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This exactly. That she's returning home from school at 6:30! The author didn't give their daughter's age, but we can assume it's right before 14, so maybe 12-13. I'm in high school, and I take a couple HL IB classes, school always gets out for me at 3, and then I do cross country until 5. That is already a long day. Then I go home, eat, do homework, and depending on the workload it could be anywhere between 8:00-12:00. Finally I'm able to go to bed, and redo the whole thing. I am a high schooler, and I'm taking high level classes for credits in college. The author's daughter is probably a middle schooler.

The issue is the daughter doesn't have time to be creative. I program, edit videos, etc., but all of that I have to save for the weekends. The daughter probably doesn't have the energy to be creative and just uses their phone during some downtime.

With my generation we are not always on our phones like many would believe. Pre-covid we would gather and talk after school, during lunch, in class. If I went with my friends to lunch it is acceptable to check your phone but we would never find it acceptable to be on your phone the whole time.

The issue is probably not the daughter, but the workload.

Don't see IB mentioned often here! As an IB survivor, happy to help with CS or Physics if you run into any trouble.

> Pre-covid we would gather and talk after school, during lunch, in class. If I went with my friends to lunch it is acceptable to check your phone but we would never find it acceptable to be on your phone the whole time.

I'm 40.

This gives me hope for our species. I lost a very good, old friend several years ago because he was constantly on his phone. Several of us were home for Thanksgiving, which is a real rarity since we live all over the United States. We were all out to dinner and he just could not get off the phone, when I finally said, "Do you think its socially unacceptable to constantly be on your phone when we're all here together??"

He got extremely defensive, and very nasty. We haven't spoken since.

I can't tell you how great it is for me to see younger people realize how important it is to be in-the-moment with the people around you.

Maybe the phone is an escape? Getting home at 6:30 pm plus homework means that school-related things are a 12+ hour day. That's a pretty rough schedule for anyone.

Imagine if you had a 12 hour work schedule every day. Now imagine what you would feel, if you didn't have a choice to be there. You had to be there whether you liked it or not. That's what school is like for a lot of kids. Making it extra long probably doesn't help. Many adults would probably turn to worse vices to cope with a schedule like that - alcohol, drugs etc. Extended phone use seems much more minor in comparison.

Imagine who in society doesn't need to imagine 12+ hours of work and has to be there, like it or not.

What proportion, do you think? How would one firm up the estimate with hard data?

Your posts are nonsensical! Is this gpt-3?

I devolve into the same exact patterns as this pubescent teen does when I'm overworked. Phone apps hit the same reward centers in our brain as drugs do.

It's possible that the phone displaced her craft activities because it's a lower effort dopamine hit, but I think she'd probably spend all of her time sleeping without the phone.

Just keying in on the school portion draining you of energy, I think of just my high school English classed alone. Read a Novel a month and have weekly tests. Between that write a 5 page paper about the literary elements of each chapter. Fall behind a bit and good luck catching up with all the other work thrown at you. Try to bring this up to a teacher and you get told "What another teacher assigns isn't my responsibility." Bring it up to administration and be told "We trust our teachers to do what is best".

Those who had internet turned to sparks notes, got good grades, good grades meant scholarships and an easier time in college. Those without went further in the hole as they were most likely working after school and trying to bring in extra money to help the family.

Between all of this, it is easy to find yourself mentally exhausted where all you want to do is endlessly scroll things. I can even find myself being drawn to social media when I have had a particularly stressful day at work. Come home exhausted, sit down, scroll, scroll, scroll. Think about the stuff you want/need to do, realize scrolling just requires thumb movement and no thought. Put the phone down after an hour or two and wonder where your evening went.

Ultimately teaching youth responsible habits, whether they be a phone, computer, or anything, is on the parents, but, outside forces really don't make things easier.

it's definitely toxic, but at the same time I do feel that the unrealistic expectations of my teachers prepared me well for the Real World. by the time I got to high school I realized that no one really did all the work. I didn't have to be perfect, I just had to stand out from the pack a little bit to get mostly B's and A's. people set high expectations on the off chance that someone might actually meet them, not because the sky will fall if they don't.

