AIBU to have my children (8&5) do 30-40 mins of writing and maths every day of the holidays?

[Dilemmacentral]

Every morning, after breakfast, I ask that the children do 20 mins writing in a holiday journal and then younger does 15 mins of basic maths (reception - year 1 maths), and older one does 20 mins of mental maths, mainly tables? Every day, even when we went on holiday.

It doesn’t feel like a big deal. They don’t complain. They are so used to it (I do it every holiday) and in fact both seem to really enjoy the journal writing in particular.

But! A dear friend, in a genuinely unjudgemental manner, asked whether I felt guilty and said she thought that holiday were good for a complete break other than set school work. We do have set school work but very little (book reviews for eldest).

I don’t feel guilty at all and I told her as such, and we just moved on to another topic. I plan to continue doing. However I’m wondering about others thoughts out of nosiness and whether others do this too.

I feel the heat hols are so long. And it’s only max of 40 mins so that they hit ground running in September. Am I alone though?!

you are a pushy parent. And you know where that leads

Gosh parent she's engaged happy children who are keen to learn - may well lead to good grades and decent job choices the horror

Slack off OP - give them tablets and feed them crap all summer, after all learning is only to be done in school

I find myself torn in two on this thread.

otoh I think what the OP is doing- an activity that both she and her children enjoy and that works for them- seems perfectly valid

otoh I find a statement like "Learning does not need to stop just because school is out" thoroughly depressing. Do people really believe that there is no learning to be done outside of school maths and writing exercises? That things only count as learning if they come in the shape of a school exercise sheet? That your lives as parents are so boring and unskilled that your children can learn nothing just by helping out and observing how you do things?

There's a whole bloody, big world out there! There are skills to master, corners to explore, things to invent. Nothing wrong with exercise sheets. But if you (not the OP) reduce the concept of learning to something as narrow as exercise sheets in the three R's, then your children do risk missing out.

I rememebr when I was 10 and I really struggled with English (foreign language) and maths. My parents made a some an A4 with tasks/equations/question etc. to help me with these subjects mon-fri through the summer. I absolutely hated it. But it did help. I caught up with the basics for net year. I wasn't bad student or anything, but languages and maths were something I just couldn't understand.

I think it is fine as long as they are fine or you know it will help them net yeat (they're behind). And that it will actually only be a stort thing every day and not overshadow their holiday time.

Yabu you are a pushy parent. And you know where that leads.

Academic success?

That things only count as learning if they come in the shape of a school exercise sheet?

What rubbish - maths is measuring weights estimating shopping cooking ordering furniture paying bills. Learning maths as a language - do you know how many children don't underand half and quarters? Making tellingly he time difficult, making fractions diffuclt because they don't have basic language skills.

English is listening to new words and meanings yes the writing having a go listening to books and engaging in conversation.

All these skills to be learnt in the holidays.

Oh and a decent school will provide outdoor learning forest school collecting leaves using flowers for maths using chalk to write etc etc - so not all papers based anymore

GreenTulips, re your 21:31 post- wasn't that exactly what I was saying.

Re your later post- forest schools, while lovely, are not the norm for most children in this country. Certainly wasn't an option for my inner city children.

And there are lots of other skills that are more easily learnt in the family: basically, any skills to do with running a home, budgetting and nutrition, DIY and maintenance.

Exercise sheets are great, just a very small part of the learning you can do as a family. And you really, really don't need school-type exercise sheets to teach a child about halves and quarters: all you need is slightly less cake than there are family members.

I don't think there's much wrong with 20 minutes a day.
I've had to work this summer, but DS has 9 weeks off!
He's done no formal work, but has been keeping an observations diary (astronomical observations) by himself.... except he's in bed most nights by the time it's dark enough to see anything.... and the exciting nights (Perseids shower, and lunar eclipse) were heavy clouds/rain, so his journal mainly consists of " daily temp, it was light cloud tonight" " temp, it was heavy cloud tonight" bless him.

I do insist on instrument practice daily (both mine do two each), but that has been done, and more- they've both played a lot for fun, particularly DS (mainly as DD has been away, on a week's orchestra course, and a week's jazz course).
He's also read around sixty books, because he always has his nose in a book. We've played boardgames quite a bit too, when we've had time (because some take hours), and there is a surprising amount of arithmetic involved in some of the games we play (tracking others' scores to make sure they cannot pass you, ensuring you have enough pieces left to place with maximum scoring capacity etc- I'm talking about Ticket to ride, Yu-Gi-Oh type, not monopoly).
Probably a boring summer to others, but books, games, music etc are our favourite pastimes, so we're all happy, and they're keeping their learning up.

YANBU, generally. But maybe the odd day off here and there wouldn’t hurt.

We wouldn't do this & we are both teachers. We do lots of stuff as a family that involves finding stuff out & focus in the hols on developing things like how to skim a stone or do random facts and so on. DD is pretty much top of her class and DS doing OK.
I would be interested to know if you work FT? Or if you are home when they go to school? They are likely to be exhausted from school and need a break. The journal does sound good though & nice they want to do it.
DH saw some kids being dropped off at kumon on the first Saturday of the school hols - we were both horrified.

My DC (8&7) both do work in exchange for screen time. They can play an instrument, read, maths or write. It started out with 5 mins work but quickly realised the more work they do the more tv they get. They are also out playing sport everyday and will have had trips abroad over the summer so they’ve had a good balance. It works for them and they don’t mind it... they wil have had 8 weeks off (independent school) and teachers have asked they are ready for the new term by not forgetting things they’ve learnt.

