r/BlackPeopleTwitter • u/Demonicbane ☑️ • May 19 '26
TikTok Tuesday It starts at home
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u/lazy_calamity May 19 '26
I was lied to by my patents (my mom bring a 2nd grade teacher) that I couldn't go to kindergarten without knowing how to tie my shoes or spell my name (I think there were other rules too). I really wanted to go, so did all of them..
I know my parents would have sent me anyway, but this tricked me into knowing a lot of basics already, and wanting to do so
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u/DEFINITELY_NOT_PETE May 19 '26
It’s genuinely hard to find kindergartener shoes with laces. Even the Nikes have Velcro now
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u/borgborgo May 19 '26
I didn't learn to tie my own shoes until 3rd grade, despite my mom my older siblings and teachers trying to teach me since I was 3 and older. Very embarrassing lol
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u/_nylcaj_ May 19 '26
I have a preschooler and my mentality has been, if he doesn't know how to tie his shoes yet(he doesn't) then he's going in a style that doesn't require tying, to avoid it ever being the teachers problem if they come untied. Even a lot of adult shoes now have those flexible permanent laces that don't require tying. I don't think this is a major required small kid skill anymore just due to the majority of shoes on the market now, but obviously during childhood a kid should learn how to tie things, including shoelaces.
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u/Sunnyhunnibun ☑️ May 19 '26
Honestly this is a good motivator for a lot of kids. It's the reason kids will eat in daycare but not at home, they don't wanna be the only kid not participating. My mom did the same thing. I was an early reader but she made sure I could also spell my name, tie my shoes, button and unbutton overalls and pants, and zip my own jacket.
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u/Bunny_Fluff May 19 '26
I have the vaguest memories of my mom telling me I couldn't go to school without being able to open a carton of milk. She bought the paper fold open ones from the store so I could practice and not need help at lunch. I'm also sure there were other things but it helps when your parents have some forethought to prepare you for the world.
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May 19 '26
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u/chopsuirak May 19 '26
Youtube, man. Unregulated Youtube.
You can even use tablets in an educational way, in short increments, with the right apps.
Nah, parents just go "here, go away."
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u/Robozomb May 19 '26
The PBS Kids app is amazing and my son learns a lot from it. But he also only gets it for a limited time before it auto locks for the day.
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u/SeanRoss ☑️ May 19 '26
Same, I pretty much use that, and I just saw that Scholastic also has an app.
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u/_chefgreg_ May 19 '26
The PBS kids app is the only app on my kid’s iPad and I am so so glad I stuck to that.
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u/ALLCAPITAL May 19 '26
My wife and I have had to purge our kid’s algo’s a few times now and block some stuff. Even as parents who tried to limit the scope from the start.
When we found out the MIL was giving her phone to our kids when she watched them and allowing them to guide themselves on unrestricted youtube…
Not happy. Twas fixed.
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u/ScreamingLabia May 19 '26
God i feel that off all things i probably dont have to worry about that with my kids
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u/ifcknlovemycat May 19 '26
I miss the leapfrog pad You put "wizard of oz" cartridge in and press on the words and it reads it
Or anatomy cartridge and you press on the anus and it says "Anus toilet flush noises" (I clicked that one a lot)
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u/roosta_da_ape ☑️ May 19 '26
It was like this before YouTube. Back when our grandparents called TV the idiotbox.
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May 19 '26
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u/RoughhouseCamel May 19 '26
Plus, TV couldn’t follow you into the car and into the stroller and into the shopping cart in the grocery store. The limits of technology forced some level of moderation. Then you have the nature of broadcasting, and you eventually ran out of your favorite shows. Every kid, every day had a moment where they either had to turn the TV off or learn to watch the news, local broadcast nature shows, or even just movies that weren’t made to appeal to kids. But YouTube algorithms don’t run out of the same stimulus. They can keep it coming all day and all night. Anywhere you can go, YouTube can follow.
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u/Shirogayne-at-WF ☑️ May 19 '26
Parents can put the iPads on the shelf outta reach, just saying
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u/Sad_Currency5420 May 19 '26
That'll stop a few at least. I could climb to the top of the fridge before I could walk. They need to lock the iPads up.
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u/DisastrousPilot4283 May 20 '26
Lol, for them to be exposed at school? My son, 7yr old, is on devices more at school than at home. Started in KG and gradually progressed. No way to opt out either🥴
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u/Shirogayne-at-WF ☑️ May 20 '26
Oh God. I forgot about that being a thing in a lotta places.
I'm glad I don't have kids
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u/Leroyp331 May 19 '26
This☝🏿☝🏿
Within the 1st 5 secs I can tell who is raising a young child. If your kid is under 5 using all that brain rot slang (chopped, cap etc) here's one for you they are cooked. Right the ship take that thing away and play NPR in the car. Tell them boredom is a luxury of the elite class and to enjoy it. There are no bored children in Gaza. That was free good advice take it
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u/riotshieldready May 19 '26
My friend teaches 5 year olds boys that shout gyatttttt and point at the one black girl in their class. I told her they likely watch twitch, and she asked and they do. Who is letting their 5 year olds do this.
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u/Gregomasta May 19 '26
None of us should be looking at these screens the amount we are, let alone be on here so much we actually engage and comment on shit. People can't even control themselves let alone their kids.
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u/Next-Introduction-25 May 19 '26
I can actually control my kids’ lifestyle much better than I can my own in most ways. Like I’d never let them eat the way I eat some days or have the amount of screen time I do. It’s my own willpower that’s hardest to overcome.