> School is exhausting. Between rising unnaturally early (which leaves kids tired), rushing and bustling kids on their daily commute, most of the daylight hours blocked for school then homework when you get home

I will point out though that, if one is inclined to argue that school should prepare children for adult life, it sounds like this system is a pretty good mimic of the working life any given child is likely to have after they eventually leave school. Just replace homework with non-work obligations (or a second job).

Yes, but the difference is that as an adult you choose to be there. You can make arrangements that fit what you want. Kids don't have that option. They often don't even realize that they themselves might've put too much on their own plate and might not know how to handle it. They just don't burn out the same way adults do.

As an aside, if school was preparation for adult life then it really should teach you to drive, cook, and an understanding of the law. There are few things that school teaches that end up being more important than those for adults.

if school was preparation for adult life then it really should teach you to drive, cook, and an understanding of the law.

I don't know about now, but when I was in school (in the US), we were taught all those things and more (a bit of carpentry, metal work, engine repair, simple accounting, etc) YMMV.

At least back at the district I was in back in the day (and worked at, briefly), students could either take shop/business or advanced core classes. For some reason, those paths tended to have scheduling conflicts.

> as an adult you choose to be there

With the alternative frequently being homelessness. It's a lucky few (relatively speaking) who can freely switch jobs and pursue passions.

Most people work simply so they can continue to have a home, food, water, heat...

You still have way more flexibility and choice. You can decide to work more, work less, find a new job etc. What you get out of it is different and perhaps you don't want to give up your lifestyle, but you can decide to do that. You have no such choices as a kid.

If only. There are pretty much two settings available to most Americans: full time or more, and poverty. Relatively few people have the luxury of being able to spend a lot of time looking for better employment (again this is on top of all the working they are doing) or working less. I, for one, would gladly work a lot less for equivalently less pay, it just isn't an option available to me.

Is it, though? How many jobs will there be 10-20 years down the road where the main requirement is to be able to sit still for 8 hrs, ask before you go pee, and do as you're told? How many of these jobs will be automated instead? Or, differently, is that the kind of job you would want your kids to have?

All the bad jobs will be like this with ai monitors

Wow, that view is even grimmer than just jobs being automated away...

I went to one of the best rated public high schools in my state and also the country. While the academics were top notch compared to basically any other public high school around, it definitely did not prepare you adequately for (formal) engineering school. That includes the advanced courses that you had to take. I suspect that there are very few public schools that prepare you for those actual demands. Additionally, it was extremely competitive with respect to academics (in terms of grades/rank) and developing extracurriculars. It was no way representative of real life.

While I was not a good student in high school, and basically saw it as “doing time”, I was forced to get my act together academically when I became severely chronically ill my freshman year at university. My work ethic changed completely because not being a full time student meant no insurance. Also, if I did not have a job in the future with good benefits, it literally meant death (I require a blood product to survive). So, engineering school it was. But now I don’t live in the USA so this is less of a problem. It is nice not to have to worry constantly about healthcare and having to work a job just for the benefits—-as in to actually be free.

When they said prepare you for "adult life" I don't think they meant a university engineering program.

"Life sucks and you may as well learn it early." Setting aside the fact that tweens & teens in particular need more sleep (you can do with less when you're older), even if one has to get up at 6:30 and do a 90 minute commute every day, why make kids do this?

They can learn to get up early and commute when they have to do so. I don't think making kids spend 10 years waking up early is necessary to prepare them for getting up early as an adult.

Analogy: they may have to go without food at some point their life, that doesn't mean we have to starve them now so they're prepared. They can learn to do it when they need to do it.

What sort of job do you have that has homework? Mine certainly doesn't.

More generally, i don't think we should make kids lives suck to prepare them for the fact that the rest of their life is also going to suck. That's not the way to make happy people who appropriately prioritize work/life balance.

I have to study for certifications and generally expand my technical knowledge outside of work. It's not constant, but my quarterly objectives aren't achievable without "homework."

