Schoolchildren these days are often under immense pressure to perform well. Not only do they have regular classes to attend, they also come home with tonnes of homework and assignments to complete. While it is often believed that these assignments need to be completed as part of the curriculum, this mother is clearly not pleased with the workload on her daughter.
Blogger Bunmi Laditan has hit out at her daughter's school saying that the homework given to her is extremely vast. The mother revealed on her Facebook page that she had e-mailed the school and said that her 10-year-old daughter would be reducing the amount of homework she was doing on a daily basis.
"My kid is done with homework. I just sent an email to her school letting her know she's all done. I said 'drastically reduce' but I was trying to be polite because she's finished," Laditan wrote.
She noted that her daughter loves learning and is very creative, but due to excessive work load from school she is stressed and has been having health issues such as chest pain and disrupted sleep patterns.
"She's in school from 8:15am-4pm daily so someone please explain to me why she should have 2-3 hours of homework to do every night? How does homework until 6:30, then dinner, then an hour to relax (or finish the homework) before bed make any sense at all?" she asked.
Here is her full post.
"My kid is done with homework. I just sent an email to her school letting her know she's all done. I said "drastically reduce" but I was trying to be polite because she's finished.
"My 10-year-old loves learning. She independently reads 10-12 chapter books a year and regularly researches topics that interest her (right now she's writing a story about wolves). She takes coding classes, loves painting, and likes something called Roblox that I don't fully understand. But over the past four years I've noticed her getting more and more stressed when it comes to school. And by stressed I mean chest pains, waking up early, and dreading school in general.
"She's in school from 8:15am-4pm daily so someone please explain to me why she should have 2-3 hours of homework to do every night?
"How does homework until 6:30, then dinner, then an hour to relax (or finish the homework) before bed make any sense at all?
"Is family time not important? Is time spent just being a child relaxing at home not important? Or should she become some kind of junior workaholic at 10 years old?
"Did you know that in Finland homework is banned? And that they have the highest rate of college bound students in all of Europe? Children do not need hours of homework time to succeed yet we act like sitting at a kitchen table after a full day at school somehow makes sense. It does not. IT DOES NOT. IT. DOES. NOT.
"Children need downtime after school the same way adults need downtime after work. They need to play with their siblings. They need to bond with their parents in a relaxed atmosphere, not one where everyone is stressed about fractions because - SURPRISE- I'm not a teacher. Children need time to just enjoy their childhoods or is that just for the weekends (although we do homework on Sundays also).
"My kid is all done with homework. If the school wants to punish her for it, then I guess I'll have to figure out how to homeschool. I'm very nervous about it because although I work from home, I do work. I also have a 3-year-old who only goes to preschool two mornings a week. And a 7-year-old in second grade. I'll have to hire a tutor to help me and will need to find a group of parents doing the same thing, but I have no choice at this point.
"We all want our children to grow up and succeed in the world. While I believe in education, I don't believe for one second that academics should consume a child's life. I don't care if she goes to Harvard one day. I just want her to be intelligent, well-rounded, kind, inspired, charitable, spiritual and have balance in her life. I want her to be mentally and emotionally healthy. I want her to know that work is not life, it's part of life. Work will not fulfill you. It will not keep you warm- family, friends, community, giving back, and being a good person do that.
"I suppose I'll hear from her school tomorrow. We have some decisions to make. But going forward, this is a homework-free household and I don't care who knows it. My kid needs to be a kid."
Laditan has received massive support from teachers as well as other parents, who agree that the pressure on children is a bit too much to take. While one comment says: "As a fourth grade teacher, I fully support this," another says, "I absolutely and positively agree." Numerous other users have lauded the blogger for taking a stand.