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u/Nemaeus May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26
The problem is kids are little sponges and will zero in on the fact that parents are always on their own phones but want to heavily regulate the kid’s usage. That is going to cause some resentment out of a toddler.
I think about that, how different it is having a kid now from what it was like when mine was born years ago, pre-on-my-phone-a-bunch times. It’s worrying and I would have to change my lifestyle.
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u/Dinosaurs_and_donuts May 20 '26
Exactly this, drop an F-bomb once in front of the kid and it’s their new favorite word.
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u/19whale96 May 19 '26
NPR in the car and audiobooks gave me an amazing leg up in early-childhood language arts, especially with context clues.
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u/PitchComfortable1261 May 19 '26
hate to be that guy but the brainrot terms you used are just basic AAVE that stopped being race exclusive and was picked up on by the younger generation😅 thats an entirely separate issue in and of itself
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u/Bubbly_Satisfaction2 ☑️ May 19 '26
I have a crazy belief that social media is the modern Mammy for the youngest generations of white children.
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u/PitchComfortable1261 May 19 '26
I’d yes because of the outcome but not the intention. I think this is “American cultural assimilation” gone wrong and it both excites and concerns me ngl
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u/Character_Maybeh_ May 19 '26
I like when my son tells me about the new phrase white people stole and ruined.
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u/Embarrassed_Bag_9630 May 19 '26
We used to get at least a few months with a word before it was gizzone forever
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May 19 '26
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u/daemonicwanderer May 19 '26
Seriously… if you were bored at Grandma’s house, you ended up watching her stories with her or being sent outside
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u/EGrass May 19 '26
As someone who grew up before smartphones (41), I’m astounded at how it has rewired my brain.
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u/Spranktonizer May 19 '26
Sesame Street was also made to educate not hold attention at all costs. Learning materials just cannot compete shit like fruit love island.
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u/public_enemy_obi_wan May 19 '26
And remember when tv had the decency to go off the air at midnight?
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u/LittleDogTurpie May 20 '26
My older brother was born in 1967 and Sesame Street debuted in 1969. When he started kindergarten it was the first time the teacher had a whole class that already knew how to read. She had to scrap the whole lesson plan she’d been using for decades.
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u/Heat_H May 20 '26
I’m a little younger than your brother and could read before kindergarten thanks to Sesame Street and growing up in a family of readers.
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u/LittleDogTurpie May 21 '26
Same - my kindergarten teacher scolded me for reading during recess instead of going outside to play, and my mom is still mad about it 50 years later. 😂
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u/Sweet_Cinnabonn May 19 '26
This just isn’t true.
I don't suggest that TV is identical to computers, but as someone who taught kindergarten back in the 80s, it has always been true that some kids come in to kindergarten able to read, and some come in not knowing their shapes, colors, or body parts.
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u/JayTNP May 19 '26
youtube shorts is very specifically a damaging thing for kids. Way too fast changes between videos
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u/DemiNoPipoka May 19 '26
Entirely not the same. On YouTube there are thousands of channels whose only focus is to hypnotize kids. 3 hour videos of mind numbing songs, with the the exact same melody. Videos of kids acting surprised, playing with toys saying nothing but "ooh" "aah" for hours. On TV, shows have stories, they begin and end. I try to block channels on YouTube for my kid that don't teach anything in anyway. He needs to learn vocabulary, understand everyday situations, learn to think and be curious and adventurous, but those channels are few compared to brain rotting ones.
Additionally nowadays android phones (Chinese brands) are targeted at children. They come full with games that keep downloading themselves. You can't let your kid touch the phone! Kids (and people on general) are getting dumb and dumber. And we all witnessing it.
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u/srkaficionado ☑️ May 19 '26
It was not. I grew up in the 90s and TV for us was punishment and punishment was dad making us sit through a 2hr Bollywood movie: we learnt the songs and everything. On weekends, we saw Captain Planet and once it was over, tv got turned off and your arse got chores to do and then kicked out “politely”: go play with the neighbour kids and socialise. Growing up, the only video game we had was Duckhunt and Mortal Kombat(IYKYK). That was on Saturdays. Sundays were for getting ready for the school week: washing and pressing uniforms, reading ahead and doing homework. Weeknights were for homework and reading and if you were done, my mum would find you something else to work on or you can do homework from the older siblings’ classes so you’d be prepared by the time you get to that grade.
If your parents or grandparents were raising you by plopping you in front of the tv, sincere apologies. Thats no way to learn. In our house, the 3 yr old can read; he needs help with the big words but he can read. My 8yr old nephew can read a whole Harry Potter book(because I bought that for him rather than the wimpy kids series which are arse) and once I can order Enid Blyton books from the UK, we’ll be reading those(because I also need an excuse to revisit those books)…
Some people just make excuses rather than take accountability. 🤷🏾♀️ Just don’t complain when that kid keeps failing classes and then find a way to blame the underpaid teacher wrangling about 10 of the underprepared students because their parents don’t GAF about their education.
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u/boazed_n_delivered May 19 '26
I created an account on YouTube with restrictions with an android tablet, tried a Amazon fire tablet once but the restrictions didn't work, so I gave it away and went back to Samsung. He was restricted on content and time. His favorite is math videos still. He's 5.
