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I’ve come to a conclusion regarding my kids: I have to love them enough to let them fail. Let me clarify. We all want the best for our kids. We want them to grow up happy, healthy, and most of all successful. We put a lot of emphasis on that last bit, successful. Why? Simple. We won’t be around forever, and we want to know that they’re going to be okay when we’re gone. Something that has been bothering me though, is that in trying so hard to make them succeed, we’ve set them up to truly fail.

We’ve made them afraid of failure. It’s as if we’ve come to the conclusion that if they don’t receive recognition or reward for everything they do, their tiny egos won’t be able to handle it. Why are more and more kids presenting with crippling cases of depression and anxiety? Because we don’t let them learn to deal with failure, frustration, and adversity. We don’t let them develop the tools to turn failure into success. We let them skip the work and go straight to the reward, never showing them how they’re supposed to get there.

It’s our job to teach them that losing isn’t the end of the world and that wanting something doesn’t equal deserving it. They have to learn that just showing up isn’t enough if they want to win the trophy or the gold star. The only truly worthwhile participation award is experience. If they want the gold, they’re going to have to work for it.

I’m not going to do your homework for you. I’m not going to jump up and down and scream at your little league coach that you need more play time when there are other kids who are performing better for the team. If you want to make the starting line-up, it’s going to take time. It’s going to take practice. It’s going to hurt, and it’s going to take sacrifice. You have to make the decision if it’s worth it. I can’t make that decision for you. By the way, I still love you.

The rest of the article is worth reading. Mistakes are a good teacher. Students need to learn that mistakes can help them to success in the future. But students can’t learn this if they aren’t allowed to make mistakes or to feel the consequences of their mistakes.

Read the rest:

I’m Learning to Let My Kids Fail Now – So They’ll Be Successful Later https://www.fatherly.com/love-money/lessons-kids-learn-from-failure/

Originally posted 2018-10-06 09:12:45. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Daily Homework Time

Students should plan on about 30-50 minutes of homework each school day (ten minutes per grade level), not counting time to read. It’s best to pick a consistent time each night, such as after dinner, or right after school–whatever works for your family. The important idea is that your student is working at least 30 minutes every night, even if there is no actual homework assigned from school. Here’s a sample schedule:

Math

• Time: About 15 minutes
• Work on math skills. KhanAcademy.org is a great place to do this.

Writing

• Time: 15 minutes or more
• Work on the current writing piece.
• Continue from the work that was started at school.

Homework from class or other practice

• Time: about 15 minutes or less, based on what was completed in class.
• Finish up science experiments or social studies notes from class.
• No homework from class? Do some of these things:
  • Cursive handwriting, reading aloud with fluency, spelling words, learning practice at Khanmath facts, or reading, science or language skills at Khan Acacdemy.

Reading

• Time: 20 minutes or more
• This is not part of the daily homework time. It’s extra! That means 40 minutes + 20 minutes. That’s because reading is that important!
• Students could read books from home, library books, fiction stories, informational books, or at Epic or other digital reading sites.

Have you heard about the 16-year-old Michigan girl who was voted to her high school’s homecoming court as part of a so-called “prank”?

She is a gentle and friendly girl who doesn’t have enemies. Yet, that didn’t stop some kids from being mean.

Fortunately, that’s not the end of story.

Keep reading to find out what wonderful thing happened this week.

This story was also the September 26 edition of CNN Student News.

While this story has a bright side to it, bullying is destructive and happens too often. And as you know, most bullying doesn’t end as well as this story does. 

This story might be a good discussion starter around your dinner table about bullying.