Grade my parenting... (longish)

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m taking the ‘tough love’ approach with one of my kids, and it may have dire consequences for her at school. Then again, maybe not, but read on. I’m curious to see how you’d respond, and what you think of my parenting.

My fifth-grade daughter has a project due today. She’s known about this project for at least the last two weeks. The project is a sock puppet, and it’s about a third of her grade this period. It’s a wreck, and I’m sending it to school that way. If it passes, it’s a sure sign that public educators have no interest in children actually completing their assignments.

I found out the project was due today on Friday evening, by stumbling into a conversation between my wife and daughter:

MRS B: Is your project done?
KID B: No.
MRS B: Have you even started it?
KID B: No, I’m still waiting for you to give me a sock!
MRS B: I told you to look up the person you’re doing and know something about them, and then I’d give you a sock. Have you done that?
KID B: No.
…

And so it went. IMHO the whole “I’m waiting for you to give me a sock” is nothing but an excuse. She wouldn’t hesitate to commandeer a sock without permission from us if the puppet were a birthday present for a friend or something. But I didn’t say anything.

She did not even begin to work on the puppet until 8PM yesterday (after spending the day out playing). 8:30PM is bed time. This has always been so. At 8:30, with the sock in its current sad shape I deemed her project was as finished as it was going to get, and sent her to bed.

She argued. She cried. She told me it wasn’t fair. That it’s my fault her project isn’t finished, and why did I want her to fail?

I told her, as I have many times, that when a project is assigned she should get it done immediately. She most definitely should not wait until 8PM the night before it’s due to begin on it. We’re also sending a note to the teacher explaining why the project isn’t done, as my kids explanation would likely be something along the lines of “My father made me stop working on it. I wanted to finish, but he wouldn’t let me!!”

The project may fail. In fact, given the circumstances, I hope it does. I’m trying to teach her that procrastination leads to bad things, and her mean old parents aren’t the only ones who expect her to put some effort into her schoolwork.

So, grade my parenting. Do I pass? Did I do well? Or am I a horrible person with no concern for the future of this poor put-upon child? What do you think?

2

why was she allowed to go out and play during the day if the both of you knew she had that project due?

other than that ??? i think it will show her that she has to take responsibility for her work.

3

I’d just hope that she doesn’t get a good grade. This will just teach her that it doesn’t matter. My only suggestion would be making her do it during Sunday morning instead of letting her go out and play. Even though it’s not her choice, it gets her used to doing stuff before the last minute…

4

My daughter is in 4th grade now and I experience the same behaviour. The 4th and 5th grades are a transistinal period where we as parents are trying to step back and get our kids to take on more resposibility for their lives, thus do your hoemwork by yourself. You did what I would have done in that situation. I have asked my daughter’s teacher about this very same thing and the teacher agrees also.

5

Man it sure seems harsh! And mean! And I think it was the right thing to do. And I hope I have the fortitude to treat my kids just as harshly (guilt is such a powerful tool!).

6

This isn’t a sudden thing. We’ve been gradually trying to leave more and more responsibility for getting her work done with her. A few ‘hints’ were thrown at her (“Is that project done yet?”), but we decided we wouldn’t sit on her to get it done this time.

7

i suppose i would have made her stay in, but she’s your little monster. :stuck_out_tongue:

I have two little monsters of my own and I hope I do the right thing too.

I think, if she gets the bad grade, which she probably will, it will make her see that she can’t procrastinate. Of course that is if she has it in herself to want to please you by getting good grades.

Lately I don’t see kids really taking responsibility like they used to. :confused:

Anyway keep us updated, I’m interested to see how this turns out. I’m taking notes for when mine get to that age. :smiley:

8

I don’t think what you did was horrible, but I do think that the better solution would have been to make her stay in all day until the project was completed.

I think you should consider that kids don’t have a complete grasp of how long it would take to complete a project like that. On the face of it, making a sock puppet would seem like something that would take less than a half an hour to complete. Next time I would suggest that when she initially finds out she has a project due that you sit down with her and come up with a realistic depiction of how much time it will take to complete each component of the project and a timeline for getting all the pieces done.

Giving her the skills necessary to manage a long-term project before letting her be completely responsible for all of her school work would be a reasonable idea.

9

I think you did right. It was a little dose of responsibility you gave her, and she failed. As long as you explained what happened and why, I think it will do her good.

Just a slight hijack - I hated artistic projects in school. I have zero imagination (I never saw the point of playing cars/GI Joes/legos. I just got bored), and it showed in my schoolwork.

10

That’s ridiculous! It’s so annoying when people take this high and mighty view of one generation over another!