Everyone is different though. Some people have lower stress jobs where they work for a single company and have plenty of time to learn new stuff on the job (or never really need to acquire new skills). But I work in consulting, so acquiring new skills while maximizing my billable hours is part of the game.

I don't think its fair to call non-billable hours "homework". Having non-billable hours is part of running your own business. If you own your own business, you can do your nonbillable hours at any time in the day, including not in normal working hours, but you can also do your billable hours at any time of the day.

It's studying or writing (not billable work) that I must do to achieve a good "grade" (i.e., performance review) and it occurs between 9 and 11 pm -- long after I've left work for the day. That's the textbook definition of homework.

I'm also not the owner or anything of the sort; I'm a mid-level IC with no direct reports.

Homework took more time than housework - and I can decide not to do housework on any given day. I keep a cluttered house because I'm OK with that. Not to mention that housework takes very little mental effort - in fact, it is a grand time to daydream and get ideas (like showering). These are not the same beasts at all.

The second job is closer to homework, so long as you are doing it most nights and it takes some mental effort. And gee, it seems that having two jobs will pretty much kill creativity also and cause folks to burn out. At least with a second job, you are probably older. Teens and pre-teens simply aren't there mentally.

No it doesn't. The only way to prepare for adult life is to experience adult life early on. Experiencing more school life is the exact opposite of that.

I have done home schooling and regular public schooling. If you can afford to have a parent be at home full time with your kids, you are amongst the wealthiest in the world. You are fortunate.

Or the poorest. Especially if you cannot find a job that pays more than daytime child care costs. Then it’s cheaper to have a parent stay at home, despite the poverty level, because any daycare available costs more than any available job brings in.

That's true for young kids, but not preteens. By that age they're old enough to stay home alone for a couple of hours after school. Hence the term 'latchkey kid'.

Return to employment after years at home can be quite hard. Not saying impossible, but options are severly limited and plus it is massive adjustment.

Any gap in employment or long-term unemployment is difficult to get over, but staying home with children seems to have its own stigma. My mother had quite a problem with this: She stayed home as she could while we were growing up, occasionally working when we really needed money. She started working more when my brother finally didn't need as much care (my brother is 11 years younger, so there was quite a stretch).

She got told no because she didn't have recent work experience. Childcare simply doesn't count unless you are getting paid to watch other people's children.

That's true if you were just managing the home. I know that "homework" and caring for kids alone may sometimes be exhausting, but regularly allocating time for studying is usually worth it for everyone. I personally know two mothers who successfully changed their careers for better during their stay-at-home years.

It isn't always a choice: Most child care places simply do not take pre-teens - they stop after elementary school, as do many after-school programs.

I'll also add that it isn't just a couple hours after school: It is holidays that parents don't get off work. It is summers without school. It is 6-8 hours after school while parents work second shift. It, in general, doesn't matter if your child is mature enough to stay home during the summer or late into the evening, the child care isn't for them.

It's ridiculous that you were downvoted because this is exactly right. Assuming one works federal minimum wage for 40hrs/week and 52 weeks a year with no days off and no taxes, they make roughly $15k by my math. How could a three-person family, with two parents making $30k total, possibly afford to homeschool the child?

It's right, but it's kind of a non-sequitur. It seems to be a response to "you should be homeschooling your kid", which sequoia didn't actually say. They suggested the problem is "school taking up 100% of her time, energy, and attention", and obviously homeschooling is how they are addressing it themselves, but you can imagine other solutions. Off-hand:

* For starters, school doesn't last until 6:30pm unless you let it. Extracurriculars are extra. If you need afternoon child care (and most of us do), there may be less directed, more creative options available.

* Schools can make changes, and you can encourage your teacher / school / district to do so. Less homework (an idea which has some science behind it iiuc) at least. Maybe a later start time (although this runs into tension with parents' schedules).

Every time there is discussion about kids on HN, someone wants me to leave the work and stay at home. Usually someone who would not do it himself. I did not downvoted, but I see how it is getting old.

