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Parents with kids who are distance learning. How is it working out for you?

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Sidney Prescott

Unconfirmed Member
Posted on behalf of Neo Member D Durien :

I am particular interested to hear from 2 groups. Single parents and parents who both work. I am in the latter group and I have 2 kids; one who is 8 years old in 3rd grade and one who is in 9th grade and honors. My oldest is rocking it. His biggest complaint is that he would rather be learning in school.

My 3rd grader....Sigh...My wife and I both work from home, She is a Release manager always in meetings. I am in IT always fixing things. Since we can't focus on her all the time, she'll get stuck on one thing and not do any of the other work. We'll ask her why none of it was done, because she was stuck on math. She took a diagnostic test to see how she is progressing and got flagged for just rushing through it (supposed to take 45 - 60 minutes and it took her under 25 which is why she got flagged). No she was not a genius, LOL she scored lower than she did when she took the test in Sept, A LOT lower LOL. Eventually we had to watch her take the test so that she would not just rush through the test to get it done.

Any parents out there experiencing the same thing? I have been telling my wife not sure what is going to happen come the end of the year. Actually one other thing. My son's high school cancelled the parent teacher conferences for everyone and needed to only focus on the kids who are getting F's. At least 1/3 of the kids in his school was getting an F....

Thanks all :)
Jim
 

Durien

Member
Thanks Sidney!

Hey all. If any parents can post their experiences I would appreciate it. LOL I know the parent to non parent ratio might be skewed but I thought I would give it a shot ;)
 

Arimer

Member
It sucks. I feel like my kid is going to be educationally behind due to it. I sit with him while he works and the best way i can describe it is remember when your teacher had a sub and so they just pulled busy worksheets up for them to hand it? It feels like that's the whole lesson now. Not to mention the lack of socialization.
 

Durien

Member
Thanks for the info. Do you remember in the Incredibles 2 where he says, "Why change math? Math is Math!" That is what it is like in our house. Now granted they are teaching the kids some good stuff and some weird stuff. Once you know your times tables, division is a freakin' walk in the park. but they are teaching the kids something like this:

81 divided by 9 Well, let's break that down because it seems really big.

(45 divided by 9) + (36 divided by 9)

5 + 4 = 9 So 81 divided by 9 is 9

My daughter was like having a heck of time with this. But she knows that 9x9 is 81....

The other thing was instead of teaching them this:
24
X4
------
96

They are having them break apart the number like this:
24 X 4 =
12 X 2 X 4
12 X 8
96

Now granted I can see the advantage to both of these methods but asking 8 year old to do the above math when there are obviously easier ways. Those 2 might be bad examples per se but it is what they are teaching her in her zoom meetings, then we have to try and figure out why they are teaching her this way.

On a side note, they are teaching her to use variables already which is awesome in my opinion.
 

TheContact

Member
^ I believe that math strategy is common core. It sucks.

married. Work opposite shifts. Two kids remote learning. It sucks. The teachers do their class, then they listen to pre recorded videos and try to solve problems. 99% of my time they need help, so if raising kids already wasn’t a job in and of itself, adding a teacher role onto that is extremely rough.
 
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Jon Canon

Member
Did it for a while earlier, its a total pita to force a totally unmotivated 7 year old through tedious, repeating and boring reading excersises while his little brother has no worries in his 5 year old world in the living room. Not again plz.
 

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
I work away from home during the week and wife is working from home. Kids are doing great, having two kids is really paying off as they don't get as bored as if they were just sat in a room alone. My 9 year old is bored with school, but he was bored with it when he went in person.
My wife takes the brunt of the scheduling etc, I do a little bit with them on the weekends and also am the tech guy, who makes sure there shit is working and restricts their access to stuff during school time.
 
S

Sidney Prescott

Unconfirmed Member
It sucks. I feel like my kid is going to be educationally behind due to it. I sit with him while he works and the best way i can describe it is remember when your teacher had a sub and so they just pulled busy worksheets up for them to hand it? It feels like that's the whole lesson now. Not to mention the lack of socialization.
I can see that. Online learning just isn't the same I would think, it's much easier for kids to get distracted these days and it's really important to be face-to-face with a teacher and in a classroom environment. It forces many kids out of their comfort shells, too. I can relate to the supply teacher at school, that was basically just an excuse for everyone to clown around in class.

