How to teach your child to believe in things that you really don't?

[JazbayGrapes]

Think school.
That work assigned is important.
That obeying the rules is important.
That getting on with you peers is important.

Other than "you will need some qualifications to show on your cv" i can't think of anything else.

My kid hates school. I hated it too. Even though academically i was top of the class and went to university.

If you raise your kids to believe it's not important to get along with their peers, you are likely to end up with some very lonely, isolated, confused adults.

Your kids don't have to be social butterflies. But you need to equip them with the skills they need to get along with others. Their choice to use that info, or not. But don't set them up to fail.

Yet OP gives off the impression of considering herself far cleverer than everyone else. Hmm...

your outlook on this is quite unusual. It’s also quite privileged. You have already reaped the benefits of your education. Where do you think you would be if you hadn’t ’conformed’ and acquired all your qualifications?

I never said qualifications are not needed. Yes, you will need paperwork to show at some point. However, the content, the form, and the purpose of it all is highly questionable.
My current job with all my qualifications i could do just as easily without. I may as well say that around 80% of information i learned at school i completely forgot right after final exams.
Pub quizzes are fun though.

You remembered 20% of what you learned though. Someone else will have remembered another 20%, or maybe even 30%. A third person will have remembered yet another part. If we don't expose young people to different things, how will they know what they are interested in and what they might find useful to retain?

My kids weren't interested in school science, even though they could see physics, chemistry and biology were all essential for lots of things that other people would go on to specialise in. If my children hadn't had to study those subjects, and others, though, they would never have had the chance to find out what they were interested in and what they did want to pursue in terms of university and careers.

Getting on with other people is surely really useful for anyone, whatever they want to do in life. You're not going to get on well with everyone, but you need to learn to navigate how you deal with people you don't like as well as those you do.

You don't actually sound very educated. Education is not about being able to remember 5000 facts in 20 years time. It's about learning about bigger concepts and theories and how to find out more and how to assess information etc. It's as much about learning how to learn as it is about anything else.

It's true that the nature of this learning at school is irritatingly focused on learning lots of information points you'll promptly forget (don't even get me started on my endless frustration about how history is taught and tested as a prime example of this), but the underlying learning is no less valid for it.

Ditto, school uniform rules - often annoying, often inflexible and I do believe that the entire system needs an overhaul. BUT... in life, there are still many situations where dressing in a certain way, turning up at set times, "playing the game" or whatever is a prerequisite to making progress. Understanding this as a principle is more important than the practicalities of red vs blue socks or whether it really matters if you miss form before classes start, even if these are the easy ways the schools choose to enforce it.

You might not need your GCSE certificates to take on a new job. But you do need your GCSE grades to get accepted to study A-Levels, and then you need your A-Levels to get accepted at uni or college, and then you need that qualification to get a job…

Or have you forgotten that bit?

Life isn’t entirely fair. Teach your kids that. Sometimes as a child or an adult you have to suck up something you don’t entirely agree with because we’re all just trying to muddle along as a working society.

Or have you forgotten that bit?

I'm not originally from UK so i went to a slightly different system. Think no such thing as GCSCEs - just all A-levels. I never disputed the necessity of paperwork though.

I think there is a balance between basically obeying the rules and 'unquestioning obedience'. By and large rules are there because we can't expect a separate way of doing things for every person so there have to be some agreed basics, and often people under 18 aren't the best at motivating themselves so some rules and practices exist to ensure everyone gets certain things done. Some of these may be dumb but you need to find productive ways to address that, not 'all rules are stupid'.

People I have met who by personality, or by being brought up that way, kick against all rules on principle, tend to struggle in life and will find work and relationships hard because a lot of rules exist to make those things easier and to encourage people to leave behind their egos somewhat.

School uniform are implemented so the public can identify students and what school they belong to. It gives students have a sense of community, pride and belonging. It's also better than making school a catwalk. I hated nonuniform day. That was just for the haves to show off and the have-nots to have the piss taken out of them.

Qualifications, they open doors. Jobs are competitive. Your personality can only take you so far you need to get your foot in the door first.

Rules, well rules make the world go round. If everyone did their own thing life would be a mess. Imagine a road withot the highway code. There would be pile ups everywhere.