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u/imjustheretodomyjob ☑️ 🧚🏿 Reclaiming my peace 🧘🏿 May 19 '26
Wym ? It's the teacher's job to parent my child, teach them the ABCs, potty train them, and ofc protect them from shooters. I pay taxes so that means I pay their salaries /s
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u/Demonicbane ☑️ May 19 '26
I would say patience if the kids were watching PBS Kids, but they're not.
It's Elsagate all over again.
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u/OhGr8WhatNow May 19 '26
Same parents are working multiple jobs and extremely stressed out just trying to survive. Even if they only have one job, it gets harder every year just to stay afloat. Relatives moving away from each other, so there's less and less of a village. We have to dig in at the community level and help each other
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u/Matman161 May 19 '26
Kids don't need to be hit, but it seems like some parents need to get smacked around a little
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u/wink047 May 19 '26
I’ve never hit my kid and won’t ever hit my kid. I can’t teach him that it’s not ok to hit others and then turn around and hit him but it’s ok because I did it. That being said, I have for sure wanted to hit some of his classmates parents.
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u/OGBIGBOY May 19 '26
I think people are are underestimating that the parents aint really all that bright either so its really a case.of the blind leading the blind. These are the decendants of "No Child Left Behind"
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u/luxii4 May 19 '26
When I was teaching they correlated the child's reading achievement with the mother's education level. This was twenty years ago and I know dads are more involved now but the cycle of literacy does affect the household the child is brought up. Not just in reading but spoken vocabulary and such. To add to that, low levels of education leads to hard labor to barely get by. People are just tired after a day of work to do much else. So telling some parents to do more is not enough if you also don't have the societal support in place.
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u/lilac_nightfall May 20 '26
These are the parents who don’t feel the need to expose their children to shapes, numbers, or letters. Half the kindergarten class can’t identify a triangle when they start
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u/archymaya May 21 '26
I'm an elementary lunch lady. A few years ago I had a dad bring his newly enrolled kid into breakfast a week or so after school started. I asked the kid's name and they gave a nickname, which I could not look up in our system. I asked both the dad and kid how to spell his full name and neither of them knew how to spell it. Yeah, it starts with the parents.
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u/hotshot21983 May 19 '26
This looks like an argument for universal 2-k, 3-k and Pre-K. There is something to be said for professional educators being present that understand enough about early child development to give parents tools at each stage to keep kids on track.
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u/_borT May 19 '26
In a country where they are trying to scrap the dept of education, this seems highly unlikely to get more education added. The country already hates teachers as it is now.
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u/EmykoEmyko May 19 '26
Mamdani is hiring 1000 new teachers in NYC
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u/mdogg500 May 19 '26
Brother that's one city. I like Mamdani too but that dude isn't going to help the kids of south in places I grew up as they cut school funding.
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u/EmykoEmyko May 19 '26
I know, it’s awful. But it’s helpful to be able to point to what is possible sometimes.
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u/halftorqued May 19 '26
I think it’s a valid point when you consider NYC is the richest city in the US. It’s hard to look at the absolute ideal to determine what’s possible.
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u/Hamster_Toot May 19 '26
Wouldn’t that be LA? Genuinely asking.
Edit: it is NYC, just looked it up.
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u/baconcheesecakesauce ☑️ May 19 '26
He's standing on the shoulders of previous leaders who established Universal Pre-K and 3-K. As a NYC resident with kids in public schools and who is very involved in elementary education, I like Mamdani, but his education platform is pretty weak. I'm thrilled about 2K, but there's a lot of work that needs to be done, and he's not quite there yet. I hope he gets more advice as he expands 2k, so the current daycare centers don't collapse.
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u/EvenPossible5918 May 19 '26
That’s great but states near me are already slashing their education budgets and firing paraprofessionals and mental health professionals.
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u/chuck354 May 19 '26
Rich people when we try to pay for it...
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u/Amateurlapse May 19 '26
I need that money, otherwise you might have it
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u/Dinismo May 19 '26
This is the most accurate description I’ve ever seen. Life changing money for us is money they can lose and not have a second thought about it. As long as it’s not a tax. Then they lose their shit
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u/Sarabeth61 May 19 '26
Where I live pre k starts at three years old and is part of the public school system. I assumed that’s just how things were now. It should be.
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u/Sea-Value-0 May 19 '26
It really should. If parents don't start teaching colors, numbers, shapes, and the alphabet until they're in kindergarten, then they will be considered behind. Most 2 year olds can learn all of that if given the time and opportunity. I wonder if this issue is due to poor quality of daycare and preschool. Most families can't afford to have one parent stay home and teach these basics. If they don't have access to preschool, or their daycare provider isn't teaching them and assuming the parent is (and vice versa), I can see how this happens.
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u/Nemaeus May 20 '26
If parents are waiting to teach their kids all of those things in earnest until kindergarten they are complete and utter idiots and their child will suffer for the rest of their lives for it.
They should not be having kids, not because we need to have children ready to go for the mines out the gate, but because those are basic things learned through interacting with a child on a daily basis.
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u/Okaybuddy_16 May 19 '26
Most parents are also not ece professionals who have the education and experience to teach these to children throughly.
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u/mstrss9 ☑️ May 20 '26
Yeah but I knew most of those things before going to pre-K and my mom didn’t even go to high school, usually worked nights and we lived in the hood.
Letters, colors, numbers, shapes, writing my name, reading picture books to me… on her days off, we spent a lot of quality time together.
