To have judged about half of my daughters class

[fernie3]

Or their parents that is. They are 6 and they came home with a letter saying could we cut the labels off foods so that the children wouod make a map of where the food they eat came from....with the implication being that they needed to bring a little bunch each as they were going to have their own maps.

So i spent a week peeling labels off things which looked interesting for her to take, she came home that day and she had only had one label to stick on her map because the teacher had had to share her labels out to people that didn't bring any - so that means at least 10 children hadn't brought any at all.

Now I know it's stupid and petty and maybe i just have label rage from spending so long trying to peel labels off jars without ripping them or making the writing hard to read but it's not that hard is it just cut out a label or two and drop it in the book bag...

The teacher couldn't have done the original plan without the labels and the children get the message that it's optional to do these things.

AIBU to feel a bit judgey?

It's dreadful. That's why schools have to organise lessons to do without because hand-wringing is easy but unproductive.

Why should I be constructive to those sitting on high in judgement of all others? I would have tried to help my son with this task but he may well have been one of those 10 children with none, for many reasons.
1/ he has a habit of losing notes home, or misunderstanding teachers instructions.
2/ We have very little food with easily removeable labels.
3/ I have a toddler with a special diet and a baby who is underweight, so mealtimes are often fraught and difficult without thinking about a ill thought out primary school homework.
4/ I have a job, a thesis to write, a husband working long and varied shifts, no family help, a baby who rarely sleeps which means neither do I, and PND.

You know what really helps when you forget things to bring on the school run, or haven;t been able to do your kids homework for them? Knowing that other parents are smug fuckers who are bitching about you behind your back.

winter
because otheriwse you just look stupid and you don't get the adult conversation that it takes to have this discussion.

your most recent post would have been a far better thing to say rather than the idiotic mouthfull you spat out.

It's not so much the quantity but the fact that it is taken as read that the parents should be involved. Homework should be done by the child and set for the chd that way they understand right from the beginning that it is up to them

Yeah, i'm the one who looks stupid says the woman who decides that those of us who can't do their kids stupid homework for them are lazy bad parents who are uninvolved in other areas of their lives. Whatever.

Your perfect parent medal is in the post.

winter, direct me to teh post where i called anyone a bad and lazy parent and i will apologise immediately, because it is certainly not what i think.

Bloody Hell there are some smug and some bitter posters on this thread . FWIW I have a foot in both camps. I try and be organised and help my kids with homework, send in stuff etc etc. BUT there are times when it just doesn't happen . Life can be like that. MOST parents try to be as involved as they can depending on their circumstances but SOME parents genuinely just don't bother and are totally disinterested and I do feel genuinely sorry for the their children. Instead of judging other parents it might be more constructive to get on with parenting our own DC's as best as we can and accepting that at different times in people's lives they may be just about keeping their heads above water and being judged is the last thing they need.

I recently forgot to do a similar project for DS who is also 6. They were required to take in baby pictures for his project. However DS had a months worth of hospital treatment (some of which is done at home by me). He attended school intermittently but I didn't get round to taking in the picture and he has not been able to complete this task (I did however, offer to complete it at home - to which I have had no response). But in essence he hasn't completed the work.

Threads like this upset me, as I know it should be done and I do try, but medical stuff always gets in the way and I end up feeling guilty as his education tends to take a back seat.

Just add it to the feeling guilty list..

I don't actually think the OP is being unreasonable, just that not every parent is a bad parent because they forgot.

Winter life can be a bitch sometimes and threads like this can feel personal if I were you I'd hide it and accept that being a good enough parent is good enough . That means that if all a parant can cope with is the basics then so be it.

you know what i have been having a bllody shiity time of it lately, lots of other posters know this, but i haven't come on any threads being rude to people because they are doing things i haven't been able to manage, and believe me tehre is a shitload of stuff that isn'y getting done in my life right now, heads above the water is just about happening. fair enough you are pissed of with your life but no one deserevs to be sworn at like that for doing their best.

Winter sorry it's tough for you but everyone knows there are people who won't AND PEOPLE WHO CAN'T. The reasons don't matter, in a way -- the problem is the project. It shouldn't be taught like this.

Just look at the bitterness it causes. Talk about setting up people for failure.

I have to confess my quite often scrambled mind can't put the priorities of feeding children, and their education together at the same time.

Generally it's "education" then I sort out feeding them. And by the time I'm sorting out the feeding them priority my mind is pre-occupied with making sure they're not trying to kill each other when I'm in the kitchen, whether I have their school uniform ready for the morning, the fact that they need a bath, and hoping to God I can get them in bed on time.

Some of those children had probably left the labels on the kitchen table,in the car , or had them in their book bag all the time ( my ds speciality!)My children have also been known to decide unilaterally that their offering isn't right /as exciting as the persons next to them and therefore say they had forgotten!You just can't know,and most parents cannot just go home to collect a forgotten item.
I have three children last week as well as having two off sick on different days we also had to remember ;some old coins fo r ds3 for maths,two photos of ds3doing different activities for RS ,kit for away matches on two different days plus the usual homework,musical instruments etc and a school trip on Friday,ds2 had to remember special music for exam and ds1 had a cake sale to prepare for . I do h e lists but sometimes things slip through the net
I do not however regard myself or others as a feckless parent .People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones

appletrees your right its a itypo

Frequently I fail DS fails to do the class projects.

Teddy for Preschool Teddy Bear's picnic? Mea Culpa, I forgot, but he didn't own one, anyway.

Family tree diagram Reception? He had no memories of most of them, how to explain to a 4yo who they are and why all his grandparents were divorced, complicated half-sibling relationships, cousins from his uncle's casual flings, who to include, who to leave out, I couldn't get my brain around it.

Model of a local building in Reception? He didn't want to and I wasn't doing all the work for him.

4+ page indexed Report on the Caribean due Easter of Yr1? I spent 90 minutes getting him to write 6 sentence fragments.

Glass jar for art project last week? He didn't tell me in time and no one gave us parents a note about it, either.

I rather enjoyed your post Winter. Winter for president I say!

Winter I am going to ignore your swearing etc because i know how hard PND is, i had it after my second son and for a year i didn't go outside my front door, for 4 months I didn't leave my bedroom and for a week i was nearly hospitalised because i was convinced that if i moved my head too fast i would break my neck. I know that there are plenty if reasons that people may not be capable of doing things like this at that point in my life obviously it would have been completely beyond me BUT I refuse to believe that that many families in her class are going through a disaster or are that busy that they were not able to do this. To be honest I never really saw it as homework rather that the teacher had asked us to provide them with the material for an activity. Maybe I took it the wrong way,

Have only read the first page but I don't have time for pissing about with bits and bobs either. I work full time, have an Msc, a home to run, a twat ex to deal with, the boys, and pets. I help with homework, listen to them read before bed, and that's it. I wouldn't dream of messing around with labels, making poxy costumes, or any other tat.

Well all this is completely proving my point.

Shouldn't be done this way. Absolutely not.

Wow @ Spikey. You are hardcore. And I kinda respect that.