Younger me would have thought all this time off was awesome, but I know deep down it would have affected me. Not seeing my friends, and being isolated at home. You make some of your best memories growing up.
 
Seems to be going well for my son, but I am surprised by the amount of Stardew Valley, Minecraft and Don't Starve in the curriculum these days. At least they must still be assigning a lot of group projects with other students, but these appear to mostly consist of the Fortnite and Apex Legends variety.
 

Durien

Member
I work away from home during the week and wife is working from home. Kids are doing great, having two kids is really paying off as they don't get as bored as if they were just sat in a room alone. My 9 year old is bored with school, but he was bored with it when he went in person.
My wife takes the brunt of the scheduling etc, I do a little bit with them on the weekends and also am the tech guy, who makes sure there shit is working and restricts their access to stuff during school time.
Dude, her school uses youtube and a math game called Prodigy. I can't restrict either of these. The school has her chromebook locked down to high heaven and I can't deny traffic to youtube because my son uses it for his classes.

Sidney, my friend's daughter is a senior this year. She misses prom, homecoming, etc..She still hangs out with her friends in real life but all the fun parts of high school for her last year are gone =/ My son who is in high school thinks the school is babying the kids too much. "We're here for you!" "Don't be sad, it will be over soon!" etc. He says he understands why they are doing it but he says it is too much and they should just let the kids deal with it instead of coddling them.
 

Durien

Member
Seems to be going well for my son, but I am surprised by the amount of Stardew Valley, Minecraft and Don't Starve in the curriculum these days. At least they must still be assigning a lot of group projects with other students, but these appear to mostly consist of the Fortnite and Apex Legends variety.
I have to pick up my daughter's school work every other Monday. For her art, they had to draw the character's from Among Us.
 

Rawker

Member
I'm off with my 5 and 7 year old cause my wife works shift work. We love it because we get to spend so much time together. The kids are killing it with their school work and both are ahead. I don't just do the schools work though, we usually crush the 5 year olds in like an hour and then focus on reading, sight words, and math, which are all extra to get her ahead. 7 year old is in a split and doing all grade 3 work (supposed to be in 2) but I'm working with her on more advanced math too.

Online is a joke for the 5 year old, lasts an hour at most and then it's up to me to feed her sheets and videos. I emailed the teachers requesting smaller groups with mics open so they could socialize.

The 7 year olds schedule is normal but too much for my liking so I usually skip a class each day and go for a good 1-2 hour walk/hike in the woods. I felt bad at first skipping the classes but after 5 min of gym that was a youtube video lagging and 1/4 the size of her already small 14" screen and I just don't fucking care what they think.

Mental health is priority and it's amazing how their mood instantly changes with a change of scenery. If it's a nice day out then fuck it we are going to enjoy the best part of it and school can be caught up on.

Mine are gamers as well and love minecraft but I don't let them play freely during the week. They get to play on the weekends for a few hours a day but I reward them during the week with tutorials like pressure plate doors and switched doors. I don't know minecraft but it's an awesome tool.

I know I'm fortunate (getting by but not ahead) but I cherish every day of this because it's a grind normally and life was a blur. Enjoy this time with your kids, relax the rules a little and be their friend not their parent 24/7. Say fuck it for a day or just a few hours, it helps.

Good luck, I know this shit is hard.
 

bitbydeath

Member
Thanks for the info. Do you remember in the Incredibles 2 where he says, "Why change math? Math is Math!" That is what it is like in our house. Now granted they are teaching the kids some good stuff and some weird stuff. Once you know your times tables, division is a freakin' walk in the park. but they are teaching the kids something like this:

81 divided by 9 Well, let's break that down because it seems really big.

(45 divided by 9) + (36 divided by 9)

5 + 4 = 9 So 81 divided by 9 is 9

My daughter was like having a heck of time with this. But she knows that 9x9 is 81....