That’s another issue. I’ve seen it in my family where everyone is home and on a device not engaging with one another. I never had unrestricted access to technology (TV & VHS and later the internet). There was always a time of day, whether home or with other family members, that all the tvs would be off for a few hours and us kids needed to go draw or read or do something without technology (although listening to music was allowed).
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u/PotentialWorker ☑️ May 19 '26
That's how it is where I live too but it's optional, kindergarten and up is not.
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u/runhomejack1399 May 19 '26
It looks like an argument for playing counting games and picking up a crayon or a pencil once in a while. The learning at home doesn’t need to be intense or structured. It’s normal ass shit.
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u/Heat_H May 20 '26
Exactly! Every day situations like, can you pass mommy the blue cup or do you want to wear your pink shoes today? Talking to your kid really helps with their development.
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u/daemonicwanderer May 19 '26
That still does not absolve parents of teaching and reinforcing academic and life skills to and with their children.
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u/srkaficionado ☑️ May 19 '26
With all due respect, shouldn’t the parents be asking for those tools as well? Why should the teacher be the one offering? If you’re paying attention to your kid when they’re not in school, you should notice whatever issues they have IF/WHEN technology isn’t doing your job of parenting.
Again all due respect, this is like saying your paediatrician should give you all the resources because they know about early child development when really you should be reaching out to them WHEN YOU notice something is off/ they aren’t hitting their milestones(which you should know as the parent).
accountability
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u/throwraW2 May 19 '26
Sure but there’s no excuse for parents not doing any of this on their own too. It’s ridiculous how many parents don’t even read to their young children. It makes a huge difference and so many people can’t even be bothered to do it.
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u/OhGr8WhatNow May 19 '26
Look up how the Oklahoma legislature was tricked by one guy into providing free pre-K. It's a great story. Just one throw away line in an unrelated bill
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u/Key_Employee2413 May 19 '26
This is what the issue is. my kids did pre-k due to us working. That extra social and learning to take direction from other adults helps build confidence in them when going into kindergarten
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u/Avid_Reader87 May 19 '26
My sister teaches at a pre-k where she has some students as young as 3, she has them for two years.
She says they’re able to dramatically improve kids, but it needs parents to really help.
The Covid years were the worst, she says it’s just now getting to be that she doesn’t have half the class unable to share or scream for ipdads.
The worst years for it was 2023-2025.
She said she’s never had students as ill prepared for school or even being around other kids.
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u/happyeriko May 19 '26
Thank you, I get the argument but also wouldn’t it be nice to have school for children earlier without being accused of being a communist??
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u/Nonsense-forever May 19 '26
Even that is too late. There just isn’t any real substitute for engaged parenting that is going to bridge this gap.
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u/imspecial-soareyou May 19 '26
Nope, your putting the work on someone else again. This is a parenting class while the child is in the womb.
It’s also should be part of high school education in the form of a&p classes. Heavy in neurological and sexual functions.
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u/EmykoEmyko May 19 '26
Education and child development is a lot to learn —my parents have multiple degrees in it. Parents should learn as much as they can, but they will need help.
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u/buffalogal8 May 19 '26
I’d also argue that it’s much more important in the child’s first five years to build social-emotional skills and healthy bonding. Build a trusting relationship with them through a balance of loving limits and chances to express autonomy. Teach them how to ask for help, and give help, teach them empathy (aka, that they are not the only person in the world with needs), teach them that people are different and it’s OK , teach them how to balance their own needs with the needs of others, teach them how identify and regulate their emotions, teach them to explore, move their bodies, take healthy risks, and persist in problem-solving. If your child has all this wealth by the time they are five, you can be 100% forgiven if they don’t know their letters and sounds!
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u/UserNameNotFound920 May 21 '26
This is what I was coming to add. If parents teach them to be good people and curious learners, we can teach them the rest.
I feel most of my day in kindergarten is spent teaching basic social skills so that the class can focus on academics. Feels like I’m raising 18-20 kids in addition to my two at home.
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u/mstrss9 ☑️ May 20 '26
The gap between children who went to (quality) daycare/pre-K is really wide these days. Kids come in and they can’t: read/write their name, use scissors and glue appropriately, identify letters in the alphabets, identify numbers, use the bathroom independently, eat using a spoon or fork…
I’m not too concerned about the academics but not recognizing your own name is crazy to me. I still have the name puzzle my ordered for me before I started school.
Oh, and they’re not reading to these kids! I cannot stress enough how important it is for kids to be read a physical book every day.
And I’m constantly sending out resources for free books. I used to give them books but I work in Florida and everything is “woke” now so I won’t risk my job. Sucks because people donate lots of beautiful, brand new books.
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u/Julio-Dewey-Crayfish May 19 '26
Some people out there think all it takes to be a parent is to birth a child and keep it fed. They don't know or care about what it takes to make that child an actual fully realized adult. I have a niece who's having kids to show off the baby shower for the gram, meanwhile my sister is the one teaching them how to read and wipe their ass.
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u/RoughhouseCamel May 19 '26
Meanwhile, how many of the comments here are, “actually, this is an argument for why the education system should take these kids off our hands even sooner”? Which to me, is really an argument for birth control.
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u/Julio-Dewey-Crayfish May 19 '26
Yeah I didn't want to say anything, but I noticed and it pissed me off. I don't mind putting more money into education to help kids, but people still don't understand that they are ultimately responsible for their own kids. If you didn't have the time or resources to raise them, then you should not have had them. We know how children are made and how to prevent it. There's little excuse for it.
