<story><title>Why schools are failing our boys</title><url>http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/parenting/wp/2015/02/19/why-schools-are-failing-our-boys/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>blkhp19</author><text>There are also plenty of boys and girls who don&amp;#x27;t have this problem. I was a bit of a trouble maker in elementary and middle school - enough to get a call home from the teacher once or twice a year - but I always did my work and gave a damn about my performance.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t understand this parent. &amp;quot;I let my son play minecraft in the morning before school&amp;quot; - so your son is slacking off in school, but you&amp;#x27;re still giving him everything he wants? He&amp;#x27;s your son. He needs to be shown that sometimes, you have to suck it up and work, even when you don&amp;#x27;t want to. That&amp;#x27;s a tough lesson to teach an 8 year old, but it&amp;#x27;s something that parents should enforce early. Eventually, their kid will see that hard work and self control will pay off. Here&amp;#x27;s a novel idea - don&amp;#x27;t let your kid play minecraft until he starts doing better in school.&lt;p&gt;That being said, I do think physical activity should be more common. If it&amp;#x27;s rainy or cold out, kids should be able to go to their school&amp;#x27;s gym for an extra PE class - or maybe be able to play minecraft on the school computers. Boys and girls needs to be able to do something like this throughout the day. Article like this will hopefully make schools rethink some things - but until change actually happens, this mom needs to take control instead of just throwing her hands up and telling her son &amp;quot;it&amp;#x27;s not your fault. now go play minecraft.&amp;quot;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dreamweapon</author><text>You&amp;#x27;re not just leaving out important context -- you&amp;#x27;re missing the main point, entirely:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;This morning, as always, my son was up and dressed before the rest of the household; he likes time to play Minecraft before school starts. But he also cleaned the dirty glass on the woodstove, started the fire and brought wood into the house. Because he wants to.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;The whole point is that they let him &amp;quot;slack off&amp;quot; sometimes because they&amp;#x27;ve chosen to let him feel empowered to &lt;i&gt;make his own decisions&lt;/i&gt; about how he spends his time generally.  And they&amp;#x27;ve seen that it pays off -- &lt;i&gt;sometimes&lt;/i&gt; he plays minecraft, but &lt;i&gt;most of the time&lt;/i&gt; he&amp;#x27;s on the ball, helping with chores and such.  And (they say) he&amp;#x27;s doing it because he &lt;i&gt;wants to&lt;/i&gt;, not because he&amp;#x27;s told to.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s a novel idea - don&amp;#x27;t let your kid play minecraft until he starts doing better in school.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Again, you&amp;#x27;re missing the main point of the article -- it&amp;#x27;s not that kid is failing school (and needs to be disciplined back into shape); it&amp;#x27;s that the school is failing the kid.</text></comment>
<story><title>Why schools are failing our boys</title><url>http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/parenting/wp/2015/02/19/why-schools-are-failing-our-boys/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>blkhp19</author><text>There are also plenty of boys and girls who don&amp;#x27;t have this problem. I was a bit of a trouble maker in elementary and middle school - enough to get a call home from the teacher once or twice a year - but I always did my work and gave a damn about my performance.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t understand this parent. &amp;quot;I let my son play minecraft in the morning before school&amp;quot; - so your son is slacking off in school, but you&amp;#x27;re still giving him everything he wants? He&amp;#x27;s your son. He needs to be shown that sometimes, you have to suck it up and work, even when you don&amp;#x27;t want to. That&amp;#x27;s a tough lesson to teach an 8 year old, but it&amp;#x27;s something that parents should enforce early. Eventually, their kid will see that hard work and self control will pay off. Here&amp;#x27;s a novel idea - don&amp;#x27;t let your kid play minecraft until he starts doing better in school.&lt;p&gt;That being said, I do think physical activity should be more common. If it&amp;#x27;s rainy or cold out, kids should be able to go to their school&amp;#x27;s gym for an extra PE class - or maybe be able to play minecraft on the school computers. Boys and girls needs to be able to do something like this throughout the day. Article like this will hopefully make schools rethink some things - but until change actually happens, this mom needs to take control instead of just throwing her hands up and telling her son &amp;quot;it&amp;#x27;s not your fault. now go play minecraft.&amp;quot;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bjt</author><text>&amp;gt; so your son is slacking off in school, but you&amp;#x27;re still giving him everything he wants?&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t see how you get from playing Minecraft in the morning to her letting her son do &amp;quot;everything he wants&amp;quot;.  You&amp;#x27;re assuming that playing Minecraft is frivolous or negative or that shouldn&amp;#x27;t be allowed in the morning, much less encouraged.  And you have little information on what other activities she has encouraged, permitted, or forbidden.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s tempting to pass judgment on other people&amp;#x27;s parenting.  This temptation should be resisted.</text></comment>