"Mom, do I have to carry around a bag of flour?"
By kbourgerie
@kbourgerie (8780)
United States
March 8, 2008 12:12am CST
My son just came to me and asked if when he got to middle school age if he he would be required to carry around a bag of flour or a doll. Apparently, its a life lesson that they try to teach children in order to show them what its like to raise a child and how to work with a partner. The assignment is to carry around a baby doll that you have to feed and change, or it cries. They take them home for a week and share the duties with a partner. I would think after a week of that,most would decide that raising children isn't an option. But don't you think that before they learn to be couples with real life babies that they should be teaching them how to treat one another? Before they teach children how to raise children
and be a couple, shouldn't the emphasis be on how to
treat a woman and visa versa? I would like my son to know about inappopriate touching and how NO means NO. How to open a door for a woman and how to get her home before curfew. Don't you think that our children should learn how to enjoy relationships and dating. Teenagers should not be stressed out about their relationships or running around with real babies to care for. Do you think this exercise is beneficial to our children in teaching them how to be in a relationship and how to parent or do you think that it is putting the chicken before the egg?
4 people like this
6 responses
@Aussies2007 (5336)
• Australia
8 Mar 08
From where I come from...
It was never the role of the school to teach all those things. The reason that the school is doing it... is because parents are failing their children.
In my days... parents taught their children about moral values and how to behave when interacting with other people.
The question is...
Do you want your child to behave according to the values and ideas of a stranger?
Or do you want it to behave according to what you believe in?
Then again... many people are not fit to be parents... and in that case... the school taking over is not such a bad idea.
@kbourgerie (8780)
• United States
8 Mar 08
In our day, thats true. Unfortunately, the parents of today don't teach their children the same values that we were taught. There is so much more abuse, date rape and things of that nature that never went on when we were growing up.
@kbourgerie (8780)
• United States
8 Mar 08
Thank you for your very informative views. I appreciate that.
@clowdine (1402)
• Philippines
8 Mar 08
The way I see it, it goes a little to the direction of putting a chicken before the egg but since pure lecture of type of educating the child on how to be responsible or to give them a clue how their parent bleed for them just to make sure they're okay, could be sometimes boring another one of the "want to go home and play instead of listening to this". I guess his teacher was just trying another teaching method. She wants children to reflect but of course it depends on how the learner and the people surrounding the learner would react to it, some may be reacting like "Oh, it's so cute, a child learning to be responsible/to act like an adult...dating like a gentleman and all... yada.yada.yada" but to others they may be like, "Do they really have to do that for one week just to learn that simple lesson?" I guess for the teacher, it's not too bad a try.
@kbourgerie (8780)
• United States
8 Mar 08
I'm not saying the teacher shouldn't have given it a try, but I also think that our children don't know how to have relationships before they learn how to have children.
@clowdine (1402)
• Philippines
8 Mar 08
Like I already mentioned, it's like going to the direction of putting a chicken before the egg but the teacher already did what she did, you might want to have a visit to the teacher, not to check her lesson plan, but at least, tell her about what you think.
1 person likes this
@mummymo (23706)
•
11 Mar 08
I can understand what you are saying sweety , really I can but surely how to treat one another, appropriate and inappropriate touching etc should come from the parents/family? I know that many will say if that is the case then why should the doll/baby situation be from school, right? Simple there are thousands of teens getting pregnant every week and even though they shouldn't be stressing about babies and enjoying their teenage years the simple fact is so many are trapped in that life you would not wish for them! xxx
@bfarrier1 (2082)
• United States
8 Mar 08
When my girls were in school it was a EGG, they carried around this EGG and it couldn't get broken,they had a partner (but of course he was never there)It was just like a baby and yes before you ask I did babysit.No I didn't think this was beneficial but I wasn't the teacher. Have a great day!
@kbourgerie (8780)
• United States
11 Mar 08
An egg would be really difficult to take care of. Thats a really interesting concept.
@Hatley (163776)
• Garden Grove, California
9 Mar 08
You have brought up a really valid point. I do think that children should learn how to enjoy relationships first and how to treat women before they are pushed into how to care for a baby. Like that old song Love and Marriage go together like a horse and carriage. thus first love,then marriage then learning about babies. They should learn about like you said how to treat a woman or a man. dating first then mating then child rearing.
@cuteasapirate (12)
• Canada
9 Mar 08
The assignment is more about practically demonstrating the difficulties of teen parent-hood. Its not encouraging relationship development. There was a time when the males didn't get the option for the classes with the dolls... but society has changed. Men can't run out on a pregnant woman anymore. Child support laws and custody are a bigger factor in young fathers lives.
As for teaching children how to treat one another... thats up to us parents. Its not the schools responsibility to make sure that your son gets his girlfriend home on time.
Truth is. Kids are having kids. Its better that they be well informed then ignorent.
