I both agree and disagree here. My qualification is 3 teenage boys.
1. My kids have slack in their schedule. No, they aren't going to Ivy League schools. That's OK. They will survive somehow.
2. This is certainly true, but it's a complete joke to my kids. They aren't confused. They just wonder why all the adults are. Teenagers already think adults are incompetent.
3. This isn't true at my school. My kids have made egregious errors and the school takes it in stride. They know they are kids. They understand kids make mistakes. It's OK. We work through it and move on. The cops are not called and nothing is escalated. At most, the send us an email and we talk to our kids and that's the end of it.
3. I have no idea on this one.
My children don't have social media accounts and never will on my watch. Even as teenagers they don't because they are not allowed. They could, yes, but they don't. However, I have boys, not girls. Perhaps that would be a non-starter if I had daughters.
> My kids have slack in their schedule. No, they aren't going to Ivy League schools. That's OK. They will survive somehow.
Thank you! I think we need more people with this mindset speaking up. Everywhere there's this paranoid fear in parents that without a totally filled schedule, tutors, AP classes and more their children are going to be destitute. Not going to an Ivy League school is fine, and likely anyway; having free time to play in their own self-directed world is also fine (and healthy).
To add to your response to #2: kids are watching their parents behave poorly on social media, and spend their time with their noses in devices. When parents of older kids still have trouble "adulting," that is bound to trickle down to the kids. Certainly, I don't look like my dad did in his late 40s, but I also have a pretty firm grasp of the responsibilities I have.
My kids also must avoid social media until they are 18. Heck, my older son had a feature phone until just two years ago, when he absolutely needed a smartphone for tools required for his position as a coxswain on his rowing team. Even then, he couldn't install apps, couldn't use a web browser. Since he turned 18, he's tried out some social media and other things, but mostly avoids them.
We also held out on smart phones until our kids were 15 / 17 respectively. You held out even longer, so kudos for being able to do that. Our kids weren't mocked. They didn't feel left out. They didn't even complain because they had never had a smart phone so they literally had no idea what they were missing out on - which is nothing. They missed out on nothing.
In the end, we wanted a way to keep in touch with them and see where they were as they began driving and working. That's NOT a healthy reason to get a kid a smartphone, BTW. That's just a reflection of my fear and insecurity.
In the end, we wanted a way to keep in touch with them and see where they were as they began driving and working. That's NOT a healthy reason to get a kid a smartphone, BTW. That's just a reflection of my fear and insecurity.
> 2. This is certainly true, but it's a complete joke to my kids. They aren't confused. They just wonder why all the adults are. Teenagers already think adults are incompetent.
I was going to give the same pushback. My father-in-law is a teacher approaching retirement. He says that the only people confused by this are the parents. The kids are not confused at all except about what is so confusing.
It'd be interesting to know how OP is "seeing" this problem, whether the kids are relaying it literally or if OP is interpreting or what.
1. My kids have slack in their schedule. No, they aren't going to Ivy League schools. That's OK. They will survive somehow.
2. This is certainly true, but it's a complete joke to my kids. They aren't confused. They just wonder why all the adults are. Teenagers already think adults are incompetent.
3. This isn't true at my school. My kids have made egregious errors and the school takes it in stride. They know they are kids. They understand kids make mistakes. It's OK. We work through it and move on. The cops are not called and nothing is escalated. At most, the send us an email and we talk to our kids and that's the end of it.
3. I have no idea on this one.
My children don't have social media accounts and never will on my watch. Even as teenagers they don't because they are not allowed. They could, yes, but they don't. However, I have boys, not girls. Perhaps that would be a non-starter if I had daughters.