Why do most kids say they like school?
I love this picture because it reminds me how difficult it is for parents to know what makes their kids happy.
This moment was right after my son did a great solo performance in Chicago. It was downtown, so we stayed at a swanky hotel across from the performance center, and we went back to the hotel for lunch and then swimming.
Who wouldn’t love that? But somehow, he was able to be a grouch. I told him he couldn’t play hide and seek (the hotel had already yelled at him once). And I told him he couldn’t eat bread (he’s allergic). But the real problem, I think, is that he was hungry, and fancy restaurants take a long time to bring food.
My experience of parenting is that it’s difficult to see what really makes a kid happy and what really makes a kid sad. You have to look more at the core of who they are.
My ESFP son’s driving desire is to be with people having fun. So the first thing I ask myself is: “Are there enough people for him?” Seriously, he needs zero alone time.
But at some point I think the times he tells me he’s happy and the times he tells me he’s sad are like little puzzles, and I have to figure out what he means.
When we assess our own moods, reporting sadness is as conflicted as reporting happiness.
The happiest country is Switzerland and the most unhappy country is Greece. But most people everywhere report that they are happy, and there is little difference among populations aside from outliers like Russia where there is an inverse relationship between how bad their lives are and how good their literature is. They are working hard to preserve their literary dominance.
Everywhere else, people are basically happy. Because that is the human condition. Yes, life is really difficult. But we have some crazy chip in our brains that makes us believe that life is getting better. We wake up every day thinking the best is yet to come.
Or maybe it’s not so crazy. Because we can’t change most things that are difficult for us. Like, we can’t breathe under water. We can’t survive without nutrients. We hurt each other. So we tell ourselves that even though life is hard and the world is dangerous, life is good. Whatever we have is good. It’s a survival mechanism.
Why does your kid love school? What else could the kid possibly be comparing it to? One of the most difficult things to do as an adult is figure out what you want to do with your time. So of course it’s difficult for kids, too. And it’s definitely difficult for kids to imagine any alternative to school when the kids have never even seen it.
Let’s say your kid loves her teacher. It’s no surprise that she loves her teacher. Her teacher is the adult paying the most attention to her if attention is measured by quantity not quality, which has been the measurement system for all of human evolution except the last 20 years or so. Kids naturally love the adult paying attention to them. It’s another survival mechanism.
Some kids don’t love their teacher, but then the parents talk about “it’s a bad year” not “school is a bad system.” Which means that the kid still assumes school is good.
Kids take cues from parents.
When I stopped forcing my son to do homework, my son started complaining about school. When we agree to abide by school rules and school customs we show our kids that we believe school is good, so they believe school is good. It’s why eight-year-olds don’t come home from church one day and tell their Christian parents they want to be Muslim.
When I helped my son make a costume for the school sing-along, my son said he liked doing the sing-along. When I told my son I don’t want to go to school reading night because our family reads every night anyway, he sensed I had lost faith in school. He jumped on the bandwagon right away. “Yeah. School reading night is dumb for our family!”
What I’m telling you is that most kids will tell you they like school. Because kids like what you put in front of them. Do you know what determines what kids like to eat? What their mothers eat. Kids adapt to liking what they perceive their mothers like, and what their mothers feed them.
So back to the hotel.
He said, “I hate this hotel.”
My first thought was, “Try staying at a Best Western.” But I didn’t say anything.
We ate. We swam. And at the pool he said, “Mom! I love this hotel so much! Let’s come back.”
Holy bleep! In that top picture he looks just like you! I hadn’t really seen it before. Fascinating.
Holy bleep! :) Love it. I’m still trying to figure out what Z looks like, some photos he looks older and others he looks younger. Also, wonder if anyone is keeping track, but shouldn’t he be double-digits soon? Like an official tweener? :)
This summer Yefet turns 12 and Zehavi turns 9.
Penelope
Em… I see your point.
Kids, just like adults, like what’s put in front of them, because we don’t stop to reassess and think, we don’t know alternatives, and because it’s a survival mechanism…
So by showing the kids homeschooling as an alternative, so they have experience going to school and being homeschooled, would they then tell us what they preferred? Or they would say they preferred what their mother think is better anyway?
Why does your kid love school?