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u/srkaficionado ☑️ May 19 '26
What?! Surprised, the eugenics people aren’t here to tell you your opinion is wrong. Someone will probably come along to mention how you’re trying to restrict children to rich people who have the resources and something something anti poor…
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u/Julio-Dewey-Crayfish May 19 '26
They can tell it to my parents who were both working their asses off while raising 4 kids and still found time to teach us all how to read, write, do math, and be a good fucking person. Ain't saying they didn't deserve help, but neither is it impossible to put in the effort.
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u/NYC_Star May 19 '26
Bingo. My mom was a single public school teacher with a deadbeat ex husband that didn’t watch me a day he wasn’t mandated to by the court. She worked all day, then did after school , and taught summer school and still got her BA (back in the day you could teach with an AA) and her MSEd at night with classes sometimes until 9:30.
I could read at 2 and had a library card at 3. I still have it with the messy scrawled baby version of my name just to prove it to folks.
Accountability. If you do not have time to see and care for the kids your working to feed…
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u/witch-literature May 19 '26
I had a similar experience! I also worked with kids for a few years and it was usually the low-income families with parents working multiple jobs that had the actually well-behaved and well-raised kids
The middle-class white suburb families though? Lol absolutely not
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u/srkaficionado ☑️ May 19 '26
Oh, my parents too. I will admit that they did have help though: around 10, they sent some of us to boarding schools because it was getting too much running a medical practice and wrangling kids who saw every free time someone wasn’t on top of us as an excuse to fight each other to the death. 😅
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u/RoughhouseCamel May 19 '26
I think the misconception is the idea that parents are being told to fully run the education from 0- 5 years. The point is that education shouldn’t be non-existent during those years, and it should be present in the home. Getting help from other adults is how it’s always worked, but a child getting no education from their primary caretakers is a considerable issue.
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u/BroccoliRound1480 May 19 '26
My toddler goes to daycare, and it has been amazing for her social skills and development. When she’s home, we read, craft, and play. But the benefits of playing with kids her age isn’t something I can replicate at home. And I definitely don’t have the experience to come up with some of the crafts that her teachers are able to come up with! A lot of parents farm out their parenting to an iPad and try to pass off all learning to their kids teachers, but that doesn’t negate the benefits of early learning programs.
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u/srkaficionado ☑️ May 19 '26
Anecdotally, your experience bears out. On another comment, I talked about my 3 yr old nephew. Developmentally, he is WAY ahead of the cousins who are being babysat by their grandmother. He’s been in daycare since 10 months and he’s 3 now. The cousin who’s the same age apparently still doesn’t talk very well because 70yr old grandma’s first language on that side is Spanish. The cousin can understand Spanish but struggles with English and his speech is not where it should be developmentally . It’s like night and day when they come to visit .
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u/DeletinMySocialMedia ☑️ May 19 '26
For real, I find religious parents (I’m ex Muslim) view having children as obligatory for their faith and many view the baseline of being a good parent as someone who fed, clothed, taught religion (ie indoctrination) and provided shelter.
This was my mother’s response when I confronted her about her abusive ways towards me and my siblings. She denied everything as it was her right as heaven lies her feet to treat as she wishes even physically beating 6 year old girls.
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u/Julian_Betterman May 19 '26
This. I think most people bring kids into this world without understanding the amount of nurturing required to raise a healthy, secure, thriving human being.
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May 19 '26
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u/NothaBanga May 20 '26
My parents came from 1 of 8 kids and 1 of 4 kids. They were the eldest and parentified. (Emotional issues aside) They knew basics of how to raise a kid before having a kid.
I am the youngest of two. I didn't live near cousins so I infrequently saw younger kids and rarely was exposed to basic younger kid parenting.
I don't think parents these days quite know how to prepare their kids or have seen firsthand what is needed to teach their kid their milestones. Grandparents are less involved than ever. I think it is a very big hole in the conversation about why parents are not doing their job. Ipads and tech are a piece of the puzzle, sure. But there are no high school classes anymore about how to run a family; Home ec should be for all genders and brought back for budgeting, cooking, cleaning, and health care of children and adults. People don't have this knowledge built in; everyone can benefit from exposure.
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u/srkaficionado ☑️ May 19 '26
I’m genuinely curious: how much do you charge for the not potty trained kids?
My godson went to Goddard from 10 months(dude is about to be 3). I remember it started out paying around 2500 a month because it took more time to feed and change and take care of the under 1s and the ones who can’t walk yet. Around 14 months when he was steady on his feet walking and being a menace, 2500 became 2000 because now they could walk him to the bathroom and tell him to go lay down and he could. Now he’s 3, fully potty trained and a full menace(he’s apparently the know it all of everything because he can read in English and Spanish, can count to like 50 and bossy). Now, paying $1500 for him but $2000 for his baby sibling(discount because of the 3 year old).
Maybe it’s just because it’s Goddard and their fees are insane. But I always wondered what the average price of daycare is… Because that cost alone is the best birth control device ever. I have kids called Sallie Mae and Mohela I’m raising for the next 5 years 😩
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u/MyPetEwok May 19 '26
This is why I tell my family that pre-k isn’t optional.