The other thing was instead of teaching them this:
24
X4
------
96

They are having them break apart the number like this:
24 X 4 =
12 X 2 X 4
12 X 8
96

Now granted I can see the advantage to both of these methods but asking 8 year old to do the above math when there are obviously easier ways. Those 2 might be bad examples per se but it is what they are teaching her in her zoom meetings, then we have to try and figure out why they are teaching her this way.

On a side note, they are teaching her to use variables already which is awesome in my opinion.
That sounds awful.
I just tell my kids to use times to find the answer to divide. Essentially looking for X which will come up later.

9 x (X) = 81

As for home schooling, tried it early last year when it was mandatory and trying to balance work with school doesn’t work.

I spent way too much time trying to teach them. They were in grades one and two at the time.
 

Greedings

Member
Ah yes common core. Funnily enough, that’s how I do maths in my head. Doesn’t mean it works for kids though.
 

MrMephistoX

Member
Trite bit true it is what it is. Spring was a shit show but this year at least they have a curriculum that we pick up at the school every few weeks and twice daily zoom sessions.
 

epicnemesis

Member
Home with a pre kindergartener. My wife is a stay at home so she is getting the brunt of it while I hide behind an office door. It’s brutal. School is only 4 hours, but that is still 4 hours of zoom classes with a 4 1/2 year old. She hates it and it’s confusing because she wants to talk to her mom and explain her class to her and show her things.

We had about a month of in person before winter break and she was good with that despite the masks and the lack of physical interaction with her classmates. Set to go back to that next week Newsome willing.
 

epicnemesis

Member
Thanks for the info. Do you remember in the Incredibles 2 where he says, "Why change math? Math is Math!" That is what it is like in our house. Now granted they are teaching the kids some good stuff and some weird stuff. Once you know your times tables, division is a freakin' walk in the park. but they are teaching the kids something like this:

81 divided by 9 Well, let's break that down because it seems really big.

(45 divided by 9) + (36 divided by 9)

5 + 4 = 9 So 81 divided by 9 is 9

My daughter was like having a heck of time with this. But she knows that 9x9 is 81....

The other thing was instead of teaching them this:
24
X4
------
96

They are having them break apart the number like this:
24 X 4 =
12 X 2 X 4
12 X 8
96

Now granted I can see the advantage to both of these methods but asking 8 year old to do the above math when there are obviously easier ways. Those 2 might be bad examples per se but it is what they are teaching her in her zoom meetings, then we have to try and figure out why they are teaching her this way.

On a side note, they are teaching her to use variables already which is awesome in my opinion.
What the fuck is this shit? This is what I have to look forward to?
I heard complaints, but never knew it was that crazy.
I also hate that they are shoehorning one way for these kids to learn math. Math is an exploratory medium, one of the reasons I did so well in it in school compared to English or history was because I was able to explore the rule sets to find methods that work best for me.

Like if I were to manually sum a string of numbers I found it faster to add up the sums of tens. So I would go down the list crossing out pairs of 5s, then 6&4s, then 7&3s, then 2&8s then 9&1s and carry over the number of pairs. I would have hated math if teachers forced me to use their methods instead.
 

wolfmat

Confirmed Asshole
Mine's 11. It's no good.

Partly because she has difficulties in school anyway, partly because it's basically a really long stretch of homework without any proper assistance.

They do video chats, but when they work right (which usually isn't the case), it's a matter of who gets to speak; everyone else is left out.

The teachers are putting very little effort into getting the kids where they need to be.

However, this is different from school to school. She was still in elementary in the first lockdown, and there, at least the exercises weren't glorified homework. That went way better, even without video chats.

My biggest gripe with this is that we as parents have to substitute for the teachers 100%, but we're not being compensated for it, and we're not competent anyway. We're not pedagogues. We're not out of work. So we're putting all this time in that's supposed to be done by dedicated professionals.
It's bad for the atmosphere at home, the kid's not progressing properly and we're exhausted.
And the teachers, who get to basically netflix and chill, are still getting paid. And then on Sundays, they're sitting their ass down for like half an hour and pull together the workload for the next week, It's kind of ridiculous in my opinion.

HOWEVER... I feel like the lockdowns are necessary where I am. Numbers are going down as well. So it's a shitshow, but we're putting up with it to get to a better place eventually. We're blessed that we can afford to put this much time and effort into it, too. Others are not that lucky, with kids being totally on their own for all this time. That must be horrible for them.
 

