DEEP DIVE: When School Projects Become Parents' Projects (and How to Push Back)

23:35Like small picture, big picture. And overall, helping your kid, like doing the science fair project for your kid will result in a better outcome at the science fair. Right, it's going to. Like, right. It's going to. And the Pinewood Derby. And the Pinewood Derby. Like they're going to win the Pinewood Derby. Like the battles you're going to win, but like, are you going to win the war. Probably not when you have a kid who like cannot function on their own and can't figure things out for themselves. That seems pretty, that seems to make a lot of sense to me.

24:06Heidi Rose:But let's talk about like the early kid stuff. Like let's go back to the young things. My, my sister just did a, I just said my sister did. And yes, I did. She did a shoebox diorama with her kindergartner for kindergarten. And again, it's like they're adorable, but it's sort of a weird, like, why are we pretending that four and five-year-olds can take a shoebox into an art project about a book without their parent basically holding the marker for them? Right? Yeah, they can't. They can't. So he did Charlotte's Web. I'm going to put this picture up on social media if she lets me because it's adorable.

24:41Heidi Rose:So they did Charlotte's Web and they made a barnyard and he wrote Some Pig. And the one good thing is that a five-year-old has very spidery handwriting. And so, oh, good point. Accidental parallel. I like it. And with like a with like a web around it and, you know, kind of hung it from the corner. And then, but, you know, he wasn't going to like go to the store and buy the fake hay and, you know, print out the picture of a goose. And so he she let him direct. These are the characters that I really think should be in this diorama. But I mean, she's the one gluing popsicle sticks to the side to make it look like a fence.

25:17Heidi Rose:You know, it's and why are we pretending? I'm going to go back. Wendy, Wendy Wisner had a quote about this in her Scary Mommy article. She she she helped her kid with it. And she walks in and she says walking into the pre-K classroom felt like we were walking into some type of exhibit that showcased the talents of parents posing as preschoolers. Right. That there's this. I have a story for you. OK, give me a story. When my kid was five, he was in kindergarten. We lived in Los Angeles. and the kindergarten was a full day, which I had wanted him to go to half day. And he was, and is a kid who struggled and struggles with being still in school all day.

25:58Like the, the, he's just, that's his battle to fight. Like sitting at a desk and learning all day, not his forte. He has many fortes, but that's not one of them. And so this kindergarten class, every week would have some insanely elaborate project, like make a chef's hat and decorate it with all of your favorite foods and write your name on it. Paper construction, no instructions, just like make this thing and make the diorama and make a clay model of your favorite activity. I mean, it was unrelenting how many of these projects. And about two weeks in after my very active five-year-old would come home from seven hours in kindergarten and be just like completely fried, melted, and shot out of a cannon at the same time.

26:50We would like get on a bike and run around. We would go chase each other around the yard. And I was like, I'm not going to sit there and make a chef's hat. You know, like this is not what my kid needs to then sit at a desk with me for an hour while I basically construct a project for him. So I just opted out and I sent a note to the teacher and she called me in for a meeting and she was basically like, then you would get back to school and they would apparently devote like an hour to this project of like, let's everyone see your chef's hat. And my kid wouldn't have one and he would be upset. And so I was like, I was kind of proud of myself for opting out and being like, I know that what's better for my kid is not doing these dopey projects.

27:31But the whole thing was set up. It was like such a lose-lose. Like, it's really not fair to send a kid in and be like, we opted out of the diorama. So now you're going to sit there for three hours and watch all the kids explain their diorama and you don't have one. Right.

27:44Heidi Rose:With your little cheeks burning with hot shame that you're the only one who doesn't have it. Yes. Right. But I really felt that I was correct in my kids. A kindergartner does not need an hour worth of homework every single night. And this also is like the worksheets, everything else. It was crazy. I mean, yeah, you're, you're right, but you don't want to hurt your kid by like making a point of not doing it. It's a, it's, that's a tough one. So what ended up happening? You know what? I just started making them myself and sending them in with him. I did. I was like, this is what's right for my kid.