Shared experience. The experience may be good, bad, or otherwise. I’m not trying to make the argument for school. I’m trying to explain their thought process. They see the vast majority of other kids roughly their same age attend school and they want to be with those kids even if it means sitting in a classroom, having a “Lord of the Flies” experience at times, or whatever. They want the same experience as everyone else. They want to fit in with the other kids. Of course, there are many individual exceptions. The bottom line is they are a product of their home and community environment. The degree to which they are influenced by their environment will depend on their personality.
It has been for a long time where I’ve equated going to school with the phenomena of people discussing the latest movie or TV series. I am very out of step with many people when it comes to discussing TV or movies. I’ll watch them if I’m so inclined for some reason or happen to be available to catch them. My schedule isn’t determined by a network or what’s popular. There has to be a reason other than being able to discuss what’s popular on TV or at the theater. So I often wonder to myself if I would have preferred to be homeschooled or schooled when I was a kid. Of course, I can’t answer that question for myself because homeschooling was not an option and therefore didn’t try it. The important thing for me is I continue to enjoy learning new things every day. It has always been that way for me. So whether school has been a good or bad experience, it has not been a life sentence. It has been a chapter in my life.
Public School teachers face a weird Catch-22. The students that need their attention are really tough to deal with (from abusive homes, homeless, food insecure, or inexplicably un-involved parents), so they focus their attention on kids who don’t need it because it is easier and honestly more rewarding (for most people).
I got a ton of attention from teachers, but I also got a ton of attention from my parents, from athletic coaches, and from mentors at my church. Although I enjoyed the relationships that I built with my teachers, in retrospect it was wasted. There were plenty of kids (at least 50% in my high school) who needed high quality attention from adults, and I got the attention instead of them.
I also enjoyed school because I was popular. It seems shallow, but schools have a very clear social hierarchy, whereas homeschool does not necessarily have a built in hierarchical system.
That probably seems like a stupid thought for anybody who wants to rage against the machine, but I bring it up because its the exact reason that Penelope’s younger son still asks to go to school.
thank you for the candor about your school experience. I’m pretty sure that you’re right – my son wants to go to school to be popular.
To be honest, when I think about letting him do what he’s good at, part of me thinks what he’s good at is being popular in a group of kids. And then I feel conflicted.
-Penelope
Hmmm, interesting. Conflicted as in sending him to boarding school in Andover so he can be popular? Or? I don’t understand the purpose of being popular in school. My husband was an uber popular football player in high school with all the wealthy SoCal kids. After high school he had nothing to do with them. So then, what was the purpose of it? Maybe boosting his confidence? Even he can’t answer the question. And he still hated school, except for football.
In my personal experience understanding how to be popular is neither helpful nor unhelpful post high school, but at the time popularity was really appealing.
I was not popular in high school. My son is very popular, so now I get to see the other side. The clear benefit is the connections he is making. It is easy for him to get things done because he always has someone to call or text. He connects people and they re-pay the favor by stopping over on Saturday afternoons to help him with chores (so they can hang out together) or inviting him to events where he meets more people and expands his circle. It has also helped him get into classes that are full because the teachers enjoy his personality. As an INFJ, it’s like raising an alien baby.
I agree with this analogy, however I think that the way he is using his popularity is actually learned from his parents. There are many popular kids that waste their popularity on having “friends” being mean to other kids, or receiving false compliments, to have people around to fill an insecurity about themselves, and the list goes on. If your son is using his popularity as a way to network and get tasks done efficiently that is a great learning tool to use in the work world. However, he had to learn how to network and manage from somewhere other than school, it’s just that school is a good “test environment” to hone his ability. With that in mind there are many ways you can practice networking and management skills.
I so appreciate your honesty about being conflicted, Penelope!
My husband changed schools a fair amount growing up, and was usually the only kid of color in the class. He learned to *immediately* be charming and funny before anyone had a chance to pick on him for being new and/or Asian. And that outgoingness has definitely shaped who he is as a businessman.
I think its okay to feel conflicted because you trust your son to make a lot of decisions, but not this one. At first blush, that seems inconsistent or hypocritical, and maybe it is.
