Family related work in school

[towerwatchman]

Hi ,

In a school class( grade 1) , my daughter’s school teacher asked them to make 3 columns and write names / draw father , mother , sibling ( Family )

My daughter wrote the parents names and drew them in the 2 columns and said 0 siblings in the third.

I saw that work/ page and felt a bit sad. It is a fact but I felt sad and was wondering if my daughter would have felt sad writing “ I have 0 siblings”. I
Felt a bit sad and guilty but didn’t ask my child about her feelings etc.

What di you think ? Should i talk to her or just let it go?
Also wondered if this is a good exercise in schools ?

 

[ronaldus]

@towerwatchman Why catastrophize something for your kid where they may not be fazed? If she seems down, absolutely ask her what’s up, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to preemptively insert your own feelings of guilt and sadness into her school projects.

 

[towerwatchman]

@ronaldus Thank u . I was thinking on similar lines that may be this doesn’t make her sad rather she has stated this as a mere fact.
Thanks for responding.

 

[unseenunknown]

@towerwatchman There are definitely other kids that wrote this too. Many families I know didn’t have a 2nd child until 1st/2nd grade, so I wouldn’t worry too much. Also, there will definitely be other onlys! There’s at least 4 in my daughter’s 3rd grade.

 

[ababwaalijaz]

@ronaldus Yep! No need to make this more of an issue than it is! And it's common for early school projects to have some discussion about students' family members - OP is being overly sensitive here. Projecting your own sadness/insecurity does the child no favors, and she may start to feel negative about being an only child when she has zero reason to! Parents attitudes and mindsets absolutely affect how their children perceive things!

 

[lee220187]

@towerwatchman Hi!

I am a lower elementary teacher and I would say this is an appropriate activity. It’s true, she does have 0 siblings. She is also most likely not the only one in her class to have 0. I don’t know what the overall unit was (math about me, families unit, baby animals, etc). I’m sure the teacher will address different types of families with care.

It also sounds a little like you are projecting feelings onto your daughter here. I get it, I’m OAD mostly by choice but also by circumstance, and I wonder if my daughter will be sad not having siblings. But I also don’t want her to think it’s something to be ashamed of, something that she should avoid talking about, or that it is a negative thing that makes her different from her peers. If you want your daughter (and her classmates) to see a OAD household as normal, then they have to see examples of it and talk about. Just like if we want to normalize children having two mommies, no mommies, step-families, etc. These are all valid types of families that should be talked about and celebrated!

I have a book I love to read with my classes when we talk about our families at the beginning of the year (so that I can get to know my students and their family dynamics). It’s called “One Family” and it talks about families of all sizes! Another good one is “All Kinds of Families”.

 

[sillyspice]

@lee220187 Popping on this comment to say Families Can is another great book about different types of families!

 

[lee220187]

@sillyspice Thank you!! I’ll check that out!

 

[mayu001]

@towerwatchman Plenty of people have 0 siblings and are happy. Having a sibling does not equal happiness. A lot of people that do have siblings would agree that they can be a pain in the ass sometimes.

 

[ababwaalijaz]

@anonymous21 I kind of love that she'd prefer add a dog to her family over a sibling - I am sure many kids feel the same!

 

[anonymous21]

@ababwaalijaz Agreed. She mentioned one time a while back she wanted a sister, but it was fleeting, and I didn’t chase that (or explain the biology of it all) any further. She’d much rather have a dog. That’s a whole other conversation, of course, but that’s the plan for her in the near future.

 

[fmc4auburn]

@towerwatchman I’m an only child. Things came up like this all the time growing up. I never thought twice. Don’t worry.

 

[nancymsl]

@towerwatchman Commenting because my 3.5 year old just finished a semester of “who we are” in her early years class. A lot of the work centered around identifying and naming family members. A lot of her classmates are also getting brand new baby siblings. My toddler mentioned a few times how she wanted a baby sister and we talked about that and how hard it is to take care of a newborn in the house and how I’d have less time to spend with her. I didn’t avoid talking about it, and I didn’t approach it with any sadness. We love our family just as it is!

Also, her teachers included our dog as a sibling, so that was unexpected and fun!

 

[miranda97]

@towerwatchman There are going to be kids who have to write 0 in the mom and/or dad column. Those are the kids I would feel bad for.

 

[ayen57]

@towerwatchman I mean, she had to write a number of siblings. So 0 siblings is the number she has. So I don't think that necessarily has any emotion associated with it, she was just answering the question.

And no, I don't think these activities are appropriate in school. Having zero siblings is actually pretty small potatoes. There are all kinds of family situations where the kid would have had a hard time complying with the expectations of this exercise (foster care, absent parent, lives with grandparents, etc). I mean yeah they could draw some substitute relative but it's clear that's not the expectation and that make them feel unnecessarily different. I'm sure some people are going to say "Well part of life is learning that not everything revolves around you" and "why do we have to ruin something that's fun for 90% of kids just because it might hurt someone's feelings?" Okay, I get it but i disagree. There are plenty of fun activities that don't have this element, it's totally unnecessary and there's no benefit from it.

I also don't see what any of this has to do with learning.

So I'm going disagree a little with other comments and say if you are comfortable talking with the teacher go for it but have low expectations.

 

[kiritsugu]

@towerwatchman I hate things like this unless they’re inclusive. Because some kids have one mommy or two daddies or grandparents.

 

[katrina2017]

@towerwatchman Plenty of kids also dont have a mom & a dad so agreeing with the other comment that says that this is an inappropriate & honestly homophobic assignment

 

[lee220187]

@katrina2017 But it is inclusive. There’s a space to write how many mommies. And as a teacher, I would already know and adjust the activity if there was a child who lived with grandparents - everyone’s pages would have spots for grandparents. There’s no way the teacher doesn’t already know whether or not to include that info, especially this far into the school year.

Edit:

I replied to the wrong comment, but still. This isn’t homophobic??? If anything, it’s expressly not, considering the parent spots aren’t both prefilled with “1”. Just like a child can leave the siblings blank, they can leave a parent spot blank. It would be homophobic to not give children a chance to talk about their family structure just because it’s different.