Who is responsible...

[sauron]

.. for your (future) kids education?

Who'se job is it to teach your kids such things as morals, ethics, right/wrong...

Me and MAC sat in chat last week, as I asked him to elaborate/explain things about his Darrell Scott Testimony post.. This led to a side-discussion about parents nowadays delegating a lot of the responsibillity for their childrens education to other, third-party people.

I know of far too many parents who are too busy with work (both working parents), to take the time to spend quality time with their children. Henceforth, they end up relying on the school teachers to teach their kids all those small things that you're supposed to learn from your parents, and not "others."

I know that, when (assuming "if") I have children, I will do everything in my powers to make sure I spend a large amount of quality time with my children.

It is me, the potter's, job to mold the lump of clay into a beautiful pot.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

- d.

[MAC]

BEFORE THE INEVITABLE TANGENT

A big part of the definition of "Quality Time" in this discussion is the time you SPEND talking/showing your child about what YOU think about right and wrong.

Parents give plenty of speeches and then do the opposite.
Parents often hold them selves to high standards they then cannot explain to the child except with "do what I said"

Your children are learning all the time based on what they see and hear. They are balancing these things out in their own minds.

They don't give benefit of the doubt as much as you might think.
They take things exactly as they are.

So consider the time they spend with OTHERS before you get defensive that someone is implying the time they spend with you isn't QUALITY.

[sauron]

Hum, yes - thank you for that elaboration, MAC. :)

- d.

[MuffyTheVampyreLayer]

Finding a good teacher is like finding a needle in a haystack IMO - most of them suck like a hoover.

That being said, most of them have more skill and patience than myself when it comes to the imparting of information to little minds.

I've seen a lot of parents get fed up with the teachers shaping their kids thinking, and take on the challenge themselves. Consequently, they have raised very stupid children. Some do it successfully, but its a minority. It is a full time job, and you have to treat it as such, and normally you don't get paid either.

Im not ashamed of sending my son to a school, even though I personally detest 90% of the teachers there - they are still teaching him more than I have time to. He goes there to learn about math, reading, writhing (hopefully :)) science etc... The importance of home education, as I see it, is the long chats we have about why brown kids are just as cool as white kids, why it dosn't matter that you are poor, why pokemon is not the be-all-and-end-all...etc. Incidentally, one of the things which I have taught my son is to question those who teach him, don't accept their authority as absolute, and bare in mind that academic achievement does not make someone a good person.

I think you've got the aspiring for quality time thing right Sauron - the reality of being a parent is that there is never enough quality time. You have to juggle academic education with their personal growth, and their need to become independent - in the end you can only wing it, cross your fingers, and hope like hell they don't grow up to be ignorant, selfish or hateful - or whatever moral stuff you don't like... speaking of which, it's actually the moral stuff we choose to educate our children, or leave in the hands of others, that really has me worried - which is prolly why I devote more time to that at home than I do the academic stuff. Most of the kids these days are learning right and wrong form the bigger kids in the play ground whose value system is loosely based on how many playstation games an individual owns... scary.

[Billyman]

I have a solution for you all.

Send your children to me.

I'll take care of everything.

Scary thought ain't it.

[Asmodeus]

Nah...

Know what's even scarier than that???

Send yer kids to me. :D

Jokes aside, the moral issue is a good one. Though- from personal experience- it is the hardest thing to teach. Alot of times fair play doesn't seem really fair at the time, and common sense ain't so common anymore.

I try my durndest to teach kids the English lingo. I ALSO try to teach them logic, morals, ethics, common sense, decency, etc.

Cause some of these twirps... nevermind.

[Pianomahnn]

Originally posted by sauron
. . .Henceforth, they end up relying on the school teachers to teach their kids all those small things that you're supposed to learn from your parents, and not "others."


This is a very present occurance around the suburbs of Chicago. Plenty of dual income homes, and if it's not dual income, the wife is off shopping and not at home with the kids.

With that in mind, their children are with public/private school educators 8 hours per day in class, and possibly another 3 or 4 with after school activities. That's a lot more than the meager 1 or 2 hours spent at home with parents, of which perhaps 3 minutes is spent in social contact with the parents. It would seem then that it is not the parents who are parenting, but rather the teachers. Yet, these teachers have none of the rights of parents, and only the responsibilities.

- It's not MY fault my child doesn't do his/her homework, it's the teacher's fault.
- My Johnny being disruptive? How rude, you must be doing something wrong.
- Suzy talking back to you and lying about cheating on homework? Well, I'll sue you!

