Kids - Woodbridge,VA

Updated on June 30, 2011
C.C. asks from Foresthill, CA
5 answers

Well more like my opinion:

I read a post about manners and it got me to thinking about a news blog I heard on the way to work today-because a city is under privilege they aren’t going to count homework because the parental involvement dictates that these children are doing poorly in school? WT.....
Here is my take on parenting:
STAY INVOLVED no matter your time constraints; teach your kids manners and their friends too! It takes a village to raise a child, literally. Limit TV time (my daughter got 1 hr a day and with her 18th b-day around the corner she thanks me) extracurricular activities are a mothers way of helping their children stay away from negative influences and if you don’t have the funds all it takes is a plea to the league or association. Talk to your children about EVERYTHING and LEAD by EXAMPLE

Am I alone here? I just had this conversation with my husband about when society was going to go back to being more conservative (as we walk into the movies passing half dressed girls) is anyone else disturbed by how casually we’ve accepted the cultural norms?

WOW interesting comments! Let me say this before judgment is passed; I was a single parent for 12 yrs, worked nights to support my daughter and my little brother too. Lived off minimal sleep while working my way through college knowing that living in poverty for a while instead of getting a 2nd job would pay in the end. Managed to always help with homework, work the concessions so I didn’t have to pay for the extracurricular activities because I couldn’t afford it otherwise. I now work with children who are behaviorally challenged and continue to set high standards for them as well. I teach independent living skills and continue to network with the community to meet the needs of all those I encounter. For those of you who took this as a personal attack it was simply a question of when did we stop being involved?

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R.J.

answers from Seattle on

I will dare you.... right here and now... to try walking in someone else's shoes for a month.

Go get 3 jobs that pay minimum wage. Work 18 hours a day.

Do it for a month.

Now, tell me how much less you love your children because you have to work 3 jobs.
Now, tell me how you spend your time that you can squeeze in with your children.
Now, tell me if your children should be taken away because you have to trust that their homework is being taken care of during their afterschool care.
Now, tell me if it's a choice between tutoring and food which one you choose to buy for your kids. Tell me if you choose necessary medicine or rent.

It's not BETTER parenting, having the time each and every single day to spend with your kids. It's LUCKIER parenting.

Each and every single one of us could get screwed and end up in poverty. Lose everything we've worked for and have to start from scratch. Trust funds can be mismanaged, a spouse can die, homes repossessed, credit scores tanked, divorce, medical catastrophe, markets plummet, insurance companies go under. It can happen to ANYONE. Anyone can end up working 3 jobs just to live in a crackerbox apartment trying to be able to feed their kids.

I get to homeschool because I'm LUCKY. Not because I work hard and plan well (I do), but because I'm durn lucky. Not because I'm a better parent. I've made a couple hundred k a year, and I've been homeless (both before kids). I was the SAME PERSON in both scenarios. I'm the same person now, that I was then. Working hard, planning well, and doing the best that I could with what I had.

7 moms found this helpful
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K.P.

answers from New York on

While I agree with you that society has become so "open" that there is no sense of modesty anymore, I disagree with your implication that underpriviliged parents should "just stay involved". Somehow I think you misinterpretted the blog.

I am currently working with two school districts whose populations are generally hovering around the poverty line. Observationally... much easier said than done. Many of these parents are working multiple jobs AND caring for their elderly family members. They aren't "absent" b/c the kids are with them, but they are not "enriching" their children either. Extracurriculars? Those cost money, which these parents don't have.

Homework is meant to reinforce skills, but it shouldn't be used to penalize children who are already behind. In many schools in this area, teachers assign homework to students and "check it", but the completion isn't factored into grades at the elementary level.

Just a suggested read... "A Framework for Understanding Poverty". I read this in graduate school and it entirely changed the way I view children living in generational poverty (different than situational) and let me better understand where education "fits" into their world.

As for scantily-clad tweens... I still live by my grandmother's advice, which is to always "leave a little to the imagination"!

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A.S.

answers from Boca Raton on

If I wanted to create a society where children are completely brainwashed into being hyper-consumers, self-centered and inappropriately "matured" - I would set up what we have RIGHT NOW.

Do good kids still come out of this society? Yes, absolutely. But it is getting more and more difficult for them imho.

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S.H.

answers from Honolulu on

Ditto Riley. 100%

Also... having "manners" is not about what a person looks like or what influences they have or political tendencies or how conservative or liberal a parent is or how they are dressed.

Cultural norms & how it is/is not accepted, existed in every era and generation and period in history.
It is not a finite thing.
And it is different in every culture even within an over-riding culture, and in its niche cultures.
People acculturate... or not, at different rates.

However, each 'society'... has its norms, and laws, and behavioral 'rules' on what is civility or not. Then what is against the law or not. Then what is appropriate or not. Then what is 'normal' or not.

Then, there are individual perspectives... and the legacy of how a person themselves were raised... and how they interpret that and then continue that in their own lives, or not. About what is civility/mannered, or not. For their own family.

There are umbrella influences and micro-influences in everyday life.
Of which, we as 'adults' and 'parents' discern that and what is taught to our kids. So that, they become responsible and well adjusted and 'good'... kids and as they become, adults themselves.

Again, Ditto Riley J. as well.
:)

Society, civilization, family constructs, cultural constructs and Ethos... always, ebbs and flows.
It is NOT finite nor static nor engraved in stone.

Then there is the individual at-will and free-will influences.
Even if we teach our kids everything by the book... and all 'proper' and nice.... it does not mean, the kids' themselves, 'become' that way.
Each individual... becomes, their own entity.

No one, lives in a vacuum.
Thus, everyday experiences, is a teaching moment... and to learn to DISCERN their behavior, and their "manners" or not.
Not everyone, has the ability to self-reflect.
History, displays this.
Each era.

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D.K.

answers from Pittsburgh on

No, I think homework shouldn't count because there is NO EVIDENCE that assigning homework benefits children in ANY WAY at all prior to high school. The evidence for high school is very unclear and there may or may not be a benefit.

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