However, if he is not willing to give up Cello (or if you won’t let him) then he would realistically have to give up video games and farm life to go to school. I think it would be tough to explain the trade-off to an eight year old even if he is precocious.
Even then you would drive all the teachers insane with constantly taking your son from school early and missing days at a time for cello camp.
Finally, if you did let him go to school for the social aspect, I have to imagine that you would make at least a token effort to get him into a school with peers that you like. For you this might mean a huge change to family dynamics that you might have ruled out completely.
I typed my 3 as well this past winter, it has really helped me out. I’m an INTJ, and my daughters are not! My 9 year old daughter still boggles my mind, I doubt that will let up any time soon.
Interesting. I have always homeschooled, but my neighbor just homeschooled his 3 this year and they want to go back to school. The kids, 14, 13, 12 said they Miss having friends. I have another friend who homeschooled her daughter, was very active with her, and she resented her homeschool days, and is sending her kids to school. Looking back on my life, I would have hated the idea of homeschool, but I would have done so much better being home. School works well for some types of people, but for the rest of us, its hard to imagine why. :)
I think HS is much easier to get started younger
By those ages the kids are products of schooling. That’s what they know. Not saying they can’t change but it seems like that would be the time for a previously HS family to assess their child going into school for the older grades.
I do know mom’s, many, that do school to stay sane. Their kids are great people and they have a good relationship.
It’s knowing what works within your relationship and what doesn’t.
Once in a grocery store line, I listened in on a conversation between a teenage girl and her grandmother. They obviously had been apart for some time, and were getting reacquainted while shopping. The grandmother asked the girl how she was doing in school. Girl said, ‘very well.’ Grandmother said, ‘But do you like it?’ Girl said, ‘Grandma, no one actually likes school. We tell adults that sometimes to change the subject. But no one REALLY likes school.’
Holy cow! What a sweet and honest response!
I’m amazed every time we manage to truly make people feel safe. They respond candidly and it gives them a chance for truly self searching.
I asked a 5 year old yesterday why she thought she was having some issues lately (mom told me she has big attitude issues lately). She stopped and searched her brain. Then she said “well….my friends play rough and tumble with me. Then I have ballet Monday nights and I got to my friends house on Wednesday….. It’s very hard to adjust when I’m home with my sister and little brother and I forget and I want to rough and tumble with them.”
For a 5 year old I thought it was incredibly introspective!
But first you have to make them feel safe. Like there’s no set expectations for a certain answer.
One big question in my mind in debate of school/ homeschooling: How do homeschool kids get the experience of being thrown into a group of people nothing like them, people who your kid would never choose to play with (different interests, different intelligence levels, some kids who have strong ability to focus and knock out tasks, vs kids who just want to goof off) and then solve a problem together –like you would have in a classroom situation. That’s life too. In the real world of work, it’s reasonable to expect you will need to work with people to solve a problem or complete a project. Homeschooling groups seem to be very self selecting: Parents are going to build a community of other parents and kids just like them (likely same pov on religion and politics, same education and income levels…). How do homeschool kids get experiwnces where they are forced to develop diplomacy and leadership skills to get the best group ideas to make a solution, while making weaker team members feel included enough that they also go along with the mission, instead of feeling so disenfranchised they get hostile and start to sabotage your mission?
And one more question: What if your kid is an ENTJ-someone born to be a general…Douglas MacArthur couldn’t have helped win WWII without having an army to lead.
School can never serve up knowledge at the pace right for every kid. But bigger corporate environments have a ton of beaucracy…how do homeschool kids learn to negotiate that to accomplish big goals? Or basically every homeschool kid needs to start their own business because they are so self-directed, the won’t have skill set to work way up and through a corporate environment? I happened to be married to someone who LOVES the challenge of figuring out the politics, and he is gunning for a C-level job. Even though I built a small business that could make $1MM a year in revenue, with 50% profit, if I had someone with my husband’s executive skills working full time, he had zero interest in small business. His analysis, after working in multiple Fortune 500 environments is that small business is too hard. It’s much, much easier to just do a corporate job for stock and great salary package, than all that is necessary to grow a small biz to a mid-sized biz that is in the service sector. So for kids that may eventually be like my husband’s temperament (wants to lead teams of 1000s of people, with team members on 5 continents)…I wonder how I can make a homeschool experience that could prepare for that kid of work opportunity, if that’s what my kid would choose for himself?