28:14I would let him, like, if it was favorite foods on a chef hat, I would like make the chef hat, let him write his name on it. And I'd be like, name three of your favorite foods. And I would cut things out of magazines. And I just, I kind of made them look like a five-year-old did them, but I did them myself.

28:29Heidi Rose:They should have like special scissors and like a special font for that, right? You can always spot that a mile away. Like a parent trying to look like a five-year-old. Literally, I would like write things with my left hand so it looked like a kid did it. Appropriately spidery. Wait, I hate to do a deep dive on this, but was it like you had to create a 3D? Like I'm picturing a chef's hat like it just was a cut it out of paper. It was. Yeah, like a chef's hat out of paper, you know? So, I mean, they weren't so onerous, but they were just, each one would take like an hour. And I just was like, I don't want to spend an hour sitting with my kid who, and he was anxious and the whole thing, it just was not a good fit for him.

29:03Heidi Rose:I think that one takeaway is that when you can opt out, you should do so, you know, when you can do so without making your kid feel bad about herself. Can I give you an example for me? Yes. They sent our kids home from school. This is several years ago now. They sent my kids home from school and they go to the same school. So they each got them an envelope with a bunch of little pieces of origami paper inside, you know, the squares. Oh, yes. You've mentioned this before. The origami. The origami. And they were reading the book One Thousand Cranes, which is a great childhood book about you fold a thousand cranes to sort of wish life and health to somebody.

29:39Heidi Rose:And it's sort of, you know, it's sort of like keeping the devil from your door if you can fold one thousand cranes out of origami. But the point of the book is that's an incredibly onerous and difficult undertaking for a Japanese girl. What if your mom can fold a thousand cranes? Does that do anything for anybody? The story does start with like a society where people know how to make cranes out of origami. And it's still like, can you believe she made a thousand? So the school was like, let's make a thousand origami cranes as a school community. And, you know, if we each do five or whatever it was.

30:08So here's some paper.

30:10Heidi Rose:And you're like, I opt to do none. Yeah, they sent my kids home with paper. And my youngest one was, you know, definitely not in kindergarten yet. paper and instructions. And I mean like a 32 step thing. And here, here's a, here's the real spoiler alert. I once knew how to do an origami crane because I was once in a play, like a children's theater play about this story where I had to sit on stage and fold a crane and I could do it like within like a song, you know, like there was a song about watch her fold the cranes and I would fold the crane and finish it by the end of the song. That's an odd question.

30:43Heidi Rose:But I I did it, you know, 200 times over the course of a year. So I, and that knowledge that I once knew how to do that and how hard it was to learn to do it, I knew as soon as I looked at this thing. You were like, no, we're not. We're opting out. And that's very un-Amy. Like that's very un-U. No, very un-U to opt out. And unfortunately, Amy, the bad news is now you've brought down the curse of the crane onto your household by not folding your cranes. Well, this one was - And someday you're going to be attacked by a giant crane and you're going to be like, oh man, I should have seen this coming.

31:15Heidi Rose:This one was easy because it was like, we're going to bring them in and we're all going to hang them on, you know, in the lobby and we're going to blah, blah, blah. And I could tell, like, this is a school-wide project. I could tell that - Right. You're like, you're going to have plenty of cranes. Well, yeah. I thought they're going to have plenty of cranes and nobody will be able to tell that it was my kid. And then of course, when I got to school, like there were no cranes, like every parent had been like, we're not teaching ourselves how to do origami over winter week. When that school gets attacked by a flock of giant cranes, you're going to be like, we should have folded our crayon.

31:41Heidi Rose:I suffer in my life from not always being able to tell which things count for half of your final grade and which things you can totally blow off. In my life, I'm not good at discerning that, but this was one. So if it's a school-wide, let's all design t-shirts to do this, let's all have bad superhero weird hat day at day camp. You can skip some of that stuff. Yeah, you can, but it's a question of which you can and which you can't. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So I think we know what the problems are. We've identified them. We've talked it through. And we are going to come back with some solutions, Amy.

32:19It's solution time. We wanted to share a terrific new children's album with you. It's called Magnificent. And it's by Lachi, a Grammy-nominated musician and author.

