Quick poll out of interest

My kids (older teens) get A honors in school, and are in general very good little people. All I ask of them at this point is they do the usual chores, one task for me in the yard, and get an hour of exercise every day. All the above may add up to two hours total, and since they have no school work and are not likely to get any the other 22 hours are their own. So they go to bed at 2 or 3 am and crawl out at noon, and spend their waking hours playing interactive games online. They are just loving this whole pandemic business. But my wife is becoming increasingly annoyed with their lack of motivation. I tell her that other kids probably have the same schedule right now, but perhaps not. How are youse guys handling your kids schedules right now?

My youngest is in college.  She does her work on line with only moderate nagging.  She's actually been pretty good by her standards at getting to chores.  Both other than that she appears to be just a lump in bed watching youtube and netflix.  I'm actually fine with that given the current situation.

I say chill and leave them too it.  

My two boys, 9th and 11th grade, are doing pretty much what yours are doing.  Not that this is a particularly good thing.

I have restricted the hours of internet availability for certain devices.

For me, it has nothing to do with what "other kids" are doing, but what is best for our children.

Well,  my oldest (16) is giving us massive grief.  But the 14yo twins and 7yo are doing awesome with side projects

To paraphrase what someone else said:  "No population is more uniquely prepared for staying inside and doing nothing productive"

My 16 yo would love to be up on video games till 2am. After this started, we had a discussion about the importance of keeping a schedule and keeping up with the school work and we came to an agreement. Friday and Saturday evenings he can pretty much do what he wants, but during the week, he's on a schedule. Up at 8, school work until 12. Lunch till 1:30 or so. Finish school work in the afternoon. From there, he can do what he wants, but he's in bed by 10:30-11:00. The absolute times are relaxed so plus or minus an hour is fine. 

We've seen a huge increase in families walking and kids biking in our neighborhood. It actually seems like people are taking this break from work/school to get some exercise here. 

DD#2 is a little outside your age range at 24.  She had been living at home after graduation, working retail, and was looking for a career job when this all broke out.  She actually quit a little before this started.

Since then she's basically in her room from 1 am to 3 pm every day.  She comes out for dinner and about every other evening to play games or watch a movie with us.  About every other day she takes a run outside.

Other than that I have no idea how she's filling her time.

Did most states not go to online classes? 

My 11th grade daughter was going to bed as I was getting up to go to work at 5:30am last week.  
 

Her school is guaranteeing her grades won't drop lower than what it was when this started.  She is blowing off her A classes and focusing on her C class but yes, she's living on second shift.  

Toyman01 (Forum Supporter) said:

Did most states not go to online classes? 

Initially, there was much talk and ballyhoo about online learning.  They have walked that back to the point where I am legitimately concerned that we have witnessed the end of public education.  I predict a massive shift to homeschooling.

In reply to 1988RedT2 :

Our county had the basics for online classes already set up. The teachers were instructed to have at least 2 weeks of curriculum set up before things went sideways. It took them less than a week to make the transition to 100% online classes. I was actually impressed with how they handled it. 

My kids are 17, 12 and 10.  The oldest would stay on his computer until 2am, we have limited it and so far he is staying up with his school work.  With my 12 year old its like pulling teeth to get him to do his school work and he and his sister, the youngest, are getting on each others nerves so that has been fun.  My daughter, 10, is keeping up wth her school work without too much prodding.

The kids will stay glued to electronics for the most part but we have been going on bike rides and such. 

Toyman01 (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to 1988RedT2 :

Our county already had the basics for online classes already set up. The teachers were instructed to have at least 2 weeks of curriculum set up before things went sideways. It took them less than a week to make the transition to 100% online classes. I was actually impressed with how they handled it. 

Wait, so your kids are actually doing schoolwork in an online format?

My kindergartener is still on a healthy schedule; possibly healthier than when she was in school, having to wake up at 630am. Up by 8am, in bed the latest at 9pm; no naps. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are the usual times. Two snacks throughout the day.

The district has created "lessons" for all the kids. Our grade is supposed to do one lesson per day, yet the lesson is so quick and simple that throughout the day, I make sure we do more and at the end of the day, we'll usually go on a 20-30 minutes bike ride around the block to get her out of the house and moving. I've been having her try to read to me with a few learning books we have with the hopes by the time first grade hits, she'll be close to reading on her own for the simpler stuff. She's only supposed to recognize 55 sight words by the time she completes kindergarten and she's taken care of that much sooner than expected.

Throughout the day, we'll see the same groups of kids just being outside the entire day. A few of them are in her class and we never see them when we do our Zoom class meetings, so who knows what those other parents are doing. Also never seen anything other than the same two or three parents also posting their kids' homework on our SeeSaw app for the teacher.