Education isn’t just about learning what we ‘need’ to know though.
Nobody ‘needs’ to know how to ride a bike, play tennis, play the piano or paint pictures but the world would decidedly more boring if no one ever tried.
As someone else has already pointed out. How do you find out the interesting things you might want to learn about if you’re never exposed to them.
No, lots of kids don’t need to learn Latin or the periodic table in order to live their lives but a few in every cohort do and go on to make it part of their life’s passion.

So well put!

you could even use this as a way to bond! Talk about your experiences and how you felt about school, and how you had to push through and get the qualifications. So many conversations could come from this and so much understanding 💖

I think this is a fair point.

I also point out to DS that having a reputation for hardcore cleverness at school gets you off all kind of sillier hooks. I was a clever kid at a school notorious for truancy, drinking and pregnancies, and I quietly dispensed with nonsense like PE and skirt length and compulsory religion classes with teachers looking the other way.

I tell her it's to make her life easier. And it does , but she doesn't struggle with school.
I also ask her to weigh up the want (because it's never a need for her) vs the possible consequences. At the moment it's not worth it.

While we do colour within the lines I do let her choose her colours. For example no jewellery except religious one so she has one with a cross. No nail polish but she has clear / transparent pink nail polish sometimes. She can dye one section of hair underneath her hair in the holidays and if it doesn't come off we braid it and hide it in her pony and so on. If she wants her skirt short she has to wait until she simply gets taller.

people under 18 aren't the best at motivating themselves so some rules and practices exist to ensure everyone gets certain things done. Some of these may be dumb but you need to find productive ways to address that, not 'all rules are stupid'.

What i notice, is too many rules just confuse people (especially kids) and they can't differentiate between which things are actually important and which are meaningless. Showing up to school in wrong footwear is no way in the same league as riding a bike without a helmet.

As for getting on with peers it is a difficult one. DS's school is rife with bullying. My kid is targeted. Except he's not the one who will just cry quietly in the corner. He gets into scraps and ends up "guilty". Just the other week somebody called him some nasty names, but he got in trouble for swearing in return.
What am i supposed to do here - teach my kid to never defend himself even verbally? Apparently that's what the school expects.

Your outlook seems limited. So your job doesn't use your degree, or a lot of content from school, so what's your point? Plenty of careers do use the principles learnt at school (and expanded upon), STEM subjects especially. And pupils often identify many of their strengths at school. Why make life hard and dull with this cynical approach rather than encouraging your child to enjoy learning and suck up the bits they don't love? it really isn't about paperwork. It's about having good general knowledge about the world and a good basis for making career choices

That school definitely isn't important.
We don't believe in authority from strangers.
So nothing really.
My daughters/ Grandkids.. are always told they can believe in what they want as long as they are happy.

What am i supposed to do here

If your kid is targeted and bullied you pressure the school to deal with it. You teach your son how to deal with it in a reasonable way as much as possible. You record everything, you report everything.

Worst comes to worst, if the school is THAT crap and he is THAT miserable and you're not getting anywhere you move schools .

I guess it matters what you value? Do you value autonomy? Hard work? Freedom? Happiness? Not being ripped off by scammers?

I tend to work out what is in line with my values and just focus on that. But my kid isn’t in school yet! Though I value freedom and I know that a loss it autonomy while kids are young is worth it to free to choose what you want to do why you’re older.

I would have said that I wasn’t going to punish my kid for swearing if he’s being harassed though.

There are rules and there is nonsense. Petty uniform rules for example.

Well to put it bluntly, if you don't think that rules are important then you probably shouldn't teach your child to obey them.

But on some level, you probably do think it's important.

If your child doesn't obey the school rules, there will be sanctions like detentions, being in trouble at school, etc. - and surely everyone would rather your kid didn't have to go through that.

It's important that school and home are on the same page as much as possible. It helps a child feel stable and safe to have boundaries that are easy to understand.

So it's important that they do obey the rules, because otherwise they are getting very confusing mixed messages and sanctions.

Part of life is distinguishing the important and non important rules and knowing which ones can be bent.

Your 20% of school you use, will be different to the next person's. We don't know what job people will end up with, so how do you propose we only teach what is useful for your job?

80% of information i learned at school i completely forgot

Well lots of us didn't forget it. And although not vital for the career I've done I'm really glad to have a knowledge of the history of the world, of the history agriculture, of the arts and artists, of Shakespeare and other great writers/poets, a little Spanish and French that I can take further at my leisure.

