I don't get a lot of people who say that summer vacation for kids is too long, it should be shorter than it is, why? When we were kids we went back in mid-late August, and this year the kids here are going back last week in August, and apparently elsewhere everybody's going back in September, which I think is how it should be, summer vacation ought to be a nice long break from school. Why do people think kids get too long of a vacation?

The dirty little secret is that it's not the kids they are worried about. It is the PARENTS. It's too long for the PARENTS to actually have their kids around and have to step up and be parents. We don't give two craps about the kids.

That's what I'm thinking too. It's like the debate about summer camp, is it a great opportunity for kids or is it just a perfect way out for parents who don't want their kids with them during the summer?

There are studies that suggest U.S. students lose months of progress over summer vacation. Do the majority of school children still work on family farms? No. Our students need to be able to compete with the rest of the world.

Except we're already trying that, making the kids take on more stuff and work longer hours and even taking away their breaks and recesses so they have more time to sit down and listen to the teachers, but the kids are NOT learning anything; in fact we have kindergarteners in this country suffering from nervous breakdowns because they can't handle all the work suddenly put on them because they must compete with Asian kids who study every day and shame their whole family if they don't excel.

Except that has little to do with the question of a longer school year. Gee, what a surprise if student performance doesn't improve if they try to cram 190-200 days worth of instruction into 180 days. With 10-11 weeks off for them to turn their brains off.

I don't think the fault lies within summer break though. Because when my mother was in school, they got out in early June, went back in September, and she was one of the brightest kids in her class, but HERE is where it's different from today. Today if kids finish early they have big parties at the school, if the class worked hard enough ahead during spring semester that they finished early, they started reviewing the work for that fall so they'd have some idea of what they were doing.

These days you never hear of that, hell, around here the schools don't bother with even knowing the current semester's work, if you don't do your homework, you don't have to, if you get your reading and spelling wrong, that's okay, in fact they seem to have as little academics as possible so it won't get in their way of playing games like Pictionary and Snap and Clue during class. But the parents finally found out about that and cracked down on the school so this semester they're supposed to be taking things more seriously, but we'll see, I quiz the kids every day on what they learned in school and every day it's 'nothing', 'what did you do?' 'played games'. THIS I think is largely to blame for the kids not getting or remembering the work, that, and the fact that (here anyway) they take so many days off for PTA meetings and teacher conferences and snow days when the snow isn't even bad, that they wind up cutting days out of school vacation to make up for the play days they had all year round.

Some countries/places go to school year-round, but have appropriate breaks here and there--a couple weeks in the winter, summer, however it works out. I don't think that's such a bad idea--too much idle time, especially for teens, can lead to various forms of trouble that I don't care to deal with as a parent, hence, why I work nights so that someone is home all the time. It's not that I don't trust my daughter, but a whole pack of kids hanging out for weeks while the parents are both at work---nope! Too much temptation there for experimentation with things and ways to get into trouble. Not to mention that it would be my ass that would get sued if I left them unattended and one got hurt in the pool or on the property in general.

Whatever.

Hyacinth Girl wrote:

Some countries/places go to school year-round, but have appropriate breaks here and there--a couple weeks in the winter, summer, however it works out. I don't think that's such a bad idea--too much idle time, especially for teens, can lead to various forms of trouble that I don't care to deal with as a parent, hence, why I work nights so that someone is home all the time. It's not that I don't trust my daughter, but a whole pack of kids hanging out for weeks while the parents are both at work---nope! Too much temptation there for experimentation with things and ways to get into trouble. Not to mention that it would be my ass that would get sued if I left them unattended and one got hurt in the pool or on the property in general.

When we were kids, our friends didn't need to be out of school for weeks to get into trouble, they could do that in school or when they came home from school, being out until August never had anything to do with it.

^^Yeah, if kids are going to get in trouble, they'll do it whenever they want, regardless of whether or not school's in session. I do think it's better if they keep their minds active and focused on something, hence year-round school--it's too hard for some of them to get back into the swing of things when they've sat around for 2 -3 months doing not much other than texting, Facebook, hanging around, etc. If not regular classes, year round, then there should be more "fun" classes or programs in the summer to fill their time that will still challenge their minds.

I don't agree with year-round school, as kids it meant VERY much for us to get any day off that we could. Though I will admit about the last week before school started I was kind of looking forward to going back again (must be the sadist in me), but my mother kept us busy in the summer, we did a little of the schoolwork during break so we were up to par when the semester actually started. It was over summer break when I was 10 that I had to read Around the World in 80 Days, and I swear to God I have no idea HOW I ever got through it, I remember very little of it at all...but when we were younger she had other things planned for us, we went swimming everyday, and we did Bible school arts and crafts, and she took us around looking at the plants and stuff like we'd learned in science, every Friday we got something new to play with like Super Soakers or something.

I guess that's another reason we were lucky to be in the generation we were because there was no texting, no Facebook, the only thing we did on the computer was play 2 Sierra games we had, King's Quest VI: Heir Today - Gone Tomorrow, and Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist, and we were not allowed to be on there all day. Not that we would've been anyway because we had better things to do.

Personally, I think childrens' minds need rest. And summer is the perfect time of the year to bond more as a family. They were certainly MY best months growing up.

By the way, Supernova, I agree with your last paragraph completely. Without all the high tech garbage, I possessed the best imagination abd ability to self-entertain than any child I've encountered in recent decades.

