So I was thinking the other day about the role parents play in educating their children. Sure, there are those parents who choose to homeschool and nearly all their children's education is based on what is taught in the home. Other than those parents though, what are the country's children learning from their parents.
I realize many of us on this website are just kids ourselves. I am not one of them, as I am turning 30 in a couple weeks, and I have 3 children. It was only after my kids were in school themselves that I chose to pursue my own education.
The problem I am seeing as I enter the schools my children attend is that these kids are completely dependent on school to teach them EVERYTHING. Kids aren't being taught morals or values at home. They aren't being taught honesty or how to deal with other children and adults. They aren't being taught respect. They aren't being taught about how to treat other people, especially members of the opposite sex. They aren't being taught to love, honor, or obey their parents or teachers. In short, parents are not doing a dang thing to educate their kids.
Oh, don't get me wrong, some parents have taught their children that marriage isn't important and that families are made up of whatever man she decides to bring home each week. Sure, they're being taught that Maury is a quality TV program, because when mom isn't in the bedroom with her boyfriend or in the hospital having bones mended from their last fight, that is what she is watching on the TV that her last lawsuit against their landlord bought the family.
I realize that not everyone has the same ideals as I do. That's perfectly fine. It is variety that makes America what it is. But whether the parents are teaching their children MY values is not the issue. They are not teaching them ANY values. A person's word means nothing anymore. Honesty is gone. The reason is that it is not being handed down. Crimes of passion, AKA rape and murder, are at an all-time high and I can only figure it is because mothers are not requiring that their lovers treat them respect and so are teaching their little girls it is okay to be abused and their little boys that it is okay to just take and take and take from women, whether they like it or not.
Kids are not being taught respect for anyone, and especially not authority. There was a time when children did what they were told, regardless of what it was. Two reasons exist for that. One, children respected their parents and knew what would happen if they did not comply. The other reason is that children trusted their parents to not force them to do things that were wrong or were going to hurt them. That trust and belief does not exist much any more. With parents moving in and out, getting new step-parents every few months or years, and parents just up and leaving all together, the security that used to make children feel safe and trusting is no longer there.
Parents are believing increasingly that schools should be responsible for teaching their children all these things as well as reading, writing, math, and science. Test scores are showing that as schools step up and take this responsibility, academic progress is being stalled. With only 6 hours a day to educate young minds, teachers should not have to deal with young thieves, disrespectful brats, foul language, weapons, and disobedience. These are just some of the issues parents expect teachers to handle when they, as parents, fall short of their own responsibility.
In short, think before you decide to have children, whether or not you are going to be able to educate them in the things that schools have no business doing. If you don't feel like you can do that, you probably ought not to bring any more burdens onto a society that is already struggling. Parents are the first educators and when they fall down on the job, everyone who comes after them have to pick up the pieces.
The Role of Parents in Education
By gena_marie - Posted on February 21st, 2008
Tagged: Children
• learning
• life skills
• Parenting
• parents
• school
• teaching
• Education
• Better future
Ok so I had a very long comment written out for this blog and for some reason my computer spazzed when it was sending, but basically what I said earlier was that I completely agree with you. I am a senior in high school and I have attended catholic school my whole life. Although many people seem to think that the "troubled" children are found in public schools, they would be surprised to see what happens in a school like mine. Don't get me wrong, my school has a very good reputation and we are at the top with both academics and sports; however, it is in a school like mine where are the teenagers from wealthy families are found. A lot of my classmates are children of parents who are always working and too busy to pay attention to what is happening in their own home. Usually these teenagers turn to drinking and drugs and have parties in their fancy homes while their parents are out working. It is scary to think of what my generation faces and what the generation of my children will be like years from now. Although my parents have been divorced since before I was a year old and my dad is remarried, I see my dad every other weekend and once a week and the role they play in my life is huge. All my life they have gotten along with each other for my sake rather than being selfish and thinking about themselves. If they did not do this for me, there is no doubt that the person I am today and the life I live today would have been completely different.
I understand what you're saying. One thing that did catch my eye while I was reading was when you said, "Kids rely on teachers to teach them EVERYTHING." Including honesty, morals, ect. I am a teacher, and the classes that i teach and my collegues teach at this special organization is to teach the youth to develop skills to become a postive individual and develop the skills they need for the real world. I do feel that one thing that needs to be looked at is the ethnicity of the child. Not being racist when I say this but it is true, I work with a lot of hispanic children and teens. The way their family dynamics are. are completly different compared to other races. The cultral norm for some of these youth is once done with high school is to get a job, get married and have children. some of the teens it is frustrating when I sit down to assist with their homework because a lot of them just want to quit school, and it's difficult to think of different motivational strategies. Another cultral aspect is dominance, sometimes if a youth does not hit back or get into a fight it is not showing their dominance or leadership to the other youth. It's very difficult to give them the skills they need to handle the situation because some are successful in using the tools you provide and the others will not use the tools, which means to just try harder.
That is so true. Now, kids don't respect nobody anymore, that including teachers, parents, adult etc. I personally think that with all this thing that we can't pressure our kids during certain ages, and that we have to listen to them, and not punish them when they deserve to be punished; i really think people have lost control over their kids. Parents have to teach respect and obedience to their children. Because we have failed to do so in the past years, is that we hear all kinds of things on the news. Teachers are not responsible for the forming education of kids, their jobs is just to teach subjects like math and English. It is time for those people who want to have kids to take responsibility on it and do the right thing teaching kids moral values.
Schools used to to (by used to I mean victorian times and perhaps later) require students to read books where good morals were rewarded. I think teachers should take a look at what the books the students are reading encourages and make sure that the stories have strong, positive role models. Problems with this are, however, that these can vary depending on what your morals are, it seems a bit like brainwashing and doesn't solve the main issue that parents aren't involved enough, and schools don't encourage reading as much as they used to. When I was in elementary school, we would have a chance for silent reading, and could read whatever we wanted for a half hour or so. I even had a few teachers who would read out loud to the class.
Perhaps teachers should send home more assignments that make learning the parents responsibility, such as ask students to work on the assignment with their parent. However, so many parents work so many hours to support their child that they honestly don't have time. This may come from not getting a good education themself, so it begins a bit of a cycle.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tricia0711