I'm glad of the broad education we get.

I'm glad of school uniform so children aren't wasting their time agonising over what's fashionable, what might get them picked on or having the latest labels, hair colour, most expensive jewellery etc.

If you don't appreciate an education system, and how it works to provide children with as equal an opportunity as possible, then you are free to remove your child from it.

I think it comes in a few parts:

Rules

1. There are some rules where the principle behind the rule matters. E.g. don't eat in libraries, not because there's some actual problem with that but because grease damages the books and crumbs increase the likelihood of pests which damage the books. Or not talking in class because everyone deserves a chance to make the most of their education even if you don't want to.

1. There are some rules which exist because teenagers and their schools will always be in conflict. It's a hell of a lot better to be rebelling by having your shirt untucked or by wearing illicit pink socks than to be rebelling by taking drugs behind the bike sheds.

Exams/does school have a point:

It's a game. It's not a game where we set our own rules. Each set of exams allows you to pass to the next stage and that is its own benefit. Given we don't set the rules there's no point getting upset about them, and choosing to try and play the game by different rules will (on average) mean you lose out, and you are cutting off your nose to spite your face. You might not need your GCSEs forever but you need them to get to the next stage.

There are some things we can change - we can campaign etc, or we can choose to opt out of society and run a smallholding in some rural area or whatever. But unless we're prepared to live a pretty drastically non-standard lifestyle, or dedicate a massive portion of our life to a campaign, most of us have to live by the rules of the society we exist within. We might not like it but there's no point screwing over our future selves just because of that.

I'd also say that learning to value learning itself is something I would recommend. That is something that has to be modelled though and if your family isn't one that does it might be difficult to recreate. Personally I don't mind spending almost any amount of time learning - history, science, politics, geography, literature. It all tells us more about the way the world around us works and I guess taking what benefits we can from school in that way always seems worthwhile to me.

Doesn't mean I didn't think we spent a lot of time at school on stuff that wasn't learning. I used to reckon I could fit school into 3 days a week if we had only spent lesson time more efficiently.

Doesn't mean I didn't think we spent a lot of time at school on stuff that wasn't learning. I used to reckon I could fit school into 3 days a week if we had only spent lesson time more efficiently.

This^
I believe at least two years could be easily shaved off formal schooling if it was done more efficiently.
Indeed the whole system needs a massive overhaul. "One size fits all" is no longer fit for purpose.

There are some rules which exist because teenagers and their schools will always be in conflict.

But why does it have to be a conflict? While i don't believe in school uniforms in general, whatever. Why isn't it enough that a kid wears a logoed jumper? Why does it have to be some petty nonsense? I want my kid to respect authority but they're not helping themselves here.

I'm glad of school uniform so children aren't wasting their time agonising over what's fashionable

But they still do. They still want to be dressed within reasonable fashion outside of classroom hours. And they still want the same thing that peers have - phones, games consoles - you name it.

You don't. You teach them what you believe. I don't teach DS to do as he's told and follow the rules. I teach him to think about how to be kind and what feels right and wrong.

We dont share becusse it's the rules, we share becuase we have more fun when we play with other people and we'd be sad if we couldn't play becusse someone else wasn't sharing. Etc.

You teach them there will be consequences if they don't do the homework and it's up to them if they'd rather do the homework or have a detention. You teach them to speak to people respectfully but not to allow people to talk to them disrespectfully and who to discuss their problems with.

Critical independent thinking over rule following any day. Great fun raising a kid that questions everything you ask of them though.

I'm glad of school uniform so children aren't wasting their time agonising over what's fashionable

But they still do. They still want to be dressed within reasonable fashion outside of classroom hours. And they still want the same thing that peers have - phones, games consoles - you name it.

You're missing the point. If my kids had to spend every morning working out what to wear - and it would have to be new outfits every day like all the kids with loads of clothes/money - it would be a nightmare for the kids and their parents.

You can't see it can you?

You also can't see that most children have no idea what aspects of the education they have already had will be vital until they've actually left school, or years later very often.

Gosh you sound like hard work and pedantic.

I think you should try homeschooling your child and see how much you appreciate his free thinking, rule-breaking spirit after a few weeks.