Parents--Back Off! My Vent

[cruellababy]

Love your DD's house! My son's class is doing this today-it's always fun, and I never get in the way-just take the pictures and help clean up.

 

[LisaMommy]

OP - How sweet! You must have a very creative DD, I would never have thought of the red M&Ms for Santa's suit!

 

[sarasotamom]

I did this many moons ago when my daughter was in 3rd grade (25 now). I was one of only 2 moms there to help the kids. We did not have the time to focus on our own children. It is great fun to do the gingerbread houses. IMO, the fun is letting the kids do it on their own. There is no wrong or right way to decorate your house.

I made these with my kids at home many times. Now I make them with my grandson. Parents just need to relax. Kids grow up too fast to make everything a competition. It makes me smile as I remember my kids making these. All gingerbread houses are special because they are made with love.

 

[mjkacmom]

I did this with my 2 kindergarteners (every child brought in a can of frosting - easier), and I did nothing. If I wanted to build my own house, I would just do it at home!

 

[sdarwkcabemanmy]

OMG..that 'gingerbread' house is priceless! I love it.

I try not to hover...but it's hard. At the first week of Nov, DS brought home a 'turkey' feather they were supposed to decorate themselves to take back so they could put it on the class turkey. I let DS pick out a bunch of Disney clipart and printed out. I cut it out (because we have managed to lose yet ANOTHER pair of saftey scissors ) but DS glued the pictures down where he wanted them to go. At school, it's easy to tell they let the kids do their own art because DS always manages to put the eyes on the ear or something odd like that. Yesterday, we got home the letter to Santa they wrote at school. It was a big, round scribble and his teacher wrote on it "Thomas the Tank Engine and Lightning". I know what she meant though, because that's all DS has been asking for, Thomas the Tank Engine and Lightning McQueen.

 

[2Kds2K9]

Love it! Tell your DD it's awsome!

Reminds me of the "bee hive" incident in 2nd grade. DS did make his own bee hive out of clay and it was lopsided, squished at points, and not the prettiest. BUT, it was obvious he did it on his own. The majority of the class had theirs displayed in the display cabinet. (His was in the classroom in a corner.) All I could say to the teacher when I saw the display was, "Oh how lovely. You have a class of very talented parents. Maybe I'll "help" my son next time so "his" can be displayed too." She got the point.

You're the best!

 

[asta]

If you enjoy helping with gingerbread houses let me tell you about a great volunteer activity. I had always helped with my daughters' classes when they were younger and many of you are right about the parents who always showed up just to look out for their own child. This week I was given the chance to help build gingerbread houses with a class of first graders in a school that does not have a lot of parental involvement. I think this was actually more fun than being in a room where some adults have too much of a vested interest. I probably had more fun than the children and they were all so proud of their creations.

 

[lillygator]

maybe some of the moms never got to do this as a kid and this was their shot!

 

[shortbun]

LOL! Been there. My line is 'honey, I already made my candy sled in 3rd grade, it's your turn!"

 

[RF536]

We have that problem in cub scouts. Every year our pack does a cake bake as a fund raiser. The boys are given a theme and then they are suppose to make and decorate a cake based on the theme. Now obivously we expect some parental help especially with the baking, but some the cakes you could tell the parents did all of the work. My son actually won for the best decorated cake in his den, while he did a great job he won because his was the only one that was done be a child.

 

[*NikkiBell*]

Welcome to the wonderful world of teaching in America. This is a constant these days. Parents doing homework and projects for their kids. It's ridiculous.

 

[akhenaten]

We have that problem in cub scouts. Every year our pack does a cake bake as a fund raiser. The boys are given a theme and then they are suppose to make and decorate a cake based on the theme. Now obivously we expect some parental help especially with the baking, but some the cakes you could tell the parents did all of the work. My son actually won for the best decorated cake in his den, while he did a great job he won because his was the only one that was done be a child.

lol the winner of the pinewood derby every year in our town was the boy whose dad owned an auto body shop...

My sons car was much more interesting though....

 

[mjkacmom]

lol the winner of the pinewood derby every year in our town was the boy whose dad owned an auto body shop...

