link.
March 22nd, 2006 at 10:38 pm
I will agree that there are definitely some issues with teachers as well - you couldn’t be more right. I was in high school not to long ago and I definitely felt the pressure to get top-notch grades. Heck, even now, since I’m preparing to apply to the ultra-competitive world of law schools, I know that I can’t afford for my grades to be much below 4.0 and it sucks.
And yes, there are definitely some parents out there that are helpful and improve the class setting for all by volonteering.
The “problem parents,” however, are the ones who force their children to join certain clubs, show up at school to chew out teachers, interfere with their child’s swimming lessons, and result in their child being ridiculed for being babied by his or her parents.
I think one big reason for this is that the pressure is placed on not only students, but parents as well. If you have a screwup kid who doesn’t get good grades, you might feel like your neighbor whose son or daughter gets straight A’s was raised better. It’s the whole “living-through-your-child” thing… but more and more parents do it because there is so much pressure to be seen as a good parent.
March 23rd, 2006 at 12:25 am
It’s not just pressure to be seen as a good parent. It’s also real fear. Parents are constantly being told that todays’ kids have to better than excellent, or they will fail. Parents are really scared. This is society’s problem (including teachers, not just the parent’s problem. It’s not so much these kinds of parents who pressure their kids too much are trying to be seen as good parents, it’s worse. They think they will be actually failing their kids and dooming their children’s future if they DON’T make sure the academics are perfect. Often these same parents are less concerned with their kid’s emotional and creative lives. We’re becoming a grim society of “must beat the Japanese in math and technolog”, rather than adhering to honoring our children’s strengths and gently working on their weaknesses. Funny, Japanese and Chinese societies often complain of a lack of individuality and the dismissal of students who don’t fit the profile of what they call successful. Now we’re doing that too. Instead of just following them, why can’t be carve out our own (much more diverse because of the make-up of our students), strengths and weakness — so what if they get most of the technology stuff — there’s way more to life and the econmomy than that.
Cynthia
March 23rd, 2006 at 8:03 am
I would throw overly controlling parents into a category with parents that try to censor what their kids are reading in school. This is best exemplified by a group that existed when I was in high school (and still does exist) called PABBIS: Parents Against Bad Books In School. These parents want to censor any reference to sex or violence in the literature curriculum. They have gone as far as trying to ban a “Where’s Waldo” book because it had a tiny person without a shirt drawn into one of the groups of people. Books like “Lord of the Flies” and “Animal Farm” would be banned because they involve either sexual references or violence in them. Do parents really think that shielding their kids from “sex and violence” in this literature, which is used in an academic and appropriate manner, is going to help them in their development? The stuff that their kids experience in the halls of their schools are much worse than reading about something violent. Some parents try to shelter their kids way too much and they end up hurting their development. What’s going to happen when their kid reaches college and has to make choices for his/herself? One possibility is that they will discover drinking and parties and go wild. An informed young person will make much better decisions. It’s okay if your child reads about things that happen in the real world (ie. sex and violence, in a constructive way). I’m not talking about porn or something useless, I’m talking about great literature and history. It’s also okay if your child learns some lessons for themeselves without you hovering over them, or if they do something every so often to get into a little trouble, heartache, or minor physical injury. In my beliefs part of loving a child is letting them experience the world for themselves sometimes even when it would be so easy to do something for them so that they can be more “successful” at that point in time.
March 23rd, 2006 at 11:07 am
Yes, steve that is definitely true. Parents like this are completely bonkers and need to be as far away from schools as possible.
One of the major reasons I believe there should not be strict censorship in schools is simply because schools are a constructive environment where children can learn about sensitive issues under the guidance of a teacher, rather than learning about sensitive issues on the streets and getting the wrong idea about them. Being able to handle these issues responsibly is huge, and talking them in an intellectual manner in schools is a great way to do that.
March 23rd, 2006 at 4:50 pm
You have to be careful when you’re talking about “censorship.” Most thoughtful parents think a graduated exposure to the rough stuff is preferable. There are times when a reasonable parents might ask if certain material is age-appropriate. Teachers aren’t perfect — they make mistakes. Parents need to be willing to speak their minds to provide a check and balance. I was assigned Lord of the Rings to read when I was in sixth grade and it was way too upsetting for me at that age. I had nightmares over it and everything and was very distressed. That’s the problem with our one-size fits all education. There are plenty of books that are thoughtful and challenging without having violence. And I’ve heard teachers tell kids that they shouldn’t play video games because they’re too violent — isn’t this an attempt at censorship also? Of course, there are parents who go overboard, but I would be very careful about suggesting parents should have not input. As far as the hallways being more violent — I dont’ know where you went to school, but it’s not nearly that bad at my son’s middle school. And I disagree with the idea that kids have to be exposed to violence as soon as possible so they will be able to handle it later. Life is naturally challenging, and, as a said, a graduated approach to outside negativity is far more reasonable in my opinion.