Mentors, coaches and experts are people you could get involved in your child’s life. Also, probably being a corporate executive will bring many opportunities just from all the networking. These worries are common in the beginning of deciding whether to homeschool, once you actually do it and see the benefits your fears go away.
Look up John Gatto’s 14 traits of elite private schools and try to incorporate any/all of that into a curriculum. Here is a link https://www.tragedyandhope.com/th-films/the-ultimate-history-lesson/14-themes-of-the-elite-private-school-curriculum/
You will realize that almost no public school touches on the majority of these traits, and these are the traits that will help anyone succeed in big or small institutions.
I also really try to cover my bases when parenting my children, but I sometimes step back and remember that I can’t give them everything they need or what they might possibly need in their future life, but I can love them, support them, help them learn how to achieve their own goals so that they can solve their own problems as they grow. I can also read to them A LOT! My favorite part of homeschooling by far is the quality and quantity of books we get to read together.
Hi Anna, I loved this comment. My kids rarely let me read with them anymore, except for the youngest. It hasn’t quite turned out the way I thought it would. I imagined cozy reading sessions and reading Little Women aloud and just bonding. My oldest two are avid readers and have no interest reading things that I like. Maybe when they are a bit older we can do like a book club and discuss books after reading them independently.
Ymkas- It is funny, I generally hate reading picture books to my little kids, and always have. Yes, Go, Dog, Go is extremely clever, but it is still a chore after the twentieth time. When my oldest was six or so and we started reading the Little House Books, it was like a whole new door opened up- reading to kids was fun! I have kids ranging from 10-2, and after our chores our done in the morning we go into the office, the younger kids draw, and my oldest plays clash of clans, and I read. Another thing I love is that since we homeschool- we can do it in the morning! I don’t find it fun to snuggle up in bed with my four kids individually and read them a bed time story- it is too late by then for me to still be a good mom! I like the book club idea. I think sometime between 10-14 a kid would much rather read the book himself/herself. I try to read more classic type books because I know that my ten year old can’t read those yet, so maybe reading aloud can help push them to greater reading and writing skills.
Haha, yep, go dog go is a painful read after a dozen times! The last three weeks the only thing the oldest kids will read is a Minecraft gaming magazine my husband brought home. I have zero interest in reading about it.
I’m hopeful about the classics in the future as well…crossing fingers. I’ll cross them for you too. :)
Homeschool for some is a way to provide freedom to direct your own learning. Wherever you go there will be people doing the same thing you love in different ways that you hate and think is wrong. We just can’t get away from it because…well…we’re people.
I think of all the growing I did in emotional intelligence. It was outside of school. I had to force myself to talk to people (social anxiety) and to better my accent (it was impossible to understand me so no one wanted to talk to me. Except guys that wanted to have sex with me.).
So let’s say you are interested in doing something (work maybe?) and your kid is interested (intensely interested) in something else. How do you manage the time conflict? It would be the same as in the work force.
Once your kid finds a way to make his desire happen, how does he deal with all the rules and people and social etiquette? He has to learn somehow.
Homeschooling doesn’t shield kids from having to step out of their comfort zone to reach what they want. It just removed the constrains that school places on them. They are exchanged for other constrains. It’s up to you as the parent to decide if the trade off is worth it for your family.
I wonder whether homeschool groups are as homogenous as you believe they are.
I’ve noticed that most upper middle class neighborhoods are remarkably homogenous in their own right. I suspect the children in the upper middle class public school have parents who closely resemble one another, philosophically.
In my experience, our homeschool activities draw people from all over this city. I don’t live in Portland, OR – America’s whitest city. I live in the desert southwest, and homeschool families here are diverse. Wealthy, poor, immigrant, minority, scientific, religious, mixed race. Anything goes.
Philosophically, what I have in common with all these lovely people is that we want to give the best to our kids.
There is research that Americans self -sort in residential decisions. I will post.
http://www.economist.com/node/11581447
“The big sort”
I agree with you. There are many all-inclusive hs groups that exist with more diversity than non-hsers realize. It’s just one of those worries that people have before they jump into it. Part of the stereotypes that exist. The worry monster never seems to go away.