Jethalal

Banned
I am in the final year of school. It went pretty well for me. Don't have to go to school and get the lectures at home. Don't have to wake up early or go to sleep early, don't have to waste time travelling. No energy wasted. Pretty cool for me. I can see why it sucks for younger students though.
 

DunDunDunpachi

Patient MembeR
My wife and I had them in remote/distance learning last year when the lockdown initially started. It was enough of a drop of quality that we decided over the summer to prep for homeschooling, and that's what we did. If you're gonna be responsible for keeping them on task, moving them from subject to subject (and from zoom meeting to zoom meeting), and looking over their shoulder to make sure the material is good then you might as well just shoulder a bit more work and school them yourself.
 

wolfmat

Confirmed Asshole
My wife and I had them in remote/distance learning last year when the lockdown initially started. It was enough of a drop of quality that we decided over the summer to prep for homeschooling, and that's what we did. If you're gonna be responsible for keeping them on task, moving them from subject to subject (and from zoom meeting to zoom meeting), and looking over their shoulder to make sure the material is good then you might as well just shoulder a bit more work and school them yourself.
I'd love to be able to do that, but that's not an option in Germany. It's against the law. Exemptions are rare.
 

DunDunDunpachi

Patient MembeR
I'd love to be able to do that, but that's not an option in Germany. It's against the law. Exemptions are rare.
I'm fortunate enough to live in a state where the gov't provides education, but also leaves a wide berth for private and home education. I'd argue it's almost too loose in Michigan, as a parent can essentially say "yep, they are fully schooled" and the gov't has to recognize it in the same way they'd recognize a public school diploma. That's not my problem, however, as it gives my wife and me the flexibility to push them further than their teachers would.
 
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My son is 5. He’s being going to school in person since September. I could not imagine doing remote learning with him. There is no way he’d be where he is now in terms of reading and early math. He has done great at school but he would struggle to focus at home with his little sister running around. I have a huge amount of sympathy and concern for all these kids who haven’t been to school in a year and the parents trying to hold down their jobs while also doing the teacher’s.
 
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DeceptiveAlarm

Gold Member
I don't like it. I'm currently a single dad. Their mom is a mess. My kids are back in school now but it comes and goes depending on cases. I feel like they are definitely getting behind. My youngest is 8 and he just doesn't pay attention.

Then there is the problem of finding someone to be with them while I'm at work. My dad does road work so he is helping me atm because he gets laid off in winter. The big thing for me too is that school is just as much about learning how to connect and interact in a social situation. They are not getting that at all when they are at home doing busy work.
 

NeoIkaruGAF

Gold Member
Thanks for the info. Do you remember in the Incredibles 2 where he says, "Why change math? Math is Math!" That is what it is like in our house. Now granted they are teaching the kids some good stuff and some weird stuff. Once you know your times tables, division is a freakin' walk in the park. but they are teaching the kids something like this:

81 divided by 9 Well, let's break that down because it seems really big.

(45 divided by 9) + (36 divided by 9)

5 + 4 = 9 So 81 divided by 9 is 9

My daughter was like having a heck of time with this. But she knows that 9x9 is 81....

The other thing was instead of teaching them this:
24
X4
------
96

They are having them break apart the number like this:
24 X 4 =
12 X 2 X 4
12 X 8
96

Now granted I can see the advantage to both of these methods but asking 8 year old to do the above math when there are obviously easier ways. Those 2 might be bad examples per se but it is what they are teaching her in her zoom meetings, then we have to try and figure out why they are teaching her this way.

On a side note, they are teaching her to use variables already which is awesome in my opinion.
They don’t teach multiplication tables in school anymore?

81 is 9x9, that’s it. I spent the good part of a month in first grade learning tables from 2 to 10, still have them at my fingertips. My teacher said 81, you’d answer 9x9. No other passage required or expected. Commit that to memory, it’ll always be there for more advanced stuff.

I mean, 81=36+45 is a couple steps further for an elementary school pupil, in my world.
 

Cyberpunkd

Gold Member
They don’t teach multiplication tables in school anymore?