Also, middle school that is from morning till 18:30 is definitely not the norm here. There is also this part where every single flaw of every educational system is assumed to be unchangeable and universal.

So it is not even like the argument would made sense.

Your assertion that only families among "the wealthiest in the world" have non-school childcare arrangements is incorrect.

I agree that everyone should have access to better child-rearing opportunities than are offered by school, especially public school in North America. I'd love to see homework eliminated, more time in school devoted to play, more tracking & opportunities for everyone to develop their strengths (be they calculus or auto mechanics), and the elimination of compulsory secondary schooling (let the kids come who want to come & make it rewarding enough that they do, rather than threatening to jail their parents to bring them to heel).

I am ignoring the aspects of your comment directed towards me personally.

I think some of the replies that add "poorest" may have taken your comment too literally. Truly there is no greater treasure in the world than be able to spend that amount of time with your child. We have some neighbors who are not too well off that homeschool their kids, and they are the most engaged and loving family I know on our block. It makes me smile any time I see them interact.

> We have some neighbors who are not too well off that homeschool their kids

This is exactly the type of situation ttul seems unaware of. The "only rich white people homeschool" trope is a myth from people who are unfamiliar with the much more complex reality of the situation.

I am sorry. But if you are rich enough to have one parent stay home and school your kids, you are rich by any reasonable measure.

Does being at-or-below the median family income for your location make you "rich by any reasonable measure?"

If they're buying iPhones for their kids like the original author's post they're also wealthy. So your point is moot.

Or bad with money.

As someone who grew up in a fire trap of a falling apart trailer that was 25 years older than me deep in the Appalachian mountains, generally what most would consider poor as hell for an American, I was homeschooled. You can try and convince me we were rich I guess, but it wouldn't work.

My son was a curious kid, a geography nerd, and watched a lot of educational videos on YouTube. Got his phone and now is addicted. Is even going bad in school. Sure there is a pandemic, but we have a lot of fights here.

>Got his phone and now is addicted

Isn't watching educational videos on YouTube exactly the thing most of us ( parents ) would want?

It seems more like he was watching educational videos on YouTube before getting a phone, and has since become addicted to other phone things?

Parents always worry like this. Mine used to worry I was "addicted" to programming on the home PC. I'd say, no mum. I don't go outside and frolic in the fields like a Victorian-era child because we live in the middle of a giant housing estate in the North West of England where it's always cold and pissing with rain. My friends live a car drive away and we aren't into football, which is the only thing available to do outside around here, plus I read most of the interesting books in the house already, I've grown out of cartoons, the computer is more interesting than children's TV and definitely more interesting than homework, most of which is of obviously marginal utility when I become an adult.

Or at least that's what I would have said, if I'd been articulate enough to know how.

The child in this article doesn't sound "addicted" to her phone. It sounds like the wealth of social, creative and interesting activities available through it are just far more interesting than playing dolls with her mum. Maybe it's tough for her mum to accept that her daughter is growing up, but she had to grow out of that at some point - it was inevitable that something would replace it. Would she prefer if it had been TV, like it was for prior generations?

Yes. Addicted to Twitter, instagram etc.

I've thought about schooling quite a lot, and I've come to the conclusion that a kid maybe needs 5 years of full time schooling to become proficient in reading, mathematics, civics and their government structure, and a high school level understanding of sciences. The rest of it is just government funded daycare. And that's what school is supposed to be for, right? To make a literate population capable of measuring and counting and abstractly understanding the world around them. So why does it take 13 years?

Kids are curious. Kids learn. They want to learn. You don't have to force them to do it.

It takes 13 years because people who make a lot of money don't want to bankroll the daycare of other people's children.

Your society might work in the 23rd century with Jean-Luc Picard. It doesn't work in the 21st century with Tim Cook and the quarterly report.

This is low effort and a cheap attack on rich people.

