To insist my dd studies in addition to her schoolwork?

[ChopstheScarletduck]

DD clearly thinks I am. We've had this discussion a few times now. Apparently NOBODY else has to do extra work.

She is a solidly average student in general, but lacks motivation in subjects she does find harder, and has terrible organisational skills.

All the kids have been told they must do half an hours reading a day, from school age. The older two do maths and english in addition to that, so around an hour a day (age 11, 9)

I've now told dd I want her to do 90mins a day, which includes homework, reading and study. In the past I've even told her she can do music practice as part of that, but that didn't last very long. I help her with the aspects of her study she is struggling with, though on the whole it is independent study.

She seems to think she should be able rush her homework then hang out with her friends or sit in front of a screen all day, like everybody else does. I want her to work to achieve the grades I know she is capable of if she tries. Her homework is 100% better when she knows she can't get away with just rushing it, as she will just have to find something else to study in any case!

I know academic achievement isn't everything, and she has plenty of time left to do what she wants, and she does various clubs at school, Girls Brigade, a couple of youth clubs.

Please tell me I'm not really the only one who wants their dc to do a little work as well as play!

I can only go back to what I said originally. It isn't about the amount of homework she gets or how much you expect her to do on top. Its that you seem concerned by her motivation and seem to think that just making her do extra reading will motivate her

How does that work then?

"I think that the feeling of not being as good as someone else/slightly insecure about yourself is actually a good, motivating thing" - yeah right, nothing like a good bout of feeling that you don't quite live up to your parents expectations to make you feel totally inadequate and ripe for the first smooth talking dick who tells you that you're fantastic just the way you are motivated

If you are insisting that she does additional work I would suggest that you spend a little more time and energy engaging bribing her in achieving what the school have set her as homework.

YANBU. I was never made to do homework, study etc and it affected me for the whole life.

I'd have told you to piss off at 15 let alone 11.

Studying is something you do in the run up to exams.

What a pointless thread!

The OP asks if she is U, she is told yes, she argues for hours that she isnt and.....nothing is changing in her house.

Perhaps she should set a better example to her DD by not wasting time on pointless debates with strangers on the internet!

YABU. Have you read Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn? The bit you said about her being motivated by achieving good grades struck me as I've just finished it. He quotes loads of research studies about how grading actually demotivates children long-term as they come to rely on the reward of the grade or your verbal praise etc to do it, rather than because they actually come to enjoy learning for the sake of it. Would really recommend it, you might find it helps with an alternative strategy.

Im with cunning and bogeyface totally bizarre parenting skills.

So when as a high performing career woman working hard, she looks back and remembers a childhood full of working hard. How sad and wasteful a life, our society is making us robotic money seeking stresses and you are totally buying into that. As is pp referencing India and China. I say that as someone with a successful career.

And that's if she makes the grade, yes working hard is important but natural ability trumps a hard worker every time, so isn't it better to find that ability even if it's not academia?

Your statement about feeling motivated by being lesser scares me, I have a sibling with anxiety disorder, she is literally in her 20s stuck, jobless, terrified to try as she will fail to meet those self imposed expectations and comparatives. She is possibly far far brighter than the rest of us but could never believe it. What a waste, you could be breeding the same self esteem issues.

I'm not saying no extra work but your language around her and the negativity and formality of it is worrying.

I'm finding it really hard to understand tbh, you said op that your dd feels as if she is the only one having to do so much extra work and she feels as if she is missing out on simple things like playing with her friends but you do not seem to be listening.

It feels as though you are placing so much importance on extra study, you are forgetting that she is still a young girl and social interaction is just as valuable at this age.

My 2 DCs are getting in excess of 1-2 hours homework per night in yr 8&9 and tbh I have no idea where they could fit in another 90 minutes even if I wanted them to.

It sounds as though your dd has no time to just "be" what with school homework, extra study, and then I imagine dinner, bath and bed.
I honestly think people place far too much emphasis on their DCs having to be constantly doing something educational every minute of the day.