32:31Heidi Rose:Lachi's work focuses on inclusion and helping kids feel confident in who they are. It's one of those albums that parents can enjoy as much as their little ones. Lachi's playful songs celebrate difference, diversity, self-expression, and imagination. There's a gentle message that runs through the whole album around confidence and emotional well-being, but without ever feeling heavy or lessen-y. Magnificent is the kind of music you can put on during your morning routine, in the car, or wherever your kid needs a little bit of a reset. Let me tell you, I am always here for catchy, thoughtful songs for kids that parents won't mind hearing again and again.

33:08Heidi Rose:Magnificent is streaming now on all major platforms, Spotify, Apple Music, wherever you listen. We'll put the link to Lachi's album, Magnificent, in the show notes for this episode. Just click the link and it'll take you straight to the album. Or search Magnificent by Lachi, spelled L-A-C-H-I. Well, Amy, I'm about to head off for vacation. And even with those hotel hair dryers, I know my hair will be, as you like to say, bouncing and behaving thanks to Nutrafol. Yes, I do like to say it. Nutrafol is the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand, and it's the number one hair growth supplement brand personally used by dermatologists and Margaret and me.

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34:44And now the What Fresh Hell podcast presents pretty much every letter you get home regarding your kids' school projects ever. Dear parents. Great news. It's time for one of our favorite take-home activities of the year, the Class Imagine Your Own Country project.

35:02Heidi Rose:Remember, this is meant to be a hands-on learning experience for your children, and there should be minimal parental involvement. Each student must create a full 3D relief map of their country that includes 10 separate landforms rendered realistically. Sand on the beach, water in the lakes, etc. Don't forget to work to scale. And it goes without saying that a map key must be included. Are you finding this hard to picture? Don't worry. We've included some of our outstanding country projects from past years. Isn't it amazing how they look like they were crafted by a team of expertly skilled graphic designers and or people with advanced cartography and architecture degrees?

35:46Heidi Rose:Yours should look exactly like this. Whether or not your child has any artistic abilities or ideas about scale construction. Oh, check out this project from two years ago. Aren't the made-to-scale skyscrapers made from polymer clay just amazing? Right now, you're probably thinking, but wait, I don't have a polymer kiln in my house capable of firing at 1200 degrees Fahrenheit. Well, I guess you'll just have to figure it out, won't you, Mom? Our expectations for this project are simple. You should have to make the impossible choice between letting your kid do this themselves and ending up with a hot mess that looks nothing like the examples.

36:21Heidi Rose:Or you and your spouse can make this thing for them. We sure hope at least one of you has a home art studio or woodshop to utilize. But the most important part of this project is have fun. Please note this is mostly directed towards those who think listening to children complain and receiving hot glue gun burns is fun. That may not be you. Don't forget, the economy of your island should be calculated using YOY numbers and accounting for fluctuations in the Consumer Price Index. Your fifth grader knows how to do that, right? This has been pretty much every letter you get home regarding your kid's school projects ever from the What Fresh Hell podcast.

36:59Okay, project, Sammy. I have already discussed my attempt to opt out that went horribly wrong and resulted in me making dioramas at one o 'clock in the morning. You've got to watch the opting out because, you know, it is the thing of like, my mistake too, is I will say very early on, I got into a fairly hostile relationship with my kid's kindergarten teacher. Oh boy. Because, you know, I got the sense early on that she wasn't a big fan. I didn't like the way the school was set up. My kid was a difficult kindergartner and she was not somebody who wanted a difficult kindergartner in our class. And so we just went straight to hostile.

37:42And then this whole thing of me trying to opt out was like me trying to like dominate her with my better ideas and my will. That's how she saw it. And I just saw it as like, you are a really bad teacher and I don't like you as a person. And so that dynamic was bad. And I should have, I've learned a lot. Now my kid is in fifth grade and he's a little less difficult and the projects are a little bit more age appropriate. But if I had to do it over again, I would have gone in and had a conference and said, listen, we're spending way too much time at home sitting in tears because he wants to be out playing and not sitting at a desk anymore.