Why do we need the money of someone else to educate our children? Why do we go to work to pay the taxes that keep our kids in what amounts to a prison? Maybe part of how you get that 23rd century society is by stopping with this long and drawn out compulsory education charade. Teach people what they have to know to function in an advanced society, let them find their own interests and learn the things they need to learn to do the things they want. What about our current society precludes that from working? Tim Cook's existence?

Would you want to elaborate about the calculations/estimates and share any top readings you've found?

In many cases, the purpose of education depends on socioeconomic class or what you, your parents, and/or your social groups decide to take for yourselves.

Nearly everybody promotes widespread basic literacy for social cohesion and basic employment functionality, but higher skills are more of a battle ground. Many people do not want others to progress past the basics for a variety of reasons. One is a fear of "overproduction of elites", another is fear of competition from fully developed people with nice critical thinking skills (cue up George Carlin and his comments on critical thinking).

I'm interested in all time estimates for educational programs, know about Finland's general time frames for youth education, don't know about other national norms, and am happy to hear any suggested readings or other ideas.

The purpose of education as sold in the early days of national education was to create a literate and competent citizenry. The criteria I outlined above accomplishes that.

As far as socioeconomic class, overproduction of elites and critical thinking skills, I think it is plainly obvious that education systems do not help. I did not learn critical thinking in school, I learned it in life. In fact, what I'm doing right now is critically thinking about the role and effectiveness of rigorous education. They don't do that in rigorous education.

Overproduction of elites cannot happen through rigorous and standard education, it underproduces capable people. I should note that I do not think you can overproduce elites, I want everyone to be one.

I'm not saying that a person doesn't need an education. What I'm saying is that a child doesn't need 13 years of full time schooling and I'm saying that a classroom is not an effective place to learn most things we need to learn.

Educational funding should be decoupled from property taxes which is really a function of speculation.

When we fund schools with property taxes as we do in the USA, then we make education a speculative activity. Disastrous outcome guaranteed.

I agree. But my model is slightly different. I feel it’s better to have children of multiple ages together in three schooling stages for multiple years.

Example: grade 1-5 can have children of that age range in that section for five years. Ditto for grade 6-9 etc. this way, children can learn at their own pace and time. And from their peers. Gives them more flexibility.

Schools should be for social education too and learning how to become adults. Parents should be more involved in forming peer groups rather than schools.

School buildings should be the only tax payers funded capital expense. And a skeleton crew of teachers with something like khan academy. Schools are where they can congregate for group studies or games or swimming pools or sports or music rooms or robotics meetups or shop work or fill in the blank etc.

Parents should raise children and make decisions. Not school unions. Also..why should those without kids in school pay taxes for everyone and sundry forever? There should be a base minimum towards public contribution for public education(the capital cost of neighborhood school buildings etc), but cost of raising and educating children should be shared amongst those whose children are studying. This will also help people make financially responsibly decisions as well location preferences when they want to grow and raise a family.

I am appalled that the govt..at least in the USA..has the responsibility of child care, child rearing and the other education. What are the parents doing? Parenting doesn’t end with just birthing your progeny.

Thank you!

Our obsession with packing children’s lives with empty calorie activities to “prepare the for the real world” is destructive - to their potential, their mental health, and our ability to level up as a species.

Yeah but us poors are stuck in this perpetual cycle. Only the ultra rich can escape

We’re doing it with a Montessori school in a state with low cost of living. It’s a significant cost, but the generational impact massively outweighs the impact to our retirement.

> When my kids home school they will spend a lot of time playing roblox or whatever, but then they'll spend hours playing outdoors, decide to do a cooking project that takes all morning–currently one of mine is getting into "bushcraft" and he'll watch hours of videos about making fires, carving etc. before putting the tips it into practice (safely) during times outdoors, where he spends hours and hours. Then he'll come back, play roblox for an hour, then help clean up and put the younger kids to bed.

Is there any time when he actually studies?

> school taking up 100% of her time, energy, and attention that is preventing her from pursuing creative interests?

