Summer assignments
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- August
- 27
If you have more than one kid, you’re probably like me: strictest with the first-born, a little looser with the second and somewhat laid back with the third. Relatively speaking of course. (The youngest continually tells me I am way too nervous and controlling, and that all his friends do whatever they want.)
Anyway, the point is… I’ve gotten far more relaxed about summer assignments, which is probably not a good thing.
Seems once they’re in high school, they get extensive reading lists and assignments that sometimes involve writing a few research papers. During the summer!
The first time around, I hounded my oldest son until he finally got it done. Then he yelled at me because the teacher never collected it. For my daughter, I lightened up a little. This time, I’ve barely asked if he’s reading the books (and honestly, they are three enormously heavy volumes).
The thing is, I’m kind of disappointed to see how much work teachers seem to pile on during the summer. And that’s one of the reasons I’ve stopped being a summer nag.
Do you bug your high-school kids about their summer assignments—or are you resentful about the way school has become a year-round activity?
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on Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 at 3:48 pm by Linda Lombroso.
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Baby boomer Linda Lombroso was born in Queens and grew up in Port Washington. She began her journalism career at New York Magazine and Rolling Stone, and came back to the field after spending 10 years as a stay-at-home mother. Linda joined The Journal News in 1997 and has been a Life & Style writer since 2000. She has three children.
I started to step back gingerly from homework involvement when my kids began jhs because I did not want to become the Homework Harpy. By the time they were in high school, they were completely on their own unless they needed (and asked for) some creative input from me. The last help I remember giving was editing a college admissions essay. (No one teaches punctuation any more.)
The fact is, kids need to learn how to manage their time and to figure out what their own pace should be. This only happens via trial and error. At some point, they need to take their lumps and parents need to not feel badly about it. If and when they attend out-of-town college, they are completely on their own and need to know they can manage without mom nearby.
Parents become more ephemeral as time goes by so kids can live their lives according to their own inner voice. They’ve gotten this far with scraped knees, no?
As for the summer homework, sometimes teachers are forced by their school district’s curriculum developer to distribute work and if the teacher refuses to do so, he/she will be faced with dereliction of duty charges by the administration. Everybody loses because the administrators are NOT the teachers on the front line.
Depends on the grade . but yeah once H.S. it will be on them with prodding from me. College will be totally on them.
Since they are in Grade school however, then they do the work. When they do it is up to them and if its the last minute and they miss a cool outing oh well. I told ya so.
But like you this year round thing is ridiculous. did you hear bloomberg wants kindergarten to take a test?
Had to laugh when I read your posting. My son, a HS junior now, had a lot of reading to do over the summer. We had several conversations that went like:
Mom: did you finish your reading?
Kid: almost. I read 2 out of the 3 and I’ll Spark the other one.
Mom: that’s going to come back to kick you in the butt.
Kid: you worry too much. I got it covered.
So the night before school started, I came back from my own class (night school) at 10pm to see him at the computer, feverishly typing. Turns out there was an essay attached to the one book he never got around to reading, and it was due the first day of school. He had forgotten all about it until a friend mentioned it at practice. Oh well. It’s his problem. I’ve quit nagging.
I also laughed when I read what you wrote! My son spent the night before school started furiously typing until really late at night! I think he and his friends also talked that day, and he realized he had to get it all done. Better when it comes from the friends than from the nagging mom!
None of this helps them get a better grade (which is technically not our job anyway), but doesn’t it feel good to know your kid is not the only one out there who does this?