81 is 9x9, that’s it. I spent the good part of a month in first grade learning tables from 2 to 10, still have them at my fingertips. My teacher said 81, you’d answer 9x9. No other passage required or expected. Commit that to memory, it’ll always be there for more advanced stuff.

I mean, 81=36+45 is a couple steps further for an elementary school pupil, in my world.
The way I understand it the current way of teaching it relies on some sort of explanation, without mindlessly committing to memory. I understand why on paper it might make sense, but in practice - damn, there are some things that you just need to hammer into your head and that's it. Why is 1 a 1? Also no explanation, you just assume it is. Why is 1 lower than 2 but higher than 0? Again, just assume and go with the flow. Same for 9x9 = 81.

On my side both of my kids are in childcare but at least the French government made a decision to keep the schools open as much as possible, which I think a lot of parents are thankful for given the responses in this thread.
 

Irobot82

Member
It sucks. I feel like my kid is going to be educationally behind due to it. I sit with him while he works and the best way i can describe it is remember when your teacher had a sub and so they just pulled busy worksheets up for them to hand it? It feels like that's the whole lesson now. Not to mention the lack of socialization.
Agreed. When we had to distance learn last year before the protocols were setup one of my kids just fell way behind. He requires that in person one on one time to learn.
 

Allforce

Member
My wife is a 5th grade teacher and my son is in 3rd grade. Both doing fully virtual this year, which was an option for all staff and students but the commitment had to be for the full year. No takebacks.

My wife is killing it, she's teaching science so it's opened up an entire avenue for her to teach. She's producing lots of YouTube videos,. daily live meets, etc. That said there's still a ton of students who just are not doing a single thing and failing and there's not much anyone can do about it besides contacting parents (who most of the time give less fucks than the student, go figure).

My son is ASD so it just was the right move overall for him. He was never going to wear a mask all day at school but we gave him the choice in the fall and he chose this. His teacher is pretty good but she's older and a little less technically proficient than she should be doing this. Still it's consistent every day, daily meets, good curriculum, and he's doing well. He still meets with all his specialists and his teacher allows a good mix of teaching and socializing stuff over the meetings. Like "recess" every day is mostly kids alone in the Google Meet playing Among Us or just goofing around talking to each other just like they would be at school.

My wife basically has said she would love to do this forever due to the lack of stress dealing with a classroom of asshole kids. Her colleagues still working in the school are absolutely broken at this point. No subs, no planning, the constant cleaning. Bouncing kids between in-person 3 days and virtual 2 every week is just a mess and they all tell my wife they wish they had chosen to go full virtual.

One thing I'm really surprised by is the disparity in economic levels.i can see in the kids doing full virtual. My wife and I thought it would really be the more educated and financially secure people doing this for their kids as they would have the resources and time. Instead it is a LOT of really lower income families from across the district (we have a huge district spanning across tons of areas both super wealthy to absolute ghetto) and that obviously leads to a lot of kids who have no accountability because there's no parents helping or supervising. Also a ton of ESL kids who we were told signed up in error because their parents didn't understand the process. My wife minored in Spanish tho so this has really brought those skills back as she hasn't had to speak Spanish consistently for a while and now does daily.

All in all B- would do again.
 
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TheMan

Member
Many many kids do not have the attention and self-directedness it takes to do well with online curriculum. It can look a lot like ADHD but I don't think it really is. I think little humans are just not supposed to be staring at a screen for 8 hours per day, it's boring as fuck and they need more in-person stimulation. They need the social pressure of everyone else around them trying to stay focused. They need instant response for help with questions. As a parent who works it's not really possible to be standing next to them all day to provide assistance- that's why fucking school was invented in the first place, lol
 
My wife basically has said she would love to do this forever due to the lack of stress dealing with a classroom of asshole kids.
See I have an issue with that. We pay teachers to deal with the stresses of the classroom. That is part of the job. Online education has proven to be less than adequate for many many students for a variety of reasons. School isn’t really about making the teachers’ lives easier. It’s about educating children. Teachers are compensated to that end.