I'm sure we as parents are not doing the same thing,there are times when we sit down for half an hour with a cup of tea, go online, talk to friends etc but the consensus amongst some people is that our children do not need the same down time.

I'm afraid I've missed what year your dd is in, I'm assuming it's yr 6?

They do not get so much homework as it is the end of their time at primary and after SATS schools IME tend to try and make it as fun as possible.

The first 4-6 weeks of yr7 there is also not as much homework and there is a reason for that, to let them get used to the school, the routine, settle in and make friends.
How is your dd going to do that if you have a strict 90 minute per night rule?

I understand that you want her to take her education and homework seriously but in my, and a lot of other posters opinion (and experience)
Making her sit down and do 90 minutes of work you have set for her is not the right way to go about it.

I think your being mis-judged because of the way your post reads.

In essence your having the same problem many of us have - what do children do with their time after school.

There are a multitude of possibles of course, from roaming the streets till mid-night to five solid hours of violin lessons.

How your children spend their time is in part your choices, in part their preferences.

If you do not want them playing computer games, or hanging out with chums unsupervised, then its' over to you to fill the gaps with clubs, friends round for tea, visits to parks and such like together.
If you want children to learn an academic topic your better to target it as a project or game that you do together rather than just proffer text books and expect her to get on with it.

Even before your post of 16.14 I wondered if your average/lazy dd had a different father to your clever dts. You seem to feel so differently about your children, you say your dts aren't greedy they are normal little boys but the life your daughter wants is completely normal too.

I can see that you would, and reading around a subject is always good BUT you are onto a loser if your DD doesn't want to do it. It has to come from her and her wish to do it. 'You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink'.
You have to find a way of her doing it because she wants to and not because you impose it.

I have just realised that she is only year 6 so she is much better off learning to use her free time and she is quite right-the others won't be doing extra work.
You can do a lot that doesn't seem that way-e.g. let her cook the meal, play chess, scrabble etc with her.

Is she in Guides/Scouts or something like that?

DS fills some of his time doing projects and work towards badges.

He gets to apply the skills he's learned at school, I can support him/squash him where necessary and he can see that it leads somewhere.

As complex said, what your DD wants is normal too. My DS has never wanted fast cars or loads of money - despite being in top sets for maths and English and identified as G&T (talented rather than gifted I feel) in music and science. He wants to work hard, to go to university and have a career. But ultimately he wants a "family like ours" and to be happy. I think that's pretty normal tbh.

'You have to find a way of her doing it because she wants to and not because you impose it.'

I think that is the general consensus with a few people on this thread, and really I think this is what I wanted from the start, for them to develop a love of learning. As a child I loved reading, would read for hours without it solely having to be part of a routine (though we were always told to read before bedtime). I need to find a way for her to enjoy learning for learnings sake and get rid of some of the formality. This thread is far from pointless, although there is no way I am letting her do nothing, I will be reading some of the books that have been recommended and I am listening to what others have to say.

Though there will always be things she doesn't want to do, and as an adult we have to do things we don't want to do, so I don't think that is a bad thing for her to learn neither. But the balance needs to be improved.

The boys all are more interested in learning, dd never really has been. It has nothing to do with their parentage. Dd and ds1 have the same father, I don't have to push ds1 at all. He may not have the same wild ambitions as the boys, but he is motivated to learn, which is all I want. All four are wildly different - it has been observed by child professionals and teachers. They all have their good and bad characteristics, I just don't want dd to waste her opportunities because she would rather sit in front of screens or be out playing non stop.

she does girls brigade, very similar to guides but more christian based. She is quite interested in christianity and it gives her a chance to explore that, plus they do the badgework, parades, summer camp, etc. She loves it.

Is there any badgework she can do alone or at home?

DS is doing the challenge badges which are longer more project based badges which aim to develop the sort of skills you're interested in developing in your DD.

Of course your 4 children are different - they are individuals. And as for 'wildly different' that's wonderful! Why wouldn't you cherish their differences and marvel in their individual interests, motivations, skills and talents?