38:22He's already sat at a desk for seven hours. This is the problem. How can we solve it? Can we rank some of these projects? There's a top level project, a mid-level project, and a doesn't matter project. I'm willing to do two a month, but I'm not willing to do two a week and sit down and try to solve the problem with the teacher. I think most teachers would have been open to that, and that's what I should have done.

38:44Heidi Rose:I think, yeah, I've had great success over the years with going to a teacher and saying, so we had a lot of tears at home about this and a lot of upset, and no teacher is, you know, thinking like, wow, everybody's crying tonight on the Upper West Side because I gave them, I mean, some teachers are, but probably not that many. They're just in storybooks. I mean, yeah, if you come at it like, this is making my kids very stressed and unhappy, And I think make it not about chef's hats are dumb and why are you making anybody do this and make it more about. It was a miscalculation on my part. I went straight to chef's hats are dumb and so are you.

39:17And it didn't foster understanding and love between us.

39:21Heidi Rose:Yeah. So you can make it about you make it about your kid and the emotional health. Like I've had great success in the past with paring down a project to a manageable level or getting a little extra time or whatever. When a teacher knows your kid is really struggling. It's not from indifference about the chef's hat project. It's about their deep, deep need for it to be the most beautiful thing anyone has ever seen from a five-year-old's point of view. Or their deep, deep need to run around in the backyard and not spend an hour and a half on a chef's hat. That's a good point. That's your preference.

39:52That's a good point. And kids struggle in different ways. And like for some kids, it is the struggle of like, you know, it's just too anxiety producing to do big projects. Whatever the struggle is, just talk it out. And there's probably a middle ground you can find.

40:05Heidi Rose:Can I give you a little bit of a middle ground with my older kid? Another example that where it was like how to help. And this is when I think I got right. So my middle guy wanted to do a science project, science fair project on ants. And again, through the mail, kind of expensive. By now, by now, the school is letting the kids do this stuff at school. Unfortunately, the ants were delayed by a snowstorm and arrived at the school while it was closed for a week for spring break. Oh. So the teacher, we're not going to talk about those ants. Those ants officially don't, don't officially exist. And I thought the cranes were after you, but the ants, wow.

40:44Heidi Rose:You have a lot of enemies. Now I'm saying out loud. Yeah. That we let ants like, like die in the, in the mail room. So we had to order more ants and now we're behind schedule. So could I please, the teacher was like, do you mind? Because now he's several weeks behind schedule. Can, can you do the ants at home? Yes, we can. So he brings his ants home and we had found this project. on Science Fair Buddies, which if you need sciencefairbuddies.com, if you need to figure out science fair projects for your kids, it's a great resource. And you just have to like, you know, just change them 5 % and you have a new project.

41:15Heidi Rose:But this one didn't work like it was supposed to. We were supposed to put ants in one like bottle and food in another. And then in the tube connecting them, put cinnamon or lemon juice or things like that and see like which one did the best deterring the ants from going through the tube to get the food. Okay. And you do that by counting how many times they go through the tube. Well, guess what? It totally didn't work. The ants couldn't get through the tube. Like nothing was happening. Project fell apart. He's having a complete panic attack because like the science fair is like next week now. And once we finally got the ants, the project isn't working.

41:52Heidi Rose:I knew that this was a moment that I had to support him, but I couldn't take over. And I didn't really know the answer. This is probably how I did the right thing in this case because I didn't know what the right answer was either. So I just sat You're not an ant expert? I'm not an antitologist. So I sat with them. I mean, clearly you've murdered like a thousand ants. I hate animals. So, I mean, I just kind of sat with them. I just sat with them in the discomfort until he figured out a new solution. We basically took like a dish pan, like you put clean dishes in, kind of deep, and we put the lemon juice or the cinnamon across the middle and put the food in one side and and put the ants in there and watched how many times the ants marched back and forth across the line.