Bluesmama wrote:

Personally, I think childrens' minds need rest. And summer is the perfect time of the year to bond more as a family. They were certainly MY best months growing up.

By the way, Supernova, I agree with your last paragraph completely. Without all the high tech garbage, I possessed the best imagination abd ability to self-entertain than any child I've encountered in recent decades.

Exactly, kids need to rest. They're not machines, hell even adults get time off to rest, so why not kids? I think they were some of my best times as well. When I was 10 and 11 I could just go up into the tree house all morning or afternoon or evening, and read my Fright Time books and listen to my music. Those were some good times. I also liked the summer when my niece came to visit and we were all at that time big on the Dragonball Z craze from Cartoon Network so we chased each other around the yard pretending to be Saiyans and blasting each other, and my brother who has always been very talented in building things, made us all vests of armor like they wore on the cartoon to wear, it was so cool.

Nystyle709 wrote:

Yep. If they aren't doing shit but sitting around the house, then it doesn't need to be longer.

Except, although I'm not saying they don't, I never knew anybody who DID just sit around the house all summer, we had one neighbor who he'd go off on river rafting trips or something else like that. We'd all ride our bikes around and play ball and stuff like that, and at night we'd set up a tent and camp out, and we got to stay up late and we could go swimming at night, all the good stuff you just could NOT do when school was in session and you had to be up early the next day.

Alan Smithee wrote:

There are studies that suggest U.S. students lose months of progress over summer vacation. Do the majority of school children still work on family farms? No. Our students need to be able to compete with the rest of the world.

The students likely lose just as much over the same period of timing during the school year. The truth is that kids don't learn work anymore, they memorize it for a test. Well, that and a lot of what we learn, we don't use in our day to day lives so we forget it.

Compete with the rest of the world? The length of summer isn't the reason we can't compete. We'd probably be more able to compete if kids spent LESS time in schools. lol

Forgiveness Man wrote:

The students likely lose just as much over the same period of timing during the school year. The truth is that kids don't learn work anymore, they memorize it for a test. Well, that and a lot of what we learn, we don't use in our day to day lives so we forget it.

Compete with the rest of the world? The length of summer isn't the reason we can't compete. We'd probably be more able to compete if kids spent LESS time in schools. lol

I gotta agree, I think there's some truth to this. It's like a lot of schools got rid of recess because the teachers believed running around for 15 minutes here and there on the playground is going to make the kids LESS likely to pay attention and learn in class. So they get rid of recess and it's just sit down and shut up for all that much more time. When in fact the opposite is true, when kids ARE given a break and a chance to stretch their legs and shake the cobwebs from their brains, they do better in school. But ooooooohhh no the teachers know better so it's get rid of the playgrounds and don't even let the kids go outside for breaks anymore, keep them in the stifling claustrophic classrooms for breaks when they DO get them, and they wonder why the kids aren't doing well?

Supernova wrote:

I gotta agree, I think there's some truth to this. It's like a lot of schools got rid of recess because the teachers believed running around for 15 minutes here and there on the playground is going to make the kids LESS likely to pay attention and learn in class. So they get rid of recess and it's just sit down and shut up for all that much more time. When in fact the opposite is true, when kids ARE given a break and a chance to stretch their legs and shake the cobwebs from their brains, they do better in school. But ooooooohhh no the teachers know better so it's get rid of the playgrounds and don't even let the kids go outside for breaks anymore, keep them in the stifling claustrophic classrooms for breaks when they DO get them, and they wonder why the kids aren't doing well?

lol yeah. We just can't let kids be kids. We think forcefeeding them more is going to make them learn more but it isn't. I don't think it's about learning at all. Clearly, that isn't happening. So either they're totally blind to the lack of effectiveness of their ideas, or they are just lying about their intentions to cover up a deeper motive. Either way, the higher ups are failing our kids.

Agreed, another point for homschooling, no standardized tests where memorization of those choice answers is more important than actually learning the curriculum.

Having your kids home all day, every day becomes taxing. One of the advantages of kids going to school is that it gives parents breathing room, and eliminates the need to try and find a sitter if you're working.

But once again, who stays home all summer? None of the kids in this neighborhood do, no matter how young they are they're out, off by themselves or with their friends, ain't any of them staying home with the parents all day.

Supernova wrote:

But once again, who stays home all summer? None of the kids in this neighborhood do, no matter how young they are they're out, off by themselves or with their friends, ain't any of them staying home with the parents all day.

It's sporadic at best. Yes, kids go out and play, but chances are they won't be out of the house for six to eight hours at a time. They're popping in and out all day long, and still needs adult supervision of some sort.

Well that was the idea of what happens when a person becomes a parent, they are responsible for their kids and it's not just an after-school and weekends thing.

Few parents can always be available to their kids at any and every given moment of the day – nor can they take the kids with them everywhere, all the time. The demands of everyday life don't cease when you become a parent; you learn to juggle things and at some point you are going to have to be separated, and will have to make accommodations for it.

Realistically, it's easier on a parent to arrange a pattern around their kids daily school schedules; and summer vacations can throw off a certain regular flow. I have never felt like my daughters summer breaks were too long, but I'd be lying if I said that by the end of them I'm not looking forward to her going back to school so that our normal routine can continue.