“The Worry Monster” is such a diplomatic way of saying it.
I generally use the shorthand: “Nonsense. ”
Cheers.
HA! Diplomatic… good, good, I was worried it was patronizing. :)
Cheers to you!
“How do homeschool kids get the experience of being thrown into a group of people nothing like them, people who your kid would never choose to play with (different interests, different intelligence levels, some kids who have strong ability to focus and knock out tasks, vs kids who just want to goof off) and then solve a problem together –like you would have in a classroom situation. That’s life too. In the real world of work… ”
this hardly ever happens, and people mostly take jobs together with other people with similar backgrounds and interests.
(Fixed it for you.)
By fourth grade, students are already segregated by ability (itself dependent to a great extent on background), and by seventh the high performers will never see the low performers again. In college, segregation by ability and interest will only intensify, starting with college choice and choice of major. Your little engineer will likely hang out with only other little engineers, and your future doctor only with other future doctors.
Communities are largely self-selected, and none is as self-selected as the workplace. If you are in a high-performing workplace like, say, biotech, you will never, never meet a low-performing individual at work. You will meet men, women, gay, straight, all colors and nations, but nobody unintelligent and no goof-offs.
One of the great strengths of homeschooling as compared to schooling is the greater opportunity it offers children to know themselves and their interests better and seek out people with similar interests. This will help them identify a professional community in which they will be happy, and develop the skills and credentials necessary to participate.
My husband’s company states they only hire the top 1% in their field… people who slack off get fired….period, no PIPs.
The day after you walk the graduation line of high school you will wake up and learn something new.
In life, you will inevitably find yourself facing something in you were never prepared to face, and you will take it head on because you have to.
No matter what type of schooling you choose, you cannot be CEO of a fortune 500 company the day you get your college degree.
You can read all the books you want about parenting, but as your new baby grows into a toddler you quickly begin to realize that you learned nothing about how to be a parent. This is what school is like, which is again why you can’t be management the day you graduate college.
I talk with my kids a lot, they have more opinions than they know what to do with and have always been able to speak freely without fear of punishment or condemnation from us. So many wonderful, interesting, and deep conversations happen.
I asked them if they ever thought about going to regular school, because all the fun shows and cartoons they watch show how great it is. They wanted to know what it was really like before they answered yes or no. When I explained that the majority of the day is sitting in desks listening to teachers, doing worksheets, and then homework at night they didn’t believe me. Oh, I explained recess with friends, field trips, and lunch breaks… they were still a little skeptical but eventually they accepted it. My middle child had the hardest time accepting that she wouldn’t be able to read her 4th grade chapter books if she went to school for Kindergarten, she would have to learn the alphabet. She wouldn’t be able to work at the level of math she is at, she would have to learn to count to 100 and do simple addition and subtraction. She almost started to cry so we stopped at that. I don’t like having to point out her differences, even if they are special since she is so sensitive.
My kids prefer learning in the world, from mentors, coaches, and experts. Doing things they love….pursuing their passions, learning through play, and unschooling is what they recognize as the best for them.
The truth isn’t always what we want to hear. Learning to accept the truth when presented with factual evidence makes us all better in the long run, even if you are not able to homeschool. The evidence repeatedly says a customized education and learning through play are best for young kids. I’m not going to spend 45k a year in tuition per kid to get that when I can do it myself at home.
“My middle child had the hardest time accepting that she wouldn’t be able to read her 4th grade chapter books if she went to school for Kindergarten, she would have to learn the alphabet. She wouldn’t be able to work at the level of math she is at, she would have to learn to count to 100 and do simple addition and subtraction. She almost started to cry so we stopped at that.”
This is so, so true. How lucky your children are. I was also an early reader/learner and would have benefitted so much from homeschooling (strong INTJ) but 30-odd years ago when I was little, it wasn’t done. Feel free to share with your daughter that I had to “re-learn” my numbers and letters in kindergarten (I’d been reading since before my 3rd birthday and did arithmetic for fun because I liked puzzles). School was usually boring and often miserable; I didn’t enjoy it until my senior year of high school, when I could choose to spend half of each day on vocal music and AP chemistry.
Aw, thanks! I will. Another INTJer…. pleased to meet ya!