1988RedT2 said:

Toyman01 (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to 1988RedT2 :

Our county already had the basics for online classes already set up. The teachers were instructed to have at least 2 weeks of curriculum set up before things went sideways. It took them less than a week to make the transition to 100% online classes. I was actually impressed with how they handled it. 

Wait, so your kids are actually doing schoolwork in an online format?

Yes. He is doing the same classes, under the same teachers. The teachers drop the day's work online and the kids have until midnight to get the work done. 

Edit: The teachers are available online during school hours to answer questions and explain things. They will also do video instruction when necessary. 

Our teachers were required to go to school and start on line lesson plans, but they argued that some kids without access to internet or computers would be left behind. So it seems to have been more or less left up to them and they have done largely nothing at this point. Our kids first day back after spring break was Monday, and they each were given an hour perhaps of work each in one subject. Nothing else has been forthcoming, and I do not expect much.  

I am reminded though that 100 years ago the reason for school was to go and learn the fundamentals, but now the reason for school seems to be to go and compete for high marks. Just learning is no longer good enough. At least until this year. I expect that all these thousands of kids will go back next year having missed a half year, and there will not be so much as a ripple in the space time continuum.

bearmtnmartin said:

Our teachers were required to go to school and start on line lesson plans, but they argued that some kids without access to internet or computers would be left behind. So it seems to have been more or less left up to them and they have done largely nothing at this point. Our kids first day back after spring break was Monday, and they each were given an hour perhaps of work each in one subject. Nothing else has been forthcoming, and I do not expect much.  

Several of the local internet providers in my county offered to supply internet service at no charge for the duration to any children without access so they could continue schooling. 

bearmtnmartin said:

My kids (older teens) get A honors in school, and are in general very good little people. All I ask of them at this point is they do the usual chores, one task for me in the yard, and get an hour of exercise every day. All the above may add up to two hours total, and since they have no school work and are not likely to get any the other 22 hours are their own. So they go to bed at 2 or 3 am and crawl out at noon, and spend their waking hours playing interactive games online. They are just loving this whole pandemic business. But my wife is becoming increasingly annoyed with their lack of motivation. I tell her that other kids probably have the same schedule right now, but perhaps not. How are youse guys handling your kids schedules right now?

My kids do home school. School has sent home computers for each child on March 18th. 

Wake up 7:30am . Breakfast and TV (netflix) for 45 min. That is their only TV time during the day. 

Home Scool Starts 8:30 am. Attendance is checked and is mandatory. 

Finish 3:30 pm. That includes recess and lunch.  

After "school," they play basketball and do guitar or ride bikes on the street. Then at 5:30pm shower. At 6pm they help make dinner. Dinner at 6:30pm.

6:30-8pm, is their free time, legos/books/reading/drawing whatever they want. Bed at 8:30am sharp.  

Sat/Sun - They can do whatever they want.  We don't have cable, we don't have any video games, and we don't have any devices (game consoles/ipads etc). 

In reply to Toyman01 (Forum Supporter) :

We have a rural population with a number of native reserves. Parity will be difficult. But just like racing and real life, the best funded and prepared team will get the best results. 

One is in college, she is in her apartment working harder than ever because she still has a full class load, but now its all online and there are no peer groups or teacher's office hours.

My son is 8. He gets only minimal work from the school, which he does in a few minutes. He tries to use the online learning sites they recommend but gets bored quickly. We have been lenient in letting him play Legend of Zelda for hours at a clip because he gets his school work done first. We are lucky in that we have two neighbor kids whose parents are still working out of the home (cop and a nurse) and we are helping with each other's kids. Having someone to play with keeps them occupied for a long time and gets them outside a fair bit. We feel bad that we cant spend more time with him because mom and I both work 10 hours days from home now, but yesterday he learned to ride a bike, so we are making whatever time we can. 

Kids are definitely staying up later, but the 14YO 8th grader is still in bed by 10pm, no video games after dinner.   Being on a reduced work schedule I'm up later every night.  We're playing board games as a family almost every night, and Plague has become the house favorite. 

My kids are attending school online on a reduced schedule. 

Their sleeping schedules have slipped off of their normal routines. We're pushing them to spend some of their time outside of school doing chores, but their mental wellbeing is suffering due to the quarantine. We're the type of family that usually does a lot of things outdoors and away from home, so this entire situation has been a massive disruption to their normal way of life. 

We're trying to give them as much slack as we can while keeping them on track academically and getting them what little exercise we can.

We have a 16yo son and 14yo daughter. So far our school district has been pathetic. They did get some reading to do the first week (we're on week 3). Since then it's been quiet on the school front. We've kept the kids on a pretty normal sleep schedule. Daughter is generally in bed by 10PM, son by 10:30. We give them a little ore on the weekends. They are responsible for their own laundry, dishes every other night and some help cooking dinner. My son has been playing online games with his friends pretty much non stop, my daughter spends most of her time watching videos and painting pictures.