42:35Heidi Rose:Okay. And it worked. And, of course, I had to go get him the big, deep dish. He's like, what if I had a box I could put it in? And I enabled it by going out and buying the thing so he could do it, but I didn't do it for him. You're like at least a grand in on these science fair projects. And I didn't carry the ants back and forth across the line. and you won't be able to afford college, but your kids will have passed the science fair. I have an important takeaway at this juncture. Do not involve insects in your science fair. My brother did one with fruit flies once and it was like, it ruined our lives for a year, basically.

43:12Fruit flies do not. I understand the temptation. It's like, oh, it's a living thing. Don't do it. Yeah. Run away from the science fair involving living.

43:20Heidi Rose:You might win a prize, but it's, uh, but at what cost? Oh, a big cost, a very big, especially to the insects. I would just stay away from that. So balance, right? So you're saying like, you didn't fix the project, but you were willing to like sit with him. And then as he sort of came up with solutions, you facilitated the solutions. I facilitated the solutions, but they were come up with him and then he, yeah. And then, then he and the aunt still did all the work, right? Like I had a fun, that's a very, that's a good model. And one of the other things that we've talked about in other contexts, I found with my kid, setting him up for success and then letting him do it.

43:55I mean, basically I came up with the idea, although it was a little more organic than that because I had talked earlier about my science fair. And basically once I said it won, my kid was like, I want to do that one because he thought he was going to win. They don't have winners in the science fair, of course, anymore. But then I let him figure out all the elements, but I did go get the plants with him and I did help him. You know, we sat together and I helped him figure out like pour big bottles of the solution. So you're always measuring with the same thing. Keep records of how much is in each.

44:27And I tried to say, why is that important? And sometimes he had no idea. And I'm like, well, if you mix it every night, you don't know if it's the same. This way you always know it's the same thing. I tried to help him learn while we were doing it. And then setting up alarms and setting up charts. And then every night he could do all the actions without me, but he had to follow the charts. And then when we were away, like I had to arrange for whoever was checking on our cat to also water the plants. I mean, there's not, there's no way this is basically going to involve you not being involved at all.

45:01But another aspect of that that I want to highlight is it's another time to talk to the teacher about expectations. Yep. Hey, what are these science projects going to look like? I've seen a lot of science projects that look like they were done by like graduate level engineers. And what's the deal? Like, what are these science projects actually supposed to look like?

45:23Heidi Rose:Can I give you Susan Messina's ideas for how to make a science fair better? She's the person with the science fair poster that went viral. That's a very good idea. These are good. Yes. These are her ideas for how to fix the science fair problem. She says that we should recast it as an elective and non-competitive family project. You said before, of course, they don't give up prizes for the science fair. No, they still do at a lot of places. Oh, our school doesn't. So that's part of the problem. My kids' school more gives like a class of honors and a class of honorable mentions. And I don't think there's trophies.

45:56And I will speak in defense of the science fair, which is that the night where all the kids go and the kids explain their projects to each other is really fun. And I think it's like, they're proud of it. They've learned something. They've gleaned something from it. I'm not all anti-science.

46:10Heidi Rose:Right. No, there's ways to fix it. So you make it maybe non-competitive. She says we should get rid of the sham that the kids are doing their projects by themselves, get rid of what she calls the stupid competition aspect. So we don't have kids or let's be clear, parents competing to see who does the coolest project or spiffiest board. Right. I think she's right. I mean, I don't really want to do a family science fair, but that's better than, and like I said, my school has fixed this already. I mean, the best takeaway is like, do it at school. The more these projects can happen at school instead of at home, the less this stress and competition comes into play.

46:46Heidi Rose:I've never heard of that before, but that's a great idea. I understand why that's a huge, like, onerous thing on the school. Yeah, that's a lot for, like, the science teacher to have to manage, but that does seem like the best solution. And it's also, yeah, and, like, the kids then, like you were saying, like, nobody had the, like, nicer markers than the other one, or that they all have, for the older kids, they actually say, like, your title has to be an 18-point career or whatever it is. Like, they really specify what the board can look like, and they print it out at school, so there's no glitter letters, and there's no, like, volcano that you got from stuff at Michael's.

