When Brenda Peterson’s 17-year-old son, Matthew, comes home and asks for more lunch money, she’s able to log into an online system at Hartford Union High School that shows just how many cheese fries, Little Debbie snacks and cookies he’s downed lately.
Looking at that list has prompted Peterson to sit her son down and say, “Hey, you have to make better choices,” she said.
At West Bend’s Badger Middle School, teacher Jessica Gieryn e-mails about 75 parents each Monday, outlining forthcoming assignments and project due dates.
Although West Bend doesn’t expect to have a district-wide system for online grades until next year, Gieryn has been sending her informal list for four years, and the number of parents wanting the information grows steadily, she said.
Not only do the notes cut down on phone calls – most parents e-mail her instead – they also put students on alert. Some complain that parents know details of a big project the moment kids arrive home from school, or that parents have printed out study guides for them to memorize, she said.
“It definitely does change expectations,” Gieryn said.
One thought on “As Children Go to School, Parents Tag Along on the Web”
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Now it sounds like they have to get the kids working on taking that responsibility for their work on their own. 🙂 Seriously, I embrace informing parents more quickly and completely, but it still comes down to kids doing the work in the end. If they make it through middle school because Mom and Dad ran off outlines and study guides for them, then why would they start doing it on their own in high school? WITH them is a good start, but for them just reinforces the attitude (in my experience) of letting Mom and Dad take care of it. Then the kids who have had all this handed to them go off to college unprepared to do the legwork, and wonder why they fail. Or, their moms and dads do half of it for them there too, and then they are astonished that as functioning adults they are expected to track their own time and efforts and get work done every single day, and not just right beore someone reminded them it was due. Excuse my cynicism, but that’s what I see happening more and more with young adults.
Boy do I feel old, talking like this….