YES - YABU totally not necessary - more beneficial to them and their future success would be to read a book, why not build a love of reading that is truly what separates the truly successful students

I also used to get my kids to do something everyday - writing a journal, reading, mental maths - as long as it's fun and they enjoy I don't see a problem.

One did kick off about extra maths tuition really badly but I said "I'm your mum, not your friend, I do what I think is best even if you don't like it, sorry". Then a few weeks ago after his GCSE maths exams he said "Sorry I used to have a go at you about maths, I see why you did it now".

I notice a lot of people offering vague platitudes about "our kids just research things that they are interested in and are always top of their class" and "It's OK as long as they enjoy it and want to do it."

Look, here's the thing. Kids who are struggling with things generally don't find activity in question enjoyable and are unlikely to spontaneously choose to do it. "Children should only do extra practice in reading, writing and maths if they choose to do it" sounds like a lovely kindhearted thing to say, but it virtually guarantees that kids who have weak areas will continue to fall further and further behind.

I know from experience that pressure is a tricky thing to get right.

On the one hand, you have to be careful you don't take all of the joy out of activities that are supposed to be fun, especially reading.

On the other hand, oh my God, the number of times I've had the following situation with my daughter? "DD struggles with something and is reluctant to do it > I apply some gentle pressure and bribery and get her doing a bit every day > DD gets better at said activity > DD starts finding activity more enjoyable and less of a struggle > DD starts spontaneously choosing to do said activity and actually finding it fun for the first time." So. many. times! Nobody enjoys doing something when they feel rubbish at it and can't feel any pride in the results they produce because they're crap.

DH saw some kids being dropped off at kumon on the first Saturday of the school hols - we were both horrified.

It's really not wise to judge people based on a snapshot you are seeing out of their lives. Not everyone is lucky enough to have kids who naturally do well like yours do and/or are inspired to learn stuff without any pressure. Their parents may well have been sending them to Kumon because their kids are struggling and miserable and their parents are trying to improve the situation. They may have chosen to do the Kumon early in the holidays simply to get it out of the way and/or because they have holiday plans booked at other times. I doubt these kids did nothing but Kumon all holiday.

@GenerationX2

You have made an assumption there. An incorrect one. I do say up thread that both children love to read.

It's really not wise to judge people based on a snapshot you are seeing out of their lives

Exactly. You have no idea. Perhaps they are away how the summer and they thought one kumon before they go. Perhaps their child really enjoys kumon. Perhaps their child’s confidence in maths is in the gutter and kumon helps them. You just don’t know, but to judge the parents is unfair

I have 5 DGC. During the holidays we play games. The one they love the most is where they throw a ball to each other and ask a times table at the same time.

They have to answer by the time they catch the ball. DGC ages range from 6 to 14 and even the 6 year old is pretty quick with his answers.

Interestingly enough, Miss 9 is a bit slower and the other DGC seem to know to throw the ball a bit slowly and softly to her so she can work out the answer by the time it gets to her. Her reading and writing is amazing though.

We have done this. 20 mins writing. 20 mins Maths (he’s very good at it, and always wants to do more). And then in the evening he plays his instrument for 30-40 mins (I do need to supervise slightly). We read together at bedtime. And he reads almost all day. Given that he’s awake for roughly 12 hours, even if you take away 3 hours for meals and bedtime, this leaves plenty of time for play. He’s been on three holidays as well, where we continued his instrument on one of them and a little writing/Maths on the others. And again we don’t have much resistance and actually with a much younger toddler sibling he likes to go off to his room to do some ‘work’ to escape the brotherly menace for a bit!

This is not incompatible with reading. DS is 6.5 and learned to read 3 years ago so is a free reader now. On average he’s read 10-12 books per week during the holidays. We are in the library almost every other day.
Unfortunately and this is going to earn me MN wrath, other than sport we don’t watch TV so when he is bored, he reads. We read a lot too so we have ‘family reading time.’

Pushy parent? All my friends who had pushy parents are now in excellent professions.
Strict pushy parents usually have academically successful kids.
Slack iPad parenting may lead to.......??

During the holidays when in Junior school my sister and I used to play schools. We used to do simple sums, spelling tests and colouring in.

Op you are doing this to help your kids and good on you.
Dd is 3 and I do 2 sessions a day 1 maths games and one literacy with phonics. My friends think I'm weird but my mum was a teacher and did tonnes of extras with us, it certainly didn't do us any harm!

Mine are doing about 30 minutes a day and then Ds2 (SEN) has a tutor once a week through the holidays too. They're 11 and 13. They also both read through choice for at least a couple of hours each day. In addition they have to do chores

The rest of the day they spend doing what they want. This generally involves sleeping until at least 11am, eating me out of house and home, playing on the PS4, mucking about outside, watching movies, playing with lego, texting friends, playing cricket, going for bike rides or playing board games. Plenty of downtime.

The rest of the day they spend doing what they want. This generally involves sleeping until at least 11am, eating me out of house and home, playing on the PS4, mucking about outside, watching movies, playing with lego, texting friends, playing cricket, going for bike rides or playing board games. Plenty of downtime.

Exactly

Those saying it’s cruel. I don’t get it. It’s 30-40 minutes!

Today for example, half hour of journal and bit of numbers. Then we are biking to station, train to London for picnic and mooch along southbank, back home for some iPad/tv/chill out. And then we will head to park before dinner.

I’m a great believer in ensuring learning during the school holidays but I don’t equate learning with school type tasks. I think the school holidays lend themselves to deeper/wider/experiential learning.