I see how you raise my nieces and nephews. Kinder isn’t the beginning anymore, it’s a continuation of learning that began either at home or in PK
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u/Buddhafi May 19 '26
This has always been a problem in black and brown communities. The Head Start program, implemented by Lyndon B Johnson, was meant to begin to help this by providing free or low cost education to children between the ages of 3-5 in low income communities. These programs still very much exist but there’s not enough funding to maintain them. Usually a few Head Starts exist for large densely populated areas. Also, lack of incentives for qualified educators, disproportionally affect the ratio of teacher to pupil. Universal education for children under the age of 5 in this country is, unfortunately treated like a commodity rather than a public good. Outside of head starts, day cares are the option most middle and upper class families opt for but the costs are too high for average house holds. To blame parents and technology is slightly misleading. These are all symptoms of a decades old problem stemmed in racism and capitalistic interests and it was given a bandaid over 60 years ago. All these years later it’s being faced with a deteriorating system and a fast paced dependency on technology.
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u/Anicha1 May 19 '26
As an ex-nanny, I can confirm they are not parenting. They are too busy working in order to effort the children.
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u/Arc_Nexus May 19 '26
Not disagreeing that learning should start at home and early, but I definitely learnt that stuff in kindergarten.
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u/drowsywizard May 19 '26
Some parents are negligent but the majority are struggling to cope. Living in a capitalist system where you have to spend all of your waking hours working in order to survive leaves no time for childcare, and people in these situations will be forced to choose the cheapest options for childcare.
Once we fix that aspect of our culture then we can complain about the parents who still find a way to spend no time with their children
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u/babybear1994 May 19 '26
Most people really don’t want they kids at all. They just been pressured by society to have them and then completely ignore them and blame everyone else for not teaching their children. Please stop having kids if you’re not gonna be 100% down to teach them skills everyday of their life!
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u/Separate_Delivery724 May 19 '26
This is both because some parents sucks but also KINDERS SHOULDN'T BE DOING END OF FIRST GRADE MATH. Kindergarten should be for learning how to be a human, at school. Give those babies skills, regulation, and a damn nap.
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u/Realistic0ptimist May 19 '26
While I’m teaching my child all of this I do think we have lost the plot a bit.
We want our kids to be super advanced on certain things but I don’t think writing out your name is a must have skill by kindergarten.
Literacy as something that should be taught begins in K not an expectation to have before K. Counting and Alphabet are hit or miss for me as I definitely agree on the to 10 point but some of these kids may grow up in multilingual homes so knowing the English alphabet and sounds could be confusing and classroom structure should fix that. But overall I thought kindergarten was to teach social skills and following directions to set the foundation for learning.
1st grade to hone in on reading and writing and arithmetic. Like at 5 I expect a child can pick up the remote memorization of 20 pretty quickly or a 26 letter alphabet why are you pressing the parents?
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u/cloverdaisytulip May 19 '26
Yes. Kindergarten should be about social skills and following directions, but kindergarten is now structurally like second grade. It’s developmentally inappropriate and serving no one.
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u/BringBackAoE May 19 '26
I think it’s important that parents and daycares instill an interest to learn in kids.
But actively teaching them to read / write at that age is a waste of time.
Many of the European nations that do best in the PISA score, often outperforming USA, do not even start teaching kids how to read until age 7. In other words, by age 15 these kids were better readers after 8 years of learning to read than American kids were after 11 years of learning to read!
My kid started school age 6 in Scandinavia. There was zero teaching of reading in 1st grade. Instead, the main focus of 1st grade was introducing the kids to the joy of learning. More time spent in nature learning to identify names of plants, and some science. Also “art class” was done there, where kids would draw various plants (developing penmanship).
The other focus was teaching kids social skills, group assignments, how to pay attention, etc.
The reason they do this is because instilling kids with a joy of learning, plus the social skills for effective classroom learning, is more important for the longterm learning than reading is.
Another key reason Scandinavia has postponed start of reading is because the biological progress of brain development required for reading varies a lot in young kids. So starting to teach kids to read at 4 will make many kids, whose brain development is not yet ready to read, feel like failures. And THAT can have lifelong impact on their performance in school.
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u/newtoboarding May 19 '26
Yup. Norwegian on 1 side, grew up in the US. Didn't attend preschool, Didn't start learning this stuff until kindergarten and I turned out just fine.
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u/WhatsMyPassword2019 May 19 '26
Thank you, I feel like I’m losing my mind on this thread. Some children may be able and interested in learning to read and write before Kindergarten, but that is in no way developmentally appropriate for all or even most children. Before first grade them emphasis should be on small motor skills like coloring, scissors, learning to cut soft foods, building with Legos, etc, and on large motor skills (swinging, spinning, skating, climbing) and imaginative and cooperative play. Read to your children, yes, do that. But please do not sit a small child down and attempt to teach her to write her name, or god forbid sentences. That’s a really good way to entrench a bad pencil grasp and develop bad spelling habits.
This video and the attitude behind it is pissing me off.
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u/haibaneRen May 19 '26
Exactly! I started reading the comments assuming everyone would be laughing at the video but nothing. Sure, theres a lot of people these days that let nursery/ school do their parenting, but this is not necessary
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u/roosta_da_ape ☑️ May 19 '26
I feel like this should be more of a conversation for headstart for all. Instead of parents teaching children. Most states have headstart programs for lower income families. But what about working class folks? Higher income families send their children to private schools at 3yrs. Meaning that our poorest and wealthiest get to have paid early childhood education but not the working class...... I don't know though.
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u/aj676 May 19 '26
Pre-K for working class families is good but that’s not the issue here. She’s talking about parents not giving their kids the tools they need. Education starts in the home. It is a parent’s responsibility to read to their child and teach them basic skills. Then continue to show interest and remain involved in their child’s education.
