If you were tutoring your dc for hours every day, and helping with all exam/test preparing, and actually taking part in working on assignments,

[QuintessentialOldDear]

would you boast about their good grades?

Granted my niece is a clever girl (18 this year). But the last two years, my sister has spent hours every day helping her with homework. Learning her maths and physics and biology, and spent hours explaining and doing her exercises and assignments with her.

It is nothing to do with me. I should not judge.

But yesterday my sis rang to share the sad news, she only got a 5 in Physics. In Norway, grades go from 1 to 6, with 6 being the top mark.
I said "But if your dd requires so much help, maybe she is not really a 6 in Physics" Reply? "Oh, but the physics teacher does not know I am helping her". Surely, if she was a natural 6, she would not require any help?! The same story with Biology.

I know I am BU, because it is nothing to do with me, but I am sick of endless boasts about how clever she is, and how well she is doing.

I once tried to say to my sister that my sons teacher prefer the parents NOT to help with homework, as then the teacher wont know what the problems are, and cant go through it in class.

She said, "oh, but without me, it wont get done". So surely not working to a 6 grade then?

In one conversation I asked her what she thinks it will be like in Uni, as she wont have her mum there to push her, and she said she hoped she would have matured enough by then. I do find it really sad though.

If I call her and we are chatting, I sometimes hear literal wails in the background, and my sis says "oh she has a problem, I must go calm her down". It does not bode well does it?

I personally think that my sister is so lonely, and have no life, and thoroughly live through her daughter, and enjoy the drama and being so needed. I really think she thrives on it, and has made herself indispensable rather than help her daughter to work and learn independently.

I just needed a rant. I guess I will have evening after evening now, of how unfair it is that she did not get 6 in Physics and Biology.

Oh quint. Glad you got your rant but you know you mustn't judge and you certainly won't be able to persuade your sister that she is wrong or the grades are unfair.

Rant here, then deep breath and use your reflective listening skills.

yes dear sis, I can hear you are upset by this. Yes that makes you sad. Yes you don't feel that judges her fairly.

It was good to rant. Piuh!

But of course I agree! I cant really say anything.

I think if your sister goes on and on literally about this then you have every right to tell her to shut up.

I would to a friend let alone my sister.

Someone constantly droning in about the same subject is boring. Don't argue or reason with her parenting choices but tell her enough when you have heard enough.

Ok I don't know anything about school system in Norway, but where I live in Germany it is essential that parents 'teach' their kids things and help them learn their stuff. You have to help them with the homework and from what your sister has said it might be the same in Norway. The teachers don't teach the kids.

Also I think you could lighten up a bit, you are her sister, it is not like she was broadcasting this to other school mum's. She probably just wanted to sound off. Who doesn't want the best for their kids anyway?

Hi Quint honey - oh dear, that sounds like a terrible amount of work. I hope there are not those expectations here because I simply won't be able to do it time-wise. I find it hard enough fitting in homework help/review now and DDs are only in Year 2 and Year 4!

I agree, if your niece is having that much help from her mum, it doesn't really sound like she is naturally talented in the sciences. Maybe your DSis is also trying to help instill a good work ethic in her? Must be annoying to listen to day-in-day-out though.

This is like parents who tutor their kids to the nth degree to get them into a select school. If they need that much tutoring just to get in, they are not going to thrive there!!!

Your niece is going to be one of those students who can't do an assignment without emailing her tutor ten times and who has to email the lecturer after every lecture. I hope she doesn't come to my university!

She even phoned her physics teacher at home during the last bank holiday.....

How did your sister get on when she was at school?

My sister got on just fine! We have the same parents, and the exact same lack of parental input! My mum never helped me with anything!
I "rewrote" my mathematics book for myself, with using different examples, and finding more of the same exercises to do, on my own, when I was the same age as her dd, to revise and work towards my exams. Nobody shouted, nobody sat on me making sure I did it. I just did! Like my son now (although he is just Y6) manages his homework himself. Of course he can involve me, and I will help him find more information, but that usually just take a couple of minutes.

Is your niece going to go to university? I would be worried how she'll manage if she's being coached so heavily by her mother. She really needs to back off and let her daughter find her own level. She'll run into problems if she suddenly finds she's on a course which isn't right for her on the basis of results which aren't really hers, but her mother's.

In any case OP, I would say YANBU. It's tiresome in the extreme when people keep going on about their child's achievements. It does them no favours imo.

Maybe your sister feels the lack of parental input held her back? I am still haunted by the child I met at a summer camp who told me gleefully 'she had taken the 11 plus a year early and found it extremely easy'. Her parents, shall we say, were the hands on sort. Mine, shall we say, did not feel the need to help or prepare in any way and thought homework etc unnecessary as children should play.

Maryz.

Did she win the appeal?

Quint do people generally move away to uni where they live, or will she stay at home? Or will your sister take a job as a cartaker in halls so she can sneakily coach her dd?

By 18 your niece should not need that amount of parental guidance. It doesn't bode well for university.

I'd be very concerned about any Uni course she found herself on, I doubt she'd be able to cope if she's never had to independently think in her life (no doubt she's off to uni with a mum that pushy!)

I'm amazed a 17 year old would put up with this level of interference, but I suppose if it's always been that way she knows no different

I would tell her to shut up personally, or congratulate her on her 5 in physics, not DDs....

She will have to go away to go to Uni.

My sister was not at all held back. She did a 6 years civil engineering degree, based heavily around physics, especially thermal and refrigeration engineering, went on to be a research scientist....

www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/students-at-top-state-schools-mostly-middle-class-parents-2013060570886?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thedailymash+%28The+Daily+Mash.+It%27s+news+to+us.%29

Hi Quint. I'm in Denmark and I've noticed that parents are much more involved in their child's homework than my parents ever were in the UK. I think it's been quite a recent development, but it's usually reserved for folkeskole so 6-16 year olds.

Perhaps your sister needs to feel needed? What with the chick about to fly the nest and all. Is it possible that it's more about your sister than your neice?

'their kids will all end up doing similar shit in reasonably nice offices'
Beyoncé

I don't think I have ever helped dd1 with her homework. I just leave her to it. The last time I got over-involved with her activities was collecting Pokemon stickers when she was 4.

What's the point in doing it for them?

I know a lot of lecturers & they all say
the who fail students are:

• too spoon fed by parents/school/hired help
• lack critical thinking/research skills
• poor grammar because they are so used to others doinf it for them

When they arrive at uni it is a massive shock to the system & they dont understand why lecturers wont tell them what the answer is. They dont understand that part of the learning process is finding out the answer. Thesr over zealous parents are shoring up troyble for later