I’m not saying your wife is being lazy or whatever. But I am saying that when teachers lobby to keep their schools closed they are doing it for their own benefit at the expense of the kids they are supposed to be teaching. We pay a ton of money into the education system for buildings, supplies and teachers. Not for online meetups and YouTube videos. Again, just to be perfectly clear, I am not saying your wife is doing this. But I bugs me that at a time when families and kids are struggling because online learning isn’t working and kids aren’t socializing, you’ve got teachers talking about how much they wish we could keep doing this.
 
Thanks Sidney!

Hey all. If any parents can post their experiences I would appreciate it. LOL I know the parent to non parent ratio might be skewed but I thought I would give it a shot ;)

My wife and I have been working from home since April 2020. I work 4 days a week and she works 3, so we have time off to focus on the kids. We have a 10 year old girl, a 7 year old boy and a 4 year old boy, and we're really struggling. The 4 year old has suffered the most - he was just at the age where he was going to nursery regularly when this all began, and that all stopped for about half a year. He's just started going back (to a new nursery which is attached to the school he'll be going to) which he is happy about but last year was very hard for him because he's at exactly the age where he needs other children his own age to play with and as time went on our enthusiasm to do fun stuff with him and try to keep him meaningfully entertained just wore down. Doing home schooling with my 7 year old has been a fucking nightmare too. He's very lazy and will not do anything willingly. My patience is very frayed and I lose my temper with him quickly which means that he cries instead of doing any work. Every day is exhausting at the moment. My 10 year old is mostly fine; she'll get on with her work unaided for the most part but I'm pretty sure she rushes through so she can spend time on her phone, so I've had to impose a daily limit of 3 hours with more time for good behaviour.

So yeah, it has been rough. The last year has taken a huge toll on all of us.
 

Mossybrew

Member
Thankfully my kids are older so it's not an issue. My son is a junior in high school and he loves it, he's antisocial like me and not having to deal with hundreds of other teens a day in person is a godsend. He will actually be bummed if he has to go back in person for his senior year. My daughter is doing the online college thing and has no complaints.
 

epicnemesis

Member
I will also say, we will feel the repercussions of this home learning in 15 years. These young kids (up to the 3rd grade) are missing out on a key social development phase of their life. Thankfully my daughter has cousins to play with a few times a week, so hopefully she comes out okay. But these other families with kids who haven’t interacted with other kids for a year are going to have some social issues that will stay with them into adulthood.
 

Tesseract

Banned
social development is vital but the world is changing, expecting people to be out and about like they were at the end of the 90s isn't reasonable

i don't have kids yet (prolly within 5 years or so)

they'll absolutely learn the feynman method from an early age, endless access to books and videos and modules

vr for the next generation is gonna be huge, go look at steam's education portal for some glimpses of the future
 
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Spokker

Member
I enrolled my kid in kindergarten to start later this year, but if the schools don't reopen I'm going to keep him in pre-school. They say they have a kindergarten equivalent but I honestly don't care what it is as long as he goes in-person and is around other kids.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
I can tell some coworkers are feeling the heat.

When we're on conference call, sometimes the kids are in the background yelling, or they disturb mom or dad while they work.

And that's just occasionally seeing or hearing it on MS Teams.

Must be a shit show at their house.
 
Sucks ass. We've got a three year old who was supposed to start preschool last fall, but we decided against their virtual program since both his mother and myself are working from home. Instead, we opted for ABCMouse, which has become a staple in our household. It's great, but nothing can make up for the lack of socialization. Luckily, we've got a few friends with kids who drop by every so often so it's not all bad.
 

Tesseract

Banned











so forth, use g2
 

Jethalal

Banned











so forth, use g2
Very difficult for young kids to follow online courses without a proper schedule or discipline. They can't take the place of proper traditional schooling yet.
 

Tesseract

Banned
Very difficult for young kids to follow online courses without a proper schedule or discipline. They can't take the place of proper traditional schooling yet.
school is good, regimentation and trial by fire

i wouldn't expect to learn much there, closer you get to university the more indoctrinated you become

far be it from me to tell parents what to do tho
 
S

Sidney Prescott

Unconfirmed Member
This thread truly makes you realise the importance of teachers and school. I honestly regret giving some of them a hard time growing up, but I didn't know any better. If I could go back and pay attention more, I definitely would.