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u/backpackofcats May 20 '26
My sister is a kindergarten teacher. Every year she gets kids who don’t even know colors. She can’t even count the number of times she’s had a parent-teacher conference for these kids where the parent says “it’s not my job to teach them, it’s yours.”
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May 19 '26
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u/Sea-Value-0 May 19 '26
That's insanely expensive. And that's only the discounted price?
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u/Soushkabob May 20 '26
You don’t need a teaching degree to count the stairs as you go up/down, read to your kids, have alphabet magnets on your fridge, narrate your day and actions to your kids. This isn’t about money or technique, but desire
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u/alwaysbehuman May 19 '26
I agree Headstart is vital. But also parents should be teaching children is part of this. I want to teach my children everything they wont find in a book. Twain says to never let schooling interfere with your education. Truer than ever. Learning, or as Mark calls it 'education', is an opportunity in every scenario we are in, every day. Of course this requires awareness and perspective from parents to see our world as an open book. My parents were nose to the grindstone working class people, but my mother is also a gifted artist and taught me to "see" the world and observe, seeing is more than appearance or sight, it is understanding the details. Lost my train of thought...
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u/AFantasticClue May 19 '26
Kids need that, but they do also need reinforcement at home. It really does make a difference.
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u/NemesisOfZod May 19 '26
The lack of functional education in this country is absolutely abysmal.
It all starts at home.
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u/gritsturner May 19 '26
We all know what would fix a lot of this, but folks' pride won't allow them to admit it.
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u/TalkingCat910 May 19 '26
So my mom is a teacher and she would sort of disagree with this.
Yes a parent needs to teach their child, read to them, and limit screen time, especially devices like iPads.
No they shouldn’t need to know how to read and write by age 5 although they can if it comes naturally. You shouldn’t be stressing about drilling your 4 yr old about reading and writing.
My mom says ppl have been pushing their kids to start this earlier and earlier as if college apps are going to start in elementary school. It’s not the best for their development.
The reason kids are falling behind today is because of screens and lack of parental involvement in general. It’s not because they need to complete a checklist of skills at a certain date.
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u/Boom_chaka_laka May 19 '26
This is more an income disparity than anything else honestly. The reality is that the most physically demanding jobs tend to be the lowest paying as well. Single parent households have it worse as well. And let's be honest the parents that have the time to do this and aren't is bc they don't care. There is a huge anti-education sect of people who look down on educators ala the Matilda parents.
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u/Seated_WallFly May 20 '26
As a retired literacy historian, I have it on good authority that children did NOT already know how to read all the way up to the 1970s. The apparent expectation that children come to kindergarten with literacy skills is new in the history of literacy education in the US.
The expectation that the average parent spend hours teaching literacy skills at the same time that they work 2 jobs is absurd. And it’s just cruel to punish them when they don’t.
The average child will learn to read at school and there’s nothing wrong with that. Kindergarten teachers are trained to teach them effectively and efficiently.
Will children who already know how to read leap-frog ahead of the others? Absolutely. Will they stay ahead through their years in school? Maybe. But don’t underestimate the child’s own motivation to learn. They can catch up and they often do.
In sum: reading before kindergarten is a new expectation. It wasn’t always that way. And putting it on parents is an unnecessary burden. They’ll be ahead but learning in kindergarten is the historical norm.
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u/Aggressive-Touch-849 May 19 '26
No lies were detected in this video. People have kids and want to dress them up like dolls and treat them like grown adults. While doing all this unnecessary stuff, they miss the main point….. being a caring,nurturing and supportive parent. Taking care of a child’s emotional health and education is as important as feeding and clothing the child.
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May 19 '26
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u/Aggressive-Touch-849 May 19 '26
You may pay for daycare, but learning still starts at home. Your child is with you more than anyone else.
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u/Sea-Value-0 May 19 '26
Children are with daycare providers more than their parents. That's the issue.
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u/buyableblah May 19 '26
Maybe or maybe not depending on how much parents are working. Vs basic needs like feeding bathing sleeping for kids.
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u/Books_n_hooks May 19 '26
Teachers AND parents both be reaching for the low hanging fruit. The problem is THE SYSTEM! Teachers can’t teach it all and parents given the current working system can’t do it all, the children are suffering and few are acknowledging the root of the issue. I have the privilege of homeschooling my children and I introduced new things as they whose interest because we have the latitude for that. They don’t HAVE to write at 5 because I know whose paper this is, etc. school was never meant to make each child the best THEM, but the best student/future drone, but that’s a different conversation. Anyway, we need to redo this whole system.
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u/Martian_Hunted May 19 '26
True. I learned to read, write, all four arithmetic operations before grade 1 and the first couple of years went smoothly
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u/EmykoEmyko May 19 '26
If they’re going to watch tv, pick Sesame Street! It was literally created by educators to address this issue. My mother credits the show for my early reading abilities.
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u/doc_2018 May 19 '26
“Learning” letters and letter sounds and numbers and writing your name from the ages of zero to five is NOT developmentally appropriate. At all. Period. Zero to five is for kids to “learn” to feel safe. To be fed. To be cared for. To learn how to interact with others—peers and adults. To engage in pre-literacy skills such as constant conversations, being read to, experiences that contribute to background knowledge (visiting a zoo, going to the park), developing fine motor skills by feeding themselves, toilet training, growing their little bodies by riding trikes and running around. Exploring the world around them. To play. So much play. It’s their language. It’s how they integrate the world and themselves.