If she's not academically minded, why not find out where her interests do lie. It's your responsibility as a parent to ensure she does her best educationally, of course it is, but it's also your responsibility to enable her to find out where her skills, talents and interests lie and if the focus of her experience is narrow because you don't want to distract her from academic learning, then she's never going to discover that in time to use it properly.

It might also explain why she only wants to hang out with her friends or play video games if she doesn't really know what does interest her, because those are easy options - although tbh those are pretty normal interests for a child of her age, it's up to you to show her alternatives beyond academic learning.

What about arts involvement - and I don't just mean music lessons and practice, I mean local arts organisations which run projects that allow children to produce a performance under adult guidance, or could she train as a young leader and help out with younger girls in the girls brigade (don't know the structure but they can do it in the scouts). Are there any community projects she can get involved with - or start!

Can she join a small music group with other musicians of a similar age and then aim to perform at a local live music festival? When she's old enough, could she set up something like that on her own?

These are the sort of things my son does.

Oh and I know the SATs dip has already been explained but when a child returns to school in September, their target level for Christmas is always the same as it was the previous July. That's because of the whole settling in to the new class, Summer holiday dip. This is even more marked after KS2 SATs because so many schools/parents tutor/push/hot house to boost the results. It's practice rather than knowledge and understanding that gets them through, so when that stops they tend to dip and plateau.

WHat you're suggesting is the norm in Germany, but then they are (a bit less) in school, and are expected to do study at home. I know parents who make their kids do a good 3 hours per day.

I am lazy and don't, although with ds1, it shows in comparison to peers, so have started to make him do exactly that, 90 mins per day. Has made an improvement.

He is 12 btw.

YABU and she will not thank you for it (speaking as someone with experience of parents doing this to me - we now have NO relationship). Reading is fine as it is something that can be done to relax before bed, but yes she has every right to want to hang out with her friends and have time to BE A CHILD.

So what if she's an average student. Average students still go to uni and get decent jobs. So she may not be a brain surgeon in the future, but as long as she is happy in what she does what does it matter.

I'm not surprised she lacks motivation in subjects she doesn't like because she doesn't like them! Everyone is allowed to have their strengths and weaknesses and you should embrace her strengths and what she's good at or she'll be out that door at 18 as quick as a flash.

She won't thank you for this and possibly see you as controlling and it may even adversly affect your future relationship. If the school thinks there's a problem that's a different issue. I know you are thinking of her future etc but you are putting her under too much stress. Let her be a child.

I also grew up in a mixed Indian family and had extra work from my parents from around 9 or 10 years old up to GCSE level. This did me and my sister no harm whatsoever and I am sure helped develop our interests, confidence and particularly literacy. I am a scientist with a PhD and my sister is a lawyer now. I plan to do the same with my DCs when they are older, but do not plan to be too rigid about it and risk putting them off studying. I grew up in Singapore where it was totally accepted that all children from a very young age were pushed and given extra work by their parents - and my god, the children there beat UK children hands down in terms of academic ability.

kelly she may thank her mother for it.

My own mother insisted I supplement my own dreadful education. I was the only child forced to do it. Sometimes I moaned.

However, while the vast vast majority of my peers remained on the estate where I was brought up and are either unemployed or on MW, I left for Oxbridge and took a job in the city. Later becoming a writer.

I thank my Mother every day for what she did!!!!

Forgot to say we had to learn a word that we didn't know from the dictionary every day too .

YABU She is doing homework and working hard at school. I don't think you should expect her to do another 90 minutes of studying on top of that. Yes she should do her music practice but then just let her be a child and relax.

shimbo I am a fairly pushy parent, but compared to my asian friends I am but an amateur .

wordfactory there is a difference between supplementing a bad education and being unable to have time to be a child and socialise with your peer group. There is a balance.

wordfactory I know exactly what you mean I honestly think it does the Asian children no harm, and would only be helpful for children as long as there are sensible limits as to how much they have to do and how much they are pushed.