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The Last Days of School
Closing out the school year is such a mix of fear and excitement in our house. While the triplets are too young to do anything but enjoy school, Jack who is finishing out third grade is definitely at an age where he is ready to be done well before the last day of school finally arrives.
That feeling manifests itself in the work he does in school. He is bad about rushing through things and not taking proper care to double check his work as it is, but that last month or so of school, things really go downhill. Of course we don't have the foresight to see it coming and do our best to properly guide him through those last few months. Instead, we freak out.
Constant check to Teacher Ease (the website where they post the grades) makes us worry and debate how to get Jack to do better. Can you imagine our parents checking our graded daily when we were in third grade? Grandparents must get a good laugh at how much we overanalyze every breath our kids take in the classroom these days.
But in fairness to all of us carrying the parenting torch in 2010, our kids are doing a heck of a lot more than we did at that age. Jack gave four oral presentations this year. He had to do four last year while he was in second grade too! I don't remember getting up to speak in front of a class before I was in at least sixth or seventh grade.
The amount of work the kids do, and the amount of free time or play time during the school day that has been taken away from them is bad enough, does our son really need us pouring over every grade and double-checking his homework every night?
Yes, he does.
I know he doesn't like it and I do worry that he is being allowed to sink or swim on his own enough, but I do feel that drilling into him the importance of doing the work right, of double-checking, taking your time, writing complete sentences, all of that means something. And when he is in sixth grade, and I will have no clue of his homework is right or wrong, well, hopefully at that point he will swim all on his own.
Your thoughts? Do we work these kids too hard today?
Check out what Anna and her brothers learned on their last day of school!
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Comments (1)
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Dylan McKay
June 08, 2010 (2 years ago)
Your son sounds like a very bright young man. I have a feeling he is going to do very well in life and we will be reading about him one day. Ease up on him.