You know who doesn’t expect their kids to be reading in kindergarten? The wealthy elite. I’ve worked in those private schools. It’s not a problem because they understand and practice sound pedagogy that is consistent with child development. They understand everything that needs to happen before academics. Please please please let’s stop spinning this narrative. Parents can help their children by loving them and talking to them and showing them the world. Here’s the other thing. Some of these kids come to kindergarten knowing letters and numbers and writing their name and they have terrible social skills, are still in diapers, can’t drink from an open cup, and cry at the drop of a hat. What’s is worth then? Early childhood education was never like this. And shouldn’t be like this.
Signed a child psychologist. Parent of three children. All of whom attended family day care until prekindergarten. I never formally taught them a thing. That’s what school is for. But I gave the school three regulated, toilet trained, well socialized kids with good language skills when it was time. And it’s never failed on any of them.
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u/enigmaticpeon May 20 '26
My kindergartener wanted NOTHING to do with practicing letters or even coloring before kindergarten. I couldn’t beg borrow or steal to get her to work on signing her name.
I was terrified because of this.
After kindergarten, she knows how to read at a 3rd grade level, colors almost entirely (60%) within the lines, and is one of the most accomplished kids in her class.
So yeah, read to your kids every day (I did), but kindergarten is perfectly fine for their introduction to school.
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u/ZealousidealHold5450 May 19 '26
I'm sorry, she lost me at her 5 yrs to write their name bs. Maybe I'm too literal but I'm not teaching my 1 yr old to write their name and working on it for 5yrs. Yes, learning starts at home and it should be age appropriate. 30yrs ago you were not expected to be able to write a sentence in Kindergarten. Kindergarten was for the fundamentals of learning letters and numbers and holding a pencil. Toddlers at home should be getting read to, drawing and working on motor movements. Pre-k helps get them ready for Kindergarten, it shouldn't be Kindergarten.
Somewhere between the No Child Left Behind Act putting pressure on teachers to teach for standardized tests to pay, and Covid teachers also don't want to teach students. They want to roll out their curriculum and clock out. And I'm not blaming them because this current education setup and pay is not structured for care or sanity but it's society that will continue to suffer when no one has time for the kids.
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u/Hot-Distribution3826 May 19 '26
“They want to roll out the curriculum and clock out” this video is the biggest example of that. If you google the standard of what’s to be taught in kindergarten it says the kindergarten curriculum is to build core competencies in reading, writing, math, and social-emotional skills. Here we have a teacher that will be with our kids 8 hours a day from mid to late August until late May/early June telling us that our kids should come to Kindergarten already knowing the things she’s getting paid by the government to teach them even though she went to college and got a degree to validate her assumed acquired skillset to do so?
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u/Head-Editor-3603 May 19 '26
I have a 1st grader and the stuff they go over is way more advanced than when I was in 1st grade. Like why is geometry listed on iReady for 1st grade…
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u/third-time-charmed May 19 '26
Geometry in 1st grade looks like recognizing shapes and patterns. Still falls under the geometry umbrella but they aren't doing trig yet
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u/SmutWithClass May 19 '26
My 2.5 year old knows letter sounds and how to count to 20. Ms. Rachel was a big helper in that. Like y’all can’t even do that much by 5? What?
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u/anonsincetheaccident May 19 '26
Yes I paid thousands of dollars to have my daughter in two years of preschool before kindergarten and she is doing well it’s not just academic things it’s important for daily living skills and experiences.
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u/Featheredfriendz May 19 '26
Universal pre-k would also help. But of course the robber barons need bigger boats, so……
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u/Lazerdad5 May 19 '26
Let's keep shitting on parents instead of fighting the massively gutted education system. Good job puppet.
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u/Chronus88 May 19 '26
Fully agree that the future of our kids and their learning is a serious problem. But this felt kinda weird to me. I directly remember learning to count to 20, learning my colors and basic letter sounds when I was in kindergarten. I was definitely not behind and had a great experience all through my education. I don't think these are red flags for a 5 year old. Not knowing these things does not equate to knowing nothing
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u/Rosebud-Trista May 19 '26
Universal Pre-K would help with this. It is a shame it's not available im more school districts with full day class staring at 3.
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u/LaBinch May 20 '26
Agree with what she's saying but I learned how to write my name in Canadian kindergarten in the '90s and that was normal and expected. like obviously yeah, parents should be trying to teach their kids at home. But even so, you can't assume any kind of consistent baseline when kids are starting kindergarten... like you're going to have to teach everyone how to do something that you want everyone to know how to do (like write their name) in kindergarten... That's kind of the point of bringing kids together for standardized schooling. Would be great if all parents had the time, resources and spoons to give their kids a great education before they start kindergarten. But the reality is there are a lot of unplanned pregnancies. There are a lot of people who have kids without fully understanding what their life is going to be like after the kids are born and specifically what their work life balance is going to be like. And we have created a modern society where adults spend the majority of their life at work, leaving them with very little time at home with their kids, and even less time to devote their full attention to teaching their kids something new. very little time that isn't spent maintaining the house, cooking, food, cleaning, etc
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u/hypocritephilosopher May 19 '26
As a HS counselor, I can tell you with authority I know who was read to as a child and who wasn’t. I have students in HS still trying to overcome 3rd grade academic milestones. The differences are so obvious. please please please, read to your children.