You are on fire today Penelope.
Penelope is always on fire! I totally admire, love and respect her. Especially when her opinions are initially shocking –it sometimes takes me a week while I research all the links, reread the post, 99% of time I am so grateful someone told the truth about that situation, and find what I believed previously was an illusion. Penelope is an illusion busting superhero. I have not found another blog where the truth about the intersection adult choices: work choices, family choices, parenting, personal recreational pursuits, while also handling the mundane tasks of life (getting fed, housework, etc). She has become my adult conversation culture curator
I envy you your educated farmer!
Last time I had one (for 10 years in Massachusetts) I learned more from him than from my Harvard Lawyer ex husband!
I agree he can teach kids so much…your lucky- cherish each other..oh, and if any one hears of an educated farmer here in LA or TX –send em my way …doblange@yahoo.com
My neice who is homeschooled told me she wants to be a teacher when she grows up (she is 11). I said that was hypocritical since she was homeschooled, my sister yelled at me. =)
My mother is a teacher at heart. She taught for 14 years in Mexico and “threw it all away” to be a mother to us full time.
When she talks about her love for teaching she says she’d do it again but not in a school setting dealing with the politics and the forced curriculum.
She’s a church lady so she teaches little kids sunday school. She does it for free and she loves it. She loves sitting down with a kid that has questions and showing how to arrive to the answer. And she’s good at it.
I think saying that you want to be a teacher is like saying you want to be a doctor. Most of the time people want to serve others but they are not saying “I want to sign up to deal with the bureaucracy and endless paperwork, the insurance agencies, the unions, the lack of freedom” etc.
Don’t you think?
Oh absolutely. I am quite sure her wish to be a teacher is heartfelt and she simply wants to help others.
But it made for a lively conversation with my sister and her two kids, about exactly what you mention, unions, bureaucracy, why schools can’t change…
I think that’s great that your niece’ s mother has been able to stay positive enough about school that her daughter can have that aspiration.
Based on a post from 2005, I think he turned 9 last month. He is a few months older than my daughter so it is fairly easy for me to relate to what she posts about him. Well as easy as is possible given that they are probably opposite MB types.:)
Truly, this is the first photo I recall being able to see Penelope in Z’s features. I can usually see it with Y.
It feels weird to chat in this way about people I have never met with a friend whose name I don’t know, but whatever..!!
Whoops, that was supposed to go up top by YMKAS response.
LOL… ;)
Awesome response btw. Why is it weird??? j/k
“Do you know what determines what kids like to eat? What their mothers eat. Kids adapt to liking what they perceive their mothers like, and what their mothers feed them.”
I wish my son would eat like I do! Currently, my son’s diet is as atrocious as his father’s. My twin girls, on the other hand, eat more like i do… mostly vegetables.
I have been thinking for a while now that I’d like to homeschool our kids, but they still say they like their private school. Personally, I believe they only like their friends at their private school, not the school itself. My one daughter openly admits she’d prefer to be home schooled, but I also have a socialite daughter who loves the social hierarchy at school. My son has a high IQ which makes things difficult. He knows (and admits) that he only likes his friends at school, but is bored with the teaching. He’s 9 and says he’d prefer to study quantum computers (whatever that is). I would take all my kids out today, but my husband is not on board. It makes me mad because I feel like just because my husband says no, the answer is no. Marriage should be about compromise and both parents deciding what is best, but what do you do when both parents strongly believe their way is the best way? Why should my decision come second? I know I’m right. I’m pissed off. I’m still trying to reconcile this. I may be worrying for nothing because my son might get kicked out of his school this year, anyway. In the meantime, I’m getting him involved in a bunch of computer classes that interest him. We’ll see what happens.
That’s tough… A lot of couples that I know of who are split this way compromise and say they will “Try it for a year” that way the person opposed to it feels more comfortable if they think it’s just temporary. Then, at least in my circle, once they started homeschooling they just kept on going with it. I’m not sure if this is helpful to you or not…
You were staying at my 8 yo’s favorite hotel. Next time, if you’re not in the mood for a swim, try having the icecream man show up at your room or the pool. That always blows their socks off.
http://imgur.com/a/JWBac
Link to what’s in the finish box.