March 23rd, 2006 at 4:53 pm
Ann’s comment:
I don’t think you understood my point. My point is that you are stereotyping parents in a way that only a few will fit. As a mom who has had four children in public schools and has volunteered, I can attest to the fact that most of the volunteers were liberal — not Pat Robertson types by any stretch of the imagination. So my problem with your comment is that you assume that involved parents must be involved because they hold the atttiudes you mention. Not so!
March 23rd, 2006 at 6:59 pm
There is a definite difference between exposure to constructive sex/violence/profanity and sex/violence/profanity that has no purpose. In history class, you miss out on what actually happened if you censor out all the terrible things that people have done just so the students aren’t exposed to them. What would teaching a lesson about the Holocaust be like that didn’t stress how terrible the prisoners were treated in the concentration camps? Or how about the French revolution or the American Revolution or dropping the atom bomb on Hiroshima or any other war? The violent things that have gone on throughout history are crucial to understanding what happened and why we are where we are as a society. A lot of literature uses fictional themes that are based off of historical incidents, so there needs to be some unclean stuff going on in order to make it real and meaningful. When I was talking about the stuff going on in high school being worse than what kids will read, I probably made it sound differently than I meant. I was talking about the hazing, bullying, social awkwardness, profanity, occassional pointless fights, and the exposure to people who abuse substances and experiment sexually, which happens at just about every high school. I didn’t go to school in a high crime area or anything. My school was in the suburbs, but teenagers will act a certain way no matter where they are.
March 24th, 2006 at 4:12 pm
History is different than fiction. Reading fictional books with sex and violence seems totally unnecessary for younger kids, more sensational than anything else — and potentially very frightening at a time when the child is developmentally unable to understand it. As for history, even that should be approached gradually. In school history, for example, the same events are studied at different grade levels. My son had an overview type of American History in second and third grades. Later, when kids are older, they can read about some of the gore stuff associated with war. Then about fourth grade or so, he learned about the Holocaust and about concentration camps. At that age, there’s no real reason to get into the nitty-gritty about some of the more horrible things. It’s more likely to freak them out than educate them. Some kids become too overwhelmed with the horror to process them in a useful way, or even understand it at all, except to frighten them. Later, when the kids are older, these things can be studied in more detail — when they’re better able to understand and process them. I’m still annoyed that when my daughter was in kindergarten they were given little booklets to color about the civil rights movement — complete with talk of attacking dogs and fire hoses, and murders. That was too much at that age. The teachers at this school after parents talked to them, agreed with that, and they modified it in a more age-appropriate manner. The little kids learn that King was a great black man who helped others in the struggle for human rights — without going into the violent aspects. They do talk about the fact that he was unfairly jailed for protesting, so it’s not like you leave all the negative stuff out. A few years later, they’d add some of the other more violent details when talking about the civil rights movement. That just makes more sense. We’re in such a hurry to rush kids into adult themes, we forget there is time — not everything has to be learned at the same time. Better to be selective and take into account developmental readiness. As for the high schools, it’s relatively easy to steer clear of the more troubled group of kids. Kids tend to form groups — my son is going to high school later, and he’s already in the band, science lover, etc. group of kids who are happy to stay out of the loop of much of the dysfunctional stuff going on at school. My daughter just graduated from the same high school last June, and her own group was a little racier, but not as bad as the rough group. They really kind of tracked themselves. Not to say they can totally avoid negative stuff happening — but at least in our area, there are ways they can greatly minimize expose to much of it if they want to.
March 24th, 2006 at 6:03 pm
I agree with your point about the graduated introduction of controversial material to students. I’m in no way saying that we should show images of tortured Jews in concentration camps to 2nd graders. High school, however, is a different story; the kids are more equipped to handle these kinds of themes if they are presented for the purpose of educating the student. As for the high school comment, I was big time into band and science as well. In fact, I’m majoring in biology at my college right now. My point was more about the inevitable exposure to people that make decisions that are not the best. Even though I was on the straight and narrow I was still exposed to people who drank, did drugs, were promiscuous, got in fights, and used profanity. But that’s not a bad thing, as long as you are equipped to handle it. I feel it made me a stronger person to be able to make better informed decisions once I was placed in a situation where I need to be more independent (college). I really don’t think we’re disagreeing on this at all.
March 26th, 2006 at 10:26 am
Cynthia Whitfield,
I agree that in elementary school, fictional books depicting violence and sex are unnecessary, and that history can be taught gradually.
However, I totally agree with Steve in that as students reach high school, they had better be able to deal with these themes. If parents want to individually opt-out their children from reading books (which they could do in the high school I attended) then that is fine (at the expense of their own child). However, parents of a few children should not be able to censor books for all students that go to school.
When you enter the real world, you had better be able to deal with these themes. You can’t have the attitude of giggling whenever somebody says sex when you’re 18, 19, 20, etc. To be comfortable with these themes, it is important that they are exposed in high school in a mature, learning environment, rather than being rudely exposed “on the streets”