Do you do any of these 6 things for your teenagers?

[SisterSomeone]

1. Wake them up in the morning for school
Nope. I couldn't have if I'd wanted to. His school was a lot closer than my work. Whether he took the bus or later drove himself, I was already out the door way earlier than he needed to be up.

2. Pack their lunches and snacks
Same as above. Also, I can't cook to save my life. Nobody wants a lunch packed by me.

3. Filling out paperwork for them
I... think I did fill out my kid's paperwork. I made sure to teach him how and I knew that he could fill out his own paperwork when he needs to, but otherwise I don't mind filling out paperwork and that's a task I'm happy to take off of anyone's hands.

4. Delivering things they have forgotten, or going out of your way to get something they failed to plan for (in other words, making their failure to plan your emergency)
Only if it was my fault that he forgot it to begin with, or if the circumstances were something wacky and unforeseeable. But, like, the other 99% of the time, f**k no. You forgot to plan out of laziness, not my problem.

5. Doing all of their laundry all of the time
I haven't been allowed to do his laundry since I accidentally ruined his favorite t-shirt when he was 12 lol. I did not do it on purpose. I apologized profusely. It was discontinued and I scoured ebay for three weeks to find him another just like it. I still feel a little bad about it. He wouldn't let me go anywhere near his laundry since.

6. Meddling in academics, like making sure they turn in a worksheet that is several weeks overdue or emailing their teacher to ask for make up work.
The only times I've had to do this was when there were health issues or family commitments involved and that was the reason he fell behind. I got involved because I wasn't going to let the kid get in trouble over something that was out of his control. I had to get involved once because of a severely overstepping teacher that he had already unsuccessfully tried to address by himself. Stuff like that. We've never had a situation where he was falling behind out of laziness, so I don't know what I would have done with that.

[Deleted User 2088]

All of those are situational. I’ll get my kids up if I need to but I am usually gone before they are up.

I’ll pack a lunch from time to time if they want what I am packing myself.

When paperwork comes up, we all fill it out together. I have awful handwriting and the kids write better than I do.

I forget stuff all the time. This morning I forgot my badge and classroom key. If I can, I will deliver from time to time. But it’s never been a habit of theirs to forget stuff.

I don’t do much laundry at all because Of my back. But I’ll fold for them if they wash and hang for me.

I’m prettt hands off on academics. They do pretty well. But during Covid. ODD had a teacher that assigned sooo much work. It was her only non AP or dual credit class and it had more work than all the rest combined each week. It was ridiculous. I’m talking 8-10 half an hour videos to watch and answer questions on, 2-3 one page essays, 1 page of short answer over a chapter that they had to cite, and whatever other random assignments. This was all opened up after the school day each day. There was no way for her to get all of it done on top of her other classes. DH and I both emailed the teacher about the amount of work and her response was pretty much “I don’t care how it gets done, it just needs to be done.” Dh,DD, and I would all tackle it together. I even emailed the academic dean over the amount of work and she pretty much said do what we have to do.

As a teacher, I don’t do that to my kids.

Wait that's more than the ap classes? Because when I was in ap classes it was like this. Be in class 5 hours a week (equivalent to her videos), read a 300 page novel weekly and write a 3 page essay on it, and there were always other random assignments as well. AP history we would go home read the entire chapter daily and answer all of the questions then study for the test Friday on top of the 5 hours of class time. Have AP classes slacked off that much? I had 4-6 hours of homework daily for my 3 AP classes and I did it all.

I didn't take a lot of AP or dual credit in high school. But my daughter is in almost all KAP and AP classes and it's a lot. If she doesn't do homework every night and every weekend, she will barely pass. She is not the kid that I usually have to stay on top of, though.

[Anonymous 3]

All of those are situational. I’ll get my kids up if I need to but I am usually gone before they are up.

I’ll pack a lunch from time to time if they want what I am packing myself.

When paperwork comes up, we all fill it out together. I have awful handwriting and the kids write better than I do.

I forget stuff all the time. This morning I forgot my badge and classroom key. If I can, I will deliver from time to time. But it’s never been a habit of theirs to forget stuff.

I don’t do much laundry at all because Of my back. But I’ll fold for them if they wash and hang for me.

I’m prettt hands off on academics. They do pretty well. But during Covid. ODD had a teacher that assigned sooo much work. It was her only non AP or dual credit class and it had more work than all the rest combined each week. It was ridiculous. I’m talking 8-10 half an hour videos to watch and answer questions on, 2-3 one page essays, 1 page of short answer over a chapter that they had to cite, and whatever other random assignments. This was all opened up after the school day each day. There was no way for her to get all of it done on top of her other classes. DH and I both emailed the teacher about the amount of work and her response was pretty much “I don’t care how it gets done, it just needs to be done.” Dh,DD, and I would all tackle it together. I even emailed the academic dean over the amount of work and she pretty much said do what we have to do.

As a teacher, I don’t do that to my kids.

Wait that's more than the ap classes? Because when I was in ap classes it was like this. Be in class 5 hours a week (equivalent to her videos), read a 300 page novel weekly and write a 3 page essay on it, and there were always other random assignments as well. AP history we would go home read the entire chapter daily and answer all of the questions then study for the test Friday on top of the 5 hours of class time. Have AP classes slacked off that much? I had 4-6 hours of homework daily for my 3 AP classes and I did it all.

I didn't take a lot of AP or dual credit in high school. But my daughter is in almost all KAP and AP classes and it's a lot. If she doesn't do homework every night and every weekend, she will barely pass. She is not the kid that I usually have to stay on top of, though.

Ap classes are most definitely a lot. That's why I was shocked when she said this was more than her ap classes.

[Anonymous 9]

6. Meddling in academics, like making sure they turn in a worksheet that is several weeks overdue or emailing their teacher to ask for make up work.

I'm very proactive about education. I stay right on top of how they're doing, and if they need support or pushing.

The lag time on learning the long term consequences of falling from being next the top of a class in a subject, to being near the bottom two years later, is too long for an early teenager to learn from their own mistakes.

[Deleted User 2088]

6. Meddling in academics, like making sure they turn in a worksheet that is several weeks overdue or emailing their teacher to ask for make up work.

I'm very proactive about education. I stay right on top of how they're doing, and if they need support or pushing.

The lag time on learning the long term consequences of falling from being next the top of a class in a subject, to being near the bottom two years later, is too long for an early teenager to learn from their own mistakes.

To me, that's the difference between meddling and being an active, involved parent. Putting the responsibility on their shoulders doesn't mean the parent does nothing and never mentions anything, so two years would be a super long time to let this go on and just watch their grades drop over and over.

With my oldest biological daughter, she is intrinsically motivated to make good grades so I rarely have to be on top of her. I check her grades regularly and if something is missing or a grade is low, I will mention it to them. If they fail, they lose privileges. If they fail more than once, that's when I get more involved and will go ahead and print out her work, make her sit down and do it, make her tutorials appointments, etc. To me, that isn't meddling.

With my youngest son, he has zero motivation at school. He simply doesn't see the point. Even if I control every aspect of his education, he will never be top of the class. That said, I won't ignore it and allow him to fail, either. I'm a lot more involved with him. As he gets older, it is starting to click that failing isn't an option so he might as well do the work. I'm hoping that by the time he gets to high school, I can ease back.

[LuckyEightWow]

I’ve done all of that, and not, but i did and still do wake anyone in the house up who needs to be woken up. I’m awake so it’s not a big deal, and it doesn’t interfere with their ability to adult.