What is your basis for saying that kids take less responsibility now than in the past?? I know that I was terrible about doing projects that required a lot of time in school. School was boring and easy for me, so I quickly and easily learned ways to get by without working hard. So you could say the same thing about my generation.

Kids don’t know about responsibility yet because it is something to learn! I think it’s great that some parents like Beelzebubba are taking the time and effort to teach their children personal responsibility early. That will give those kids a head-start. But personal responsibility can only be learned through experience.

Why should a child be responsible for something if there’s no need?? There has to be some driving force or guidance. Some parents help this by slowly giving them more freedom/rights. Others try to sit down and organize a schedule with their child to help them learn different techniques. Some kids are left to learn on their own. Regardless of the approach, responsibility must be learned by each person individually.

11

I don’t necessarily think you made the wrong decision but at our household we probably would not have let our kids play until the project was done. 5th and 6th grades were tough at our house. The kids had to learn to accept additional responsibility but a lot of times we had to lay down some rules about when it was going to be done.

12

Father of five, with the middle child in sixth grade, here.

What is right for any given situation depends on the child. Few children have the ability to judge how much time it will take to complete any given project. (Frankly, few of my coworkers are any good at it either.) If she has been warned “often enough” not to procrastinate, then what you did was probably appropriate. It does sound like she cares what her grade will be, so she will receive negative feedback for delaying. (As a child, I didn’t care much about grades, so your technique wouldn’t have worked on me.) Child number 4 needs his sleep, more than he cares about grades, so making him stay up to finish the project would provide the negative feedback necessary. My sixth grade child, on the other hand, can get by on about five hours sleep, so your approach would be mine.

I just all depends.

13

Oops, I meant to add something. I would also talk to the teacher, and explain what happened. It may be that you (both) decide that the most effective course is to give her a second chance, since it is such a major part of her grade, but no chance of an ‘A’. Or it may be that you agree your daughter deserves an F.

I think her teacher will appreciate what you are trying to instill in your daughter, and will be willing to work with you.

14

I don’t personally see the point of arguing about whether you’re going to give her a sock before or after she researches her subject. That, to me, seems too much like a “because I said so” argument. At that point I probably would have said “Here’s your sock, get to work.” and seen what happened.

Anyway, every kid needs some sort of disasterous project in their schooling, what else would they talk about when they get older?

15

I might talk to the teacher and be sure she/he doesn’t give her a pity grade. A couple things:

  1. I probably would have given her the sock outright without making demands of her first. If you want to assume she is responsible for time management then you have to assume she is responsible for knowing how to approach the project.

  2. I would have made it VERY clear that she was going to bed at 8:30 and why. I also might have taken her aside at some point and asked her how much time she thought she needed to get the project done so you could have more definitively pointed out exactly where she made poor choices.

  3. I would make sure she understands why exactly you decided that going to bed at the usual time was more important, in this case, than her grade.

Perhaps you did all the above (with the exception of #1.); I’m just merely pointing out what I think is critical to make it a successful learning experience.

I’m just glad there are people out there setting limits for their children. Good for you.

16

I think that she’s learning these lessons in the fairly safe environment of elementary school. Getting a poor grade for one period will be a stinging, memorable blow, but will not have many long-term repercussions on her academic career.

Too many kids manage to get to college without learning about personal responsibility and academic integrity, and when they screw up it can mean throwing a lot of tuition down the toilet.

17

You did the right thing. Hopefully you will follow up this “project” with a talk as to why this all happened…and maybe suggest that next time you will help them make a schedule that you both can agree on. Take it day by day or week by week. I can imagine it is hard for a child at that age that comprehend a deadline.

But you were spot on with letting them learn the lesson and not breaking the bedtime rules.

18

I’m torn about this. Just to clarify - she’s supposed to be making a sock puppet of a specific person, whos name she was given by the teacher.

On the one hand, it’s like asking for a cite up front. It shouldn’t be a big deal, nor should it be unexpected. We expect you to do your research, not make something up.

On the other hand, I agree with KC in that we should assume she knows the assignment.

But ultimately I wasn’t involved. The missus had set this requirement long before I even knew this assignment existed. I plan to talk to her about it this evening, and I believe the missus is setting up something with the teacher. We’ll see…

Ahh, the drama of parenthood. Stay tuned for the next exciting chapter!

19

My oops too, I meant to address this in my response. We’re planning to see if there is any ‘extra-credit’ she can do to help bring up the grade some. Obviously, I don’t want her to get an F - but if she does, we’ll all live through it, and hopefully we’ll have learned a few lessons along the way :slight_smile:

20

Just a quick note about my mother’s response to the one & only time I slagged off on a project (4th grade) & didn’t get an “acceptable” grade…

She made me do a similar project & present it to the family. It took up valuable free time & I learned that doing it right the first time is better than doing it twice.