Around here it's always the teacher's fault when something doesn't go right. But the teacher's can't do anything in the form of discepline or something similar. My gosh, even look at a student in the wrong way and daddy will be on the phone with the Principle faster than you can say "Your child is an idiot and so are you."

I have no idea where this post is going, but I hate how things currently are. People expect so much from these teachers yet give them nothing to work with. Around here the teachers are the parents. And the real parents are just providers of food and a nice car.

I will assume I will be a real parent when I have children. I've promised myself this, and I can't see myself not parenting my children. I want to make it so that the teachers won't have to parent my children in school, because I will have already taught the rights and wrongs of life.

Things are really bad right now. And I have no idea how to fix things.

[dub]

Dont preach, practice.

As Mac said, kids learn though what they see and what they hear
and I think that most of the time, could give a fuck less what their
parent have to say, I know I did.

I couldnt take my mom seriously when she told me not to smoke
and then lit up in the chair right next to me. Listening to her would
have been ridiculous, and I knew that, even at an early age, and I
was never afraid to call her out on it, and call her a hypocrite, and
I even took up smoking for a while just to spite her.

Now that Im older, I have gone completely sober (and have been
for 6 years), and part of the reasoning behind this is to possibly
relay some sense into my parents, who still smoke and drink way
to much.

My point is, saying something, then turning around and doing
the exact opposite is laughable, even to young children.

[Cruise Director]

Educating children is a team sport. The job of educating a child cannot be accomplished by the parents or teachers alone. It takes a good balance of personal interaction and instruction mixed with a little "outside world" exposure that children get from school, whether it be public or private. Kids who are homeschooled their whole lives are equally as ill-equiped to deal with life as those kids who's parents have dumped them on the public education system.

I'll make you a deal..... you teach my child to spell the words correctly and I'll teach them to create something beautiful with them.

[Koliedrus]

Still on topic, I see. :)

Time and finance cannot be fodder for the undersides of rugs nor can a parent hold the hands of their children through every situation they encounter. A "bully" will surface. A crush will occupy their hearts. A commercial will tell them which toy or style of clothes to buy.

My first born is in school as I write this. Her little brother is acting out the part of Spider Man while munching Honeycomb. I'm swinging him through the room and doing my best to keep my workplace's expected double-productivity out of his learning the difference between good and evil (simplistic as it is).

I depend on others to help my children. It's absurd to think that I will be able to control their thoughts and actions, nor do I wish to do so.

At their young ages, I am an influence. How they decide to proceed with their lives, however, is a matter of choices and decisions that only they can make. When they're in my home, they will follow my rules. I can't control them when they're elsewhere. I can only hope that they pull to the right and turn on their lights as per my example and by their own choice.

Perfect lives usually end up in spotlights. Eventually, the people leading those lives get a wake-up call.

Wake up.

[Koliedrus]

Hmmm....

This is relevant: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=nm/20021112/people_nm/jackass

[Pianomahnn]

Originally posted by Cruise Director
I'll make you a deal..... you teach my child to spell the words correctly and I'll teach them to create something beautiful with them.

It's a shame so few parents think like that.

[Venus]

Ok now I didn't have time to read the entire thread, but in defense of mothers who have to send their kids to daycare or school while they're at work...

If I didn't send my daughter to daycare so I could go to work, she wouldn't eat.
If I didn't send my daughter to daycare so I could go to work, she wouldn't ever get off the street because I wouldn't have a vehicle to take her anywhere.
If I didn't send my daughter to daycare so I could go to work, she wouldn't have anything to do cause I wouldn't be able to buy her toys or crafts.
If I didn't send my daughter to daycare so I could go to work, she wouldn't be able to get medicine when she was sick.
If I didn't send my daughter to daycare so I could go to work, she would be sick all the time because she wouldn't have any clothes to wear.
If I didn't send my daughter to daycare so I could go to work, she wouldn't get to see the dinosaur bones at the museum, the artwork on display at the galleries. There would be no shopping trips in downtown, no icecream cones in the park, none of that. Because if I didn't send my daughter to daycare so I could go to work, I wouldn't have any money to do these things with.
I don't think most people send their children to someone else to care for because they want to.

I would love to stay home with my daughter all day and play with her, nap with her, eat with her, but I can't. I can't. Not I won't.

[Cruise Director]

Venus, you missed the point. Go back and read the thread. Nobody is bashing the use of daycare or the education system. Quite the opposite, I would think.