This was the problem for me when I was a kid. I had limited time to play my favorite video games. So I spend whole days in school imagining and planning what to do in the game in order to trade school time for the game time in a very inefficient way, and all my life was optimized to make full use of my game time - even though I was not playing. Separating kids from their favorite activities don't usually work as expected.

that's always irked me about one of the common arguments against permanent DST -- "without DST kids would be going to school in the dark" (instead of coming home in the dark). i mean obviously the clock is the problem

I too struggle to understand this kind of thinking. Our society says bullshit like, "Kids are our greatest resource!" but we know that's pure horseshit because if it was true, we'd rearrange our lives and society around them. We don't.

I see this even with adults. You can certainly toughen up and work long hours and maybe even efficiently. Most people will probably do a better job with less than ~ 6 hours per day at least on intellectual work or learning. If you try to do more you will not be able to sustain it long term with your other obligations in life while staying healthy and happy. As with anything, there are exceptions but they tend to confirm the experience. I have worked more than 12 hours more days in a row on very hard stuff during e.g. infrastructure migrations that didn't exactly follow a plan for unforeseen reasons and I did an exam the next day after the return from this business trip. I had more similar experiences. I am able to script/ program multiple hours without much in terms of break if I am "in the flow". I also like long walks or just sitting down with people drinking tea and having a conversation even about somewhat deep topics. This is a kind of offset of the peak concentration and performance.

The question about energy and motivation is in my opinion also related to tools and methods and not just long hours and early wake up. At OrgPad.com we learn about new approaches to education in conversations with our users and friends all the time since our 2000+ users are mostly students at elementary schools, high schools and universities. We also have a small but very active community of academics using OrgPad to pursue research and personal development. E.g. a teacher created a large OrgPage with many topics related to chocolate. These are roughly: activities, knowledge gathering tasks or experiments and information. Using this approach you can motivate children and their due to COVID-19 involuntary home schooling parents to discover e.g. whether chocolatey burns: https://www.orgpad.com/s/9l8igw The teacher who made all that shares her experiences (in Czech) on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyM6l4FHtb0&list=PLs5kSDmhaz... It seems, the children (and their parents hopefully too) like her approach to digital education a lot. I sincerely think OrgPad.com can help many people with organizing their thoughts and other information and related materials while not sucking their mental energy as other tools and methods do. If you want a short (< 3 minute, in English) taste of what is possible with OrgPad, please have a look here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtqFWSJT9yw

I see some light in this new situation though. My kid has had to remote into his classroom during the March lockdown, and again recently. It seems to work just fine. The teacher can still check on his progress, but when he's at home there's no commute and he can spend his free time as he likes. Meals can also be taken in front of the screen. Slow at eating lunch? Keep eating.

At the same time, he has an actual school that he can go back to next week, and he can catch up with friends again.

This sort of flexible schooling could be the thing for the future.

Except my child is doing the school from home, and it seems that just translates to even more homework. Sure she frequently procrastinates, but having a teacher send "don't panic, here are 4 hours of homework due tomorrow" has literally put her in the situation of sitting on her computer from 8PM till 2AM a number of times now. Plus she is burning ~8 hours on the weekend with homework too.

So, I guess that is the price of being in a top tier highschool taking AP classes. When I was in a similar situation I probably only spent on average an hour a day on homework.

> Edit: I must admit I commented after reading only half the article (shame on me). It does in fact seem like her daughter has a phone-use problem. What I say above remains true, however.

Yes, one of the defining symptoms of addiction (to anything) is that it interferes with your normal relationships with others. Addicts see these relationships as hurdles to getting their fix and tend to withdraw from them as they get more and more addicted.

Its all set up for the capitalist lifestyle. I grew up in Bosnia. They still have 2 shifts for school there, 7:30-12 and 12:30-5.

I very much doubt her kid is "in school" until 6:30. More likely she is in a after-school program, and most after-school programs are part homework help, part play. My kid misses her after-school program terribly as it was more of an extended playdate with her best friends.

It is hard when they come home and their evenings are packed, but I wouldn't make it out as all bad or all exhausting.

Tldr. I didn't read the article. My kids are fine, I think you're wrong. Why is this the top comment?