Home > News > Mother completing the child's school projects - I was shocked!
2nd
Oct 2013

Mother completing the school projects

How do you feel about parents completing school projects that their kids are supposed to do?

Hi, its Ray again. I seem to be wallowing in nostalgia this week and after the last post where I brought up the subject of sharing the Zane videos with your children, I thought some more and remembered when I was living in the Philippines. They had so many projects to carry out at the school the child of the house attended. Every couple of weeks he would bring home a printed sheet explaining what he had to do.

Instantly, his mother would grab the sheet and start talking about what her son and she would do to make this the best possible school project.  As a teacher I was convinced that the child should do it all themselves and I was appalled that the mother would get so involved (and it seemed do most of the work). I mean, these were major projects and would always involve a trip to the big stationery store in the mall to go and purchase materials. Mother and son would browse this huge department searching for ideas on how to ensure that their (not his) project was the best one submitted. At the store we would see other mothers out doing the same thing.

I could not believe that the teacher was so blind as not to realize that it was the parents who were doing the projects. Clearly the standard of work far exceeded the levels produced in the classrooms. I used to get so uptight about this and refuse to help on principle. Then one day it came to me. Of course the teacher new exactly what was going on, but was using the projects to get the parents engaged in their child’s learning. The parent and child were working together and discussing the topic. The parents were competing with each other but in doing so they were ensuring that the child spent much more time on the project than they would have, had they been left to their own devices.

Let me have your comments on this. Did you get help as a child?

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Anna Apple
Anna Apple
9 years ago

No I didn’t. There were many children in my family. If a parent has time and interest to help I amall for it! Wonderful way to encourage parental participation! What about the child who will never get help?