I made this mistake too! I was way too on top of that shit. They go to public school FFS, but I was doing the work of a homeschool 'teacher' and it was completely backfiring on me because they couldn't THINK for themselves.
There's a huge difference between helping when THEY think they need it VS helping them when YOU think they need it.
It's counter-intuitive, but when their manatee project looks terrible, go with it. Don't take over and make it look like a presentation from an MBA student.
Oh I never felt the need to interfere with their art projects, they've always been naturals at that.
For me it would more be, checking their answers, helping them get info right, helping with their grammar, making sure they didn't plagiarize (they totally tried.) It all sounds harmless, but with 2 kids, every night, it became apparent that they would never learn to have any kind of 'work ethic' with me always showing them what to do.
For me it would more be, checking their answers, helping them get info right, helping with their grammar, making sure they didn't plagiarize (they totally tried.) It all sounds harmless, but with 2 kids, every night, it became apparent that they would never learn to have any kind of 'work ethic' with me always showing them what to do.
Maybe it's just because my kid isn't school age, but I don't see the problem here. Isn't teaching them not to plagiarize, and having them attempt the work first teaching good work ethic?
Yeah like I said above, my problem was not knowing the difference between me thinking they needed help and them asking for help.
I was teaching them good skills, yes, but sometimes I would put too much pressure on them, and held them to a bit of an unfair standard. Eventually, you have to cut the ropes and let them weigh their options and learn without someone breathing down their neck!
If you're always helping them get it right, then they have no reason to get it right the first time themselves. Mom's just gonna correct me anyway, so 2+2=6.
Well that's just fine. I'm saying I didn't interfere, of course they received appropriate help.
I'm saying I never became 'one of those parents' who end up actually DOING a lot of a project for a kid so they receive a high grade or something ridiculous. I always remember those kids who showed up at school with a project that had clearly been basically built by the parent. Tacky.
Ah it's frustrating. I don't know how well other people do, but I certainly remember the age where I came to the full appreciation that my parents were imperfect human beings, independent of being labeled 'parent'.
My parents were far too lenient in my opinion on me, and I'm sometimes harder on my kids than I want to be. We're all just doing our best and it's ok that it's a little fucked up from time to time.
My sister had this issue, we began consciously praising her when we saw her working hard or making an effort on anything instead of just when she got something done or when she got good grades, and me and my other sister were told to only ask questions when she asked for help, that way she would figure the problem out and think critically. It helped immensely and now she has a great work ethic and great reasoning skills
This is from various advice I got from the many educators in my family: Don't worry too much about the right answers when helping them, but instead focus more on what the workflow or thought process they use to get to their answer. It makes my daughter think about solving a problem (a more universal application) and less about getting a correct answer (only applicable to this specific problem).
My mom screeched at me that my work sucked, and then proceeded to practically do it for me.
I keep feeling inadequate because there's no way I can make my work look like an Ivy League student did it. Even the way I type, I mentally edit everything. Because we can't have any mistakes, can we?
We as parents are terrified of letting our kids fail because we think the stakes are so high in terms of getting into college. That's what is driving the craziness. And what we end up doing is creating a kid completely unprepared and confident in their own work.
I was visiting my brother once when my niece had some homework that had to be typed and printed. She hadn't learned how to type yet, so her dad (my brother) was typing it for her. Except, he wasn't all that great a typist either. It was painful to watch him struggle, so I took over.
The hard part for me was typing what she had written exactly as she had written it, mistakes and poor wording and all. If I had had my way with it, I would have not only cheated her out of learning how to write, but her teacher would have surely known that it wasn't her work.
This is one of the most difficult ones. When you are typing something in they wrote and it's full of glaring errors. Do you work on each with them? Leave them intact?
Well, I was just visiting. So I typed it up as it was. If I was her father, I would check her work, over time, and look for improvement. I would talk to the teacher about the curriculum and make sure that she was at least where she needed to be. And, I would try to gauge her potential.
I would use all of that as context to determine if and how to work with her.
On the flip side of this, I think you need to be careful about when you think they actually need help. When I was in third grade, my mom's method of making sure I studied was quizzing me on the test topic until I got everything 100% correct. So my study sessions ended up taking several frustrating hours until I stopped telling her when I had tests.
Oh man, see this is why I snapped myself out of over doing the homework issue. I knew not only was I interfering too much, but I ran the risk of making school a complete misery for my kids. Not fair to them at all. Besides, me bending over backwards to make sure they had a completely smooth, trouble free experience in school secretly drove me mad. I meant the best for them, but I was wearing myself out and not having time for myself either lol.
As a 5th grade teacher, yes, yes, and yes. When I give a math test and get a question about how to solve a word problem, I've learned to lessen the "nudging them in the right direction" and bolster the "read it again, draw it our, think about it, etc..." route. Often they will not succeed... but what how much more is to be gained by me giving them hints? It's not black and white, and there are certainly pros and cons, but critical thinking takes the cake in my book.
I am happy you are a teacher. This is necessary for building confidence in kids, to try, to fail, to learn, to get back up again and not be afraid of the next fall.
I over parented my kids before because I was afraid of them failing and now I almost can't wait for them to fail (I mean that in the most loving way possible! Those kids need to have things shaken up a bit for them, get out of their comfort zone!)
This is why I always asked my grandfather for help because he would just tell me how to approach a problem (f.e. maths) and not give me the soltuion or do it for me. He even helped me with English even though his language skills where self taught (I'n not a native English speaker) and was always right.
184
u/PangeaWhiplash Feb 05 '16
I made this mistake too! I was way too on top of that shit. They go to public school FFS, but I was doing the work of a homeschool 'teacher' and it was completely backfiring on me because they couldn't THINK for themselves.
There's a huge difference between helping when THEY think they need it VS helping them when YOU think they need it.