Parents--Back Off! My Vent

[bluesaturn]

Can I ask why you had so many parents there if you didnt want them "helping" the kids? What was their role: to just stand there? We did this with DS5's preschool last year and it was specifically set up to be a bonding experience where you AND your child made the house. They asked two parents to come early to set up and we all cleaned up our own little space. Each parent came in to work with their child. We also "stole" from other tables if we ran out of gumdrops or something, and people asked us for more M&Ms. It was no big deal.

You had like 2 kids to each parent so of course they would help their own kid and maybe someone else. That is how it works in my sons' classes when we do a craft and there is parental help.

I dont get the issue.

Helping and doing it for them are not the same thing. I believe that is the issue the OP is annoyed with.

 

[tonilea]

I confess, I really have to keep myself from "fixing" DS's projects. It is very difficult for me to not horn in, but in his best interest - I don't..... most of the time.

 

[declansdad]

You should have taken pictures of the mothers who were doing the work and sent them copies for their portfolios. You could caption them all, "Building my Gingerbread House at my child's school."

These mothers need to get a life.

 

[RF536]

The difference is the OP was talking about 3rd graders who were more than capable of doing it by themselves and their parent(s) took over and did if for them so that it would be perfect. Unfortunately this is becomeing the norm, as parents want everything to be perfect, so rather than help their child to do it, they take over and do it for him/her.

I would guess that they had a lot of parents there because the teacher had planned on the parents helping with other things.

 

[princesspiglet]

First off, the house is awesome!

Second, we have this problem at my DD's school also. We had a project over Thanksgiving- the kids were given a picture of a drawn out turkey that they had to masquarde so they wouldn't be recognized as a turkey and therefore not eaten at Thanksgiving.

Well, a week later the turkeys were all posted on the wall and I swear, my DD's was the ONLY one that you could tell was done by the actual child. The others were all perfect and very creative things that a 6 year old would not have thought of. I was so disgusted that all these parents did their child's project, but I was so proud of my DD because I knew she did her's all by herself and she loved it.

How can you, as a parent, really think your child is learning anything if you do everything for them??? Who cares if it is ugly? It's your childs project for petes sake.

 

[TheZue]

This drives me nuts because there are only three messages it can send 1) It's more important for it to be perfect than authentic 2) You can't do it well enough let mommy do it or 3) it's okay to cheat. None of them are good. And these parents are putting in additional effort to teach their kids these things, I don't understand it.

When we went to an Easter egg hunt a couple years ago with our 4 year old it was SHOCKING to see all the parents 'helping' their kids...and this was the 4-6 year bracket. They were just pointing out all the eggs! My father in law was wondering why we didn't help adam...the answer was simple. We wanted to give him the pride of doing it on his own and not condone cheating.

 

[lovetoscrap]

Can I ask why you had so many parents there if you didnt want them "helping" the kids? What was their role: to just stand there?
You had like 2 kids to each parent so of course they would help their own kid and maybe someone else. That is how it works in my sons' classes when we do a craft and there is parental help.

I dont get the issue.

The teacher just sent a note home saying they needed parent help. She had no idea how many parents she would get! She was in a different district last year and is still fairly young so I don't think she realized how much parent participation our school has. As someone else mentionted it was very crowded and hard to move around. The teacher needed parents to help with set up and clean up and also to have extra hands to offer assistance to those that needed it, replenish the supplies, etc. Certainly there were some that needed help when their icing bag popped open and spewed frosting everywhere, or to understand the initial concept that the graham crackers went on the milk carton (a few didn't understand that!), and to moderate the inevitable "she took all the big marshmallows' fight.

These kids were all perfectly capable of doing the project themselves and let their creativity shine!

You should have taken pictures of the mothers who were doing the work

I did!!!

My DD's 4th grade class did the exact same project yesterday and I stayed away. I volunteer 2 hours a week and work with reading groups. I am a little bit of a control freak, am very organized and creative so I stay far away from the chaos of art projects since they generally are not coordinated as well as I would have done

I actually am too! I am a total control freak and have lots of kids crafts experience so I get antsy if things are not being done the way I would do them. But I have gotten much better at being hands off in the planning unless I am specifically asked, save a gentle suggestion here and there. And I really do let the kids do it themselves. I love my kids work. If I want to see my work then I will may do my own thing along with them, like when we decorate Christmas Cookies or scrapbook together.

 

[mamacatnv]

These kids were all perfectly capable of doing the project themselves and let their creativity shine!

I actually am too! I am a total control freak and have lots of kids crafts experience so I get antsy if things are not being done the way I would do them. But I have gotten much better at being hands off in the planning unless I am specifically asked, save a gentle suggestion here and there. And I really do let the kids do it themselves. I love my kids work. If I want to see my work then I will may do my own thing along with them, like when we decorate Christmas Cookies or scrapbook together.

I'm the one who would make the "sample" the night before just to make sure everything works but there is no way I would do my child's art project. Heck, getting ones fingers stuck together with glue is an experience that every child should experience at least once. I get all twitterpated when the person in charge of the craft is clueless, thus I avoid the situation if at all possible and like you, I have learned to keep my mouth shut. Thus explaining that large dent on the inside of my lip

 

[Mommy2cody]

You know for a bit I started to doubt myself and think maybe I was the wrong one! The funny thing is that I really thought the kids that didn't have "assistance" had the most creative houses.

May I self indulge and post my dd's house? It is crooked, covered in icing, her sled runners are on the top of sled, and her snowman is falling over, but I absolutely love it!

That marshmallow thing on the top covered in m&ms is her "Santa" on the sled. She decided that red m&m's would make it look like Santa. I bet no parent ever thought of that!

That is the sweetest thing ever!

 

[Teacher03]

I haven't read all the posts, but I also do this with my class. Each child is given a certain amount of "money" and they have to budget and buy (from my price list) what they want to buy for their house. The kids actually invite a guest to come and help them, and everyone in my class had someone there. We all had a great time, it allowed for great parent involvement, but NO ONE took over their child's project. If the parent wanted to make their own house, I gave them that option, but they had to pay the $2.00 (used for supplies) that each child paid. It is actually one of my favorite projects.