Hissy Fit - September 2025 - School for Parents: Now Pay Attention

September 2025 Issue
by Elizabeth Skenes Millen

Here we are in the midst of football season, just three short months from the onslaught of the holidays, with school children back into the full swing of roaming hallways, complaining about homework and having to get up early. Though everything seems different in today’s world, the basics are still: children don’t really like school; parents feel tied down by the regimen; and teachers are tired—already! It’s interesting, though, how many of us look back and consider our school days some of our best days, filled with many fun times and happy memories.

Some of my best memories include the fall festival at my elementary school where we actually bobbed for apples, did cake walks, and “fished” for prizes in the cool crisp fall air. I also enjoyed big projects that involved creatively building something. This is when my interaction with my father was the best. He had an artistic streak, and we would sit at the kitchen table and work together on my projects. We built the Boston Tea Party ship out of a box and placed tiny matchboxes wrapped in the paper from brown grocery sacks hanging over the side to replicate crates of tea. We modeled a stegosaurus—my favorite dinosaur—out of clay, and it really looked like one! There were many more, and they all hold special memories for me.

Parents definitely play a pivotal role in their children’s education, however, in today’s world some parents have crossed the line—some by doing too much, others by doing too little. With this in mind, I have made a list for parents (and grandparents) to consider as their children settle into the school year, whether it be their first, their last, or some year in between.

1. Don’t do their homework for them.
Homework is your child’s responsibility, meaning he or she is completely accountable for their work—no exceptions. Homework is a task which allows children to practice a subject and learn it at a deeper level—perhaps even fully understand it. Homework is a barometer for your child to know what they know, and discover what they don’t know, so they can ask their teacher for help. If you do their homework, you are literally robbing them of knowledge, accountability, and perhaps even self-esteem—you can’t do well on a test if your parent did your homework!

2. Encourage your child to communicate with the teacher.
Teachers want to teach, in fact, most of them thrive on it. Encourage your child to talk to the teacher if she can’t figure something out or is having trouble grasping a concept. Sometimes, even a brief one-on-one can evoke an a-ha moment and make a difference in the level of understanding. While 12 years of education may seem like a long time, it is just a blip of one’s life and the best opportunity we all get to truly soak up knowledge.

3. Teach your child that learning is fun and powerful!
Learning starts in the home from infancy. And most parents are eager to teach their babies how to count, the colors and the ABC’s. However, somewhere along the way, parents also have a tendency to ease up on the importance of school and learning. A child’s attitude toward learning is a direct reflection of their parent’s attitude toward school. Get excited about your child’s opportunity to learn. Teach them that excelling at school will change their lives. If you’re excited, they will be, too.

4. Show them that knowing stuff is super cool!
One of the best connections families have ever had in the history of family is sitting together at the table for supper. This is where important conversation and connection can flourish. Explore open-ended questions—don’t ask how their day was (to which the answer will probably be “ok”), instead ask, “What was your favorite thing you did today or learned today?” Then follow up with, “Tell me more about it.” For this to work, the television has to be off and absolutely no phones at the table—children and parents! Talk about fun, smart things—make it a game and something everyone looks forward to. (I love to talk about all the phrases we use today that was coined by Shakespeare. Nerdy, huh? But oh, so cool!)

5. Take away the phone!
I read it takes eight minutes to regain focus if you are interrupted from deep concentration. At one point, when my son was in high school, he was getting texts at night about every three to five minutes. This meant he was never able to get to a state of deep concentration to truly study and learn. And this was when TikTok didn’t exist, and social media was not as prevalent. If parents don’t monitor and manage their children’s phones, they are 100 percent setting their children up for stress, anxiety, and failure. It’s like asking a cocaine addict to sit in his room to get a project done and tossing in a bag of cocaine, expecting him to focus on the project and not the cocaine. I don’t know if parents have realized it yet, but by their children having their own private phone numbers and not a central family line, mom and dad have no idea who their children are interacting with or if they are staying up all night endlessly scrolling through social media—or worse yet, watching pornography or interacting with strangers. Help your children now by getting control of their phones!

6. Let them ride the bus.
Have I gone crazy? Surely, it’s horrifying to make your child ride the bus! Actually, it’s not. I’m not sure when we went from kids taking the bus, to every household driving their children to school, while possibly following the bus on the route there. Sure, we all had bad bus experiences, but there were many fun times, too. Riding the bus promotes independence and develops interactions with other children. Since school buses are neighborhood oriented, riding the bus is an opportunity for children to meet other neighborhood kids. There was a bully on my bus—Rob Beatty—and he called me fat and ugly (even though he was fatter, uglier and mean), and it hurt my feelings. Unfortunately, that’s all part of growing up, and it teaches us to be strong and courageous most of the time.

7. Lastly, teach your children to have a love of reading.
Read, read, read from birth to eternity. My daughter was a slow reader, and in 5th grade, she was required to read a book every week. I could see she was overwhelmed and losing confidence in her reading ability. My solution was to purchase the book on Audible (Hoopla, the library app, was not around yet) and have her follow the audio in the book. This way she could see and hear the words, as well as keep a pace to finish within the week. It worked! We got to where we would listen to fun “books on tape” in the car, which allowed us to share the experience together. It kind of became our thing. I still listen to books incessantly. She has not grown into a huge reader, but I think it’s coming. Keep your fingers crossed! I sent her home with The Rom-Commers the other day. It’s soooo good!