47:25Heidi Rose:You can't jazz it up. Your presentation is your presentation. It's not about puffy letters. It's not about the paint. Yeah. Yeah. And I will say also, remember that some of these projects test skills that your child fundamentally may not have. And so that's fine. It's not really about winning the science fair. It's like, can you glean or learn something from it? And what your kid may learn from it is like, oops, I forgot to write down the fundamental part. And so my science fair project kind of bombed, like maybe going forward, I need to organize my projects better from day one. Or my kid who is totally scatterbrained, like I forgot to water my plants and they died.

48:10That might be the takeaway. I just think watch when these things test very specific skills. It's okay to be like, my kid's good at a lot of things, but he's not good at the skills that this happens to test.

48:22Heidi Rose:Right. Or in my case of like the kids with the hundred note cards. I didn't I was okay with I wasn't going to call the school and say, hey, this shouldn't exist anymore because I think kids should by the time they're 13 or 14 know how to read an article. And they should eventually know how to do that for high school and college. They can't do that without parental help. But I was willing to help in that case. Like, I'm not going to fight the school and this shouldn't happen. But I'm also not going to have my kid crying at home that they can't figure this out. Just help. That's such a good point because I feel like that was the mistake I made when my big guy was in kindergarten.

48:55Like I kind of was like, this is unrealistic to ask kids to do this when they're already struggling and miserable when they get home to start these arts and crafts projects. And it's ridiculous. And we're not going to participate in it because it's ridiculous. And then I've learned going through life, like, oh, there's a lot of kids who love that. There's a lot of like kids who love to come home and do an arts and crafts project for two hours. My daughters like that. And so I was sort of like, everyone needs to accommodate my kid who's not good at this by getting rid of these stupid projects. And that was kind of a wrong point of view.

49:26Like no one needs to accommodate my kid. I need to help my kid either say, we're going to change the accommodation for you, or you're going to do badly at this, but it's not really a test of who you are. It's just a test of how well kids do this. And this is not your strength.

49:41Heidi Rose:And I guess at the very, very base level, but we just have to make sure that our ego is not involved in the, right? Don't participate when it's about you wanting your kid to have the cutest shoebox. And walk your kids verbally through the process. Like, hey, here's the thing. Would you rather make your car all on your own and feel the independence of figuring it all out by yourself, knowing that your car is less likely to win? Or would you rather have dad almost take this project over for you? much more chance you're going to have a winning car. But realistically, you didn't really have that much to do with it.

50:16So if you win, it's not really a victory for you. It's okay to have those like out loud conversations. That's a really good idea. And your kid may be like, I want to win. Win at all costs. Okay, well, then dad will make the car. Just make sure to give dad the prize, you know, because he made it. I think you solved it. Oh, we solved it. Man, have I not solved it at my house because that Pinewood Derby is in two weeks and we haven't even started on our car. Will you please do like a time lapse of 17 hours of construction? I can try to. Yeah. I mean, it's always a design. And it also like the worst part about it is it becomes a huge fight between me and my husband because I'm like, start them early, start them early.

50:54And it's always, I mean, literally there was one year where he was like brought a saw with him and he was like sawing holes in the car at the Pinewood Derby start line. It was a hot mess. And let me tell you, I had some words with him that might've involved the words, I told you so. It was not our better day in marriage. But other than that, we basically have solved it. We know what we're going to do going forward. We're going to support our kids. We're going to interact with the people who assigned the projects, and we're all going to be happy going forward.

51:23Heidi Rose:And we're going to opt out when that's possible to do without shaming your kid. Gosh, definitely opt out. And we're going to help if it's not. Guys, we want to hear what projects are tormenting you at home. And you can do that by coming to our Facebook page, facebook.com forward slash whatfreshhealthcast, or joining our Facebook group where we have awesome discussions about all things parenting. You can also find us on Instagram at whatfreshhealthcast. Let's put up some pictures of some school projects. Oh yeah. Let's see those school projects. We're also on Twitter at WFH Podcast, and I'll put up the links to our notes from today, including this incredible study from the Broken Compass book on our website, which is whatfreshhealthpodcast.com.

52:08Heidi Rose:Guys, we'll talk to you next week. Bye.

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