My sons car was much more interesting though....

Yes, I remember my ds's not-so-aerodynamic whale car...

 

[DizBelle]

I was watching the National Gingerbread House competition (from 2006 I think) on the Food Network the other day. They had three divisions: kids, teens, and adults.

The "winner" of the kid division was the little girl that had to have been about 4 or 5 and "her" gingerbread house was absolutely beautiful. The announcer said "there is nothing in the rules about how much parentel help can be provided." I think the only thing that little girl did was stick a gumdrop on a dollop of icing but Mom probably promptly took it off and placed it "correctly."

It made me mad for all of the other kids that actually made and decorated their own houses. This was for a national title and cash prize. It was so obvious that a mom won the kid division.

 

[hiwaygal]

I was watching the National Gingerbread House competition (from 2006 I think) on the Food Network the other day. They had three divisions: kids, teens, and adults.

The "winner" of the kid division was the little girl that had to have been about 4 or 5 and "her" gingerbread house was absolutely beautiful. The announcer said "there is nothing in the rules about how much parentel help can be provided." I think the only thing that little girl did was stick a gumdrop on a dollop of icing but Mom probably promptly took it off and placed it "correctly."

It made me mad for all of the other kids that actually made and decorated their own houses. This was for a national title and cash prize. It was so obvious that a mom won the kid division.

I saw that show too!! And I thought the exact same thing!

 

[castleview]

This is why our professors have encouraged us to think long and hard about how much parental participation we want in our classrooms- if any at all! It's sad that it has come to that.

I can't even imagine the space nighmare of having that many adults in with the kids, I think I would lose my mind.

I think you should just keep control over how many come in. The primary teachers in my kids schools love the help, but are pretty direct when they don't need it. Fortunately, I'm not one to get offended.

I have noticed that my middle daughter is in a class full of first borns. Their are a ton of parents for every function. It almost makes me feel guilty that I'm not there as much.

 

[lovetoscrap]

lol the winner of the pinewood derby every year in our town was the boy whose dad owned an auto body shop...

My sons car was much more interesting though....

OMG! I totally forgot about that! DH refuses to do that with our DD anymore (our Girl Scouts do it also). They did it once and he was just sick at how all the winning cars were so obviously done by the parents. And at how the Dad's were pressuring their daughters, doing things for them and how competitive the Dad's were--over a $3 wooden car! DD worked very hard on her car -- with very little parent involvement-- but of course she had no shot at winning anything! I think they need to add a new division-- KIDS ONLY!

 

[mamacatnv]

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 sent in a couple of bags of candy as requested by the parent coordinator. I refrained from suggesting the use of Royal icing since the parent coordinator gets bent out of shape if given any type of suggestion when it comes to her projects.

When I picked up DD I asked her where her house was. This was her response "they used milk cartons from the lunch room that kids drank from, so I threw it away, besides they also used that frosting in a can and it didn't work very well!"

 

[Mkrop]

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.

 

[mamacatnv]

When DS was in 3rd grade we were at the regular fall twice a year parent teacher conference. His teacher was critiquing his fall "project" that he had not scored as well as he thought he should have on.

We didn't touch the project, it was all him and he followed the instructions to the letter. I questioned what her issue with his project was and she displayed a project that there is no way a 3rd grader did as her "example". I told her flat out that it was very obvious that it had been done by a parent and not a child and that to use the parent project as the "A" project and to grade down from there was not right. The grades were already done but DS did not understand his lower grade.

She retired that year. Funny, I have seen her several times over the years. Last summer, she was at DS's H.S. graduation and she took me and DS aside. She still remembered our discussion over the project. She told us that over the years she had had so many parents yelling at her when she marked the kids down when it was "obvious" that the parents had been way too involved, that she had begun ignoring the fact that the parents did the work and was grading the finished project as it was.

She told DS she did him a big disservice by not realizing he had done it all himself and rewarding him accordingly. She said that incident had bugged her for years. (She never changed his project grade but when he was on the fence for Honor Roll later that year, guess which way she pushed his grades )