I truly hope schools start getting back to normal for kids, learning is so important. You also grow as a person tremendously being around others the same age, sharing experiences and whatnot.

Teaching isn't an easy job, I know I couldn't hack a classroom full of kids.
 

Durien

Member
They have been kicking the can down the road when kids will be returning where I am at. Currently K and 1st graders are in school. My daughter was supposed to go back in November in a staggered approach. Nope, still at home. The high school told us at one point there is no plan on sending the kids back to school at this time.
 

Rawker

Member
My wife and I have been working from home since April 2020. I work 4 days a week and she works 3, so we have time off to focus on the kids. We have a 10 year old girl, a 7 year old boy and a 4 year old boy, and we're really struggling. The 4 year old has suffered the most - he was just at the age where he was going to nursery regularly when this all began, and that all stopped for about half a year. He's just started going back (to a new nursery which is attached to the school he'll be going to) which he is happy about but last year was very hard for him because he's at exactly the age where he needs other children his own age to play with and as time went on our enthusiasm to do fun stuff with him and try to keep him meaningfully entertained just wore down. Doing home schooling with my 7 year old has been a fucking nightmare too. He's very lazy and will not do anything willingly. My patience is very frayed and I lose my temper with him quickly which means that he cries instead of doing any work. Every day is exhausting at the moment. My 10 year old is mostly fine; she'll get on with her work unaided for the most part but I'm pretty sure she rushes through so she can spend time on her phone, so I've had to impose a daily limit of 3 hours with more time for good behaviour.

So yeah, it has been rough. The last year has taken a huge toll on all of us.
Hey man I feel for you, have you tried using a reward system for doing school work? Maybe if he's into games then give him 15 min game time for every assignment he completes? I know it's hard when there is a stalemate that escalates.
 

Renoir

Member
I got a 6 year old... and man this digital learning is trash. I can see the potential for it to be a great tool. But the schools here in GA just use it to play videos. Teachers are on every so often to actually teach. I feel like a whole generation is going to be held back due to digital learning. Now every excuse they can get they stop classroom learning and do digital learning.
 

wolfmat

Confirmed Asshole
Tiny update from here: It's been getting better continually. Currently, the workload is appropriate, and my daughter is getting by. It's a relief. We've also decided that my wife is the sole manager of school stuff, which seems to improve morale. I kept worrying that the time until the next bulk of work doesn't suffice, but it turned out that that was mostly not justified.

I guess everybody had sort of a warmup phase, too. (That was 1.5 months long.)

It's still not classifiable as good though, make no mistake. But I want us to pull through. I'm still certain it's for the best to go through with the lockdown, although it's really grating.
Honestly, I'd really want to get the incidence down to 0 across all of Germany; I guess 35 - 50 over 7 days, which is the declared goal as far as I can grasp, has to suffice for now. They don't yet know when schools are going to be reopened here though (schools are under federal authority, and my state isn't great with incidence numbers, so they're cautious with predictions).
 

Durien

Member
We were alerted that my daughter will return to school next month. Monday through Thursday 1/2 the school goes in the morning and 1/2 the school goes in the afternoon in order to maintain social distancing efforts. For the half they are not at school they are distance learning and Friday is all distance learning. What I would like to know what is the bar to get back to normal? Everyone vaccinated (which there are already reports of people getting it even after getting vaccinated)? Drop in reported cases? If this continues on in September, I may need to rethink where I send my kid to school. Oh they also said, if you do not want your kid to do the in person learning, then you need to withrdraw your kid from the school and do this online only academy thing.
 

Hari Seldon

Member
I am lucky enough to be in a red county and red district so my kids have been mostly in school. They did send them home from thanksgiving to New Years. My oldest does terrible in the online environment. She is definitely an audible leaner and gets way too nervous and stuck on shit.

My youngest has a hot as fuck Spanish teacher so I help with Spanish.
 

Cyberpunkd

Gold Member
It's still not classifiable as good though, make no mistake. But I want us to pull through. I'm still certain it's for the best to go through with the lockdown, although it's really grating.
Honestly,
All the old people will be grateful about the sacrifice your kids made, then will proceed to die in the next few years anyway lol. Seems like solidarity flows only one way.
 
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