Kumon ruining our holiday

I can see trouble ahead for these poor hothoused girls. I am glad you try to keep the peace, as I believe at some point, when they rebel or it all gets too much, that they will really need you.

Sorry it should say "do NOT need to do these"!

Grampie Kumon maths is a commercial enterprise playing on parents worries. I have seen the advertising they send out to parents! It is a graded programme to encourage quick recall of the 4 rules through pages of dull exercises. Children do need to do these if they are struggling..they need specific & targeted support with whatever they are struggling to understand with an adult who knows what to do! It seems that granniepauline could be that person and spend a more worthwhile hour with her DGD finding out what she find tricky rather than battling with Kumon stupid worksheets.

Does your DiL not respect the fact that you were a maths teacher?
Surely if you saw this as a way to engage a child you'd embrace it enthusiastically!
I'm sure you'd be able to come up with personalised fun activities to encourage your GD that you both could enjoy.
Most families would be delighted to have their own pet maths tutor!

As your 'in charge' it should be your choice as to what the children do and how they do it. Next time make it very clear .

My dgd together with the rest of her class has been given work papers over the summer break. My dil worked out that to complete then will take 15 hours each week. Fortunately my dgd is willing to do some each day and they come with her when we do childcare. They will NOT be going with her when the family go on their summer holiday and dil says if they are not all completed..... too bad.

However my dgd is aged 10 and is preparing for the school transfer examination. She is not only 7 like OPs dgd.

When it comes time for dgs who is 3 years younger that will be a different story.

Seems a lot for a 7 year old and her mum's attitude does not bode well.

Why slander a Company?

Your holiday is "being ruined" by decisions made by you and your family.

Sorry but feel you shouldn't have agreed to undertake this prior to arranging the holiday. If the child was happy to do it then all well and good but as she's not I would text your daughter and explain that due to the upset you are not going to continue as forcing children is very detrimental to learning. HTH xxx

Never heard of Kumon but it does not sound like a good way to engage a child in maths. You are in a difficult position though given you and DIL do not get on that well and you do not paint her in a favourable light at all. Calling her daughter lazy and stupid is completely out of line.

I would make it quite clear to your granddaughter that it is not you who is insisting on this to start with and resist the urge to do it yourself. That sort of information could get back to DIL and then you could find access curtailed. Ultimately she is her daughter but if she resists then I think you just say at the end of the holiday that you tried your best but she really was not engaging with it and refused to do it on many days. Try to make a game of it maybe and see how many of these pointless arithmetic problems she can do in 20 minutes. I am not sure why it cannot be broken into chunks. An hour of maths every day when she is supposed to be on holiday is a lot.

Just a thought.

Did Alan Sugar excel in maths or did he employ an accountant?
Ditto Richard Branson
Mick Jagger went to the London School of Economics and made his money writing songs.

I feel so sorry for children forced into learning something they hate.

`it's crazy imo. Let children be children. School holidays are essential for them to wind down and play. Same for teachers in truth though as we know, many of them will be coughing up to pay for their classrooms to be prepared for the new school term. (yes I'll be off to Ikea with one of my teacher children)

We had to witness this with an 11 year old step gd while on holiday. She had to do two hours work daily with a teacher on "Skype" working through 11 plus questions. She got tired and my heart went out to her. No way for her to spend her holiday, and it was very expensive too.

Any destructive puppies around? ( My dog ate my homework) !!!!

Speed it up....do it with her! If maths is difficult why aren’t you as a teacher asked to help her? Some people never get maths! I know this from experience.......I have a DPhil and can’t do maths to save my life! My kids both did double maths at A level and achieved A*.....they think it’s funny that I don’t understand maths!
Don’t let it ruin your holiday or worse the relationship with your grand children......my son was and still is(!) bad at English.....my mother in law taught remedial English......we asked her to help out......BIG mistake! He loathes her to this day!

If your dil is all for rules then as both a teacher and grandmother I can tell her that both calling a child stupid nd insisting on an hours work from a seven year old during the holiday could well be considered child abuse! Warn her this is not acceptable ! A social worker or teacher at school woild take a very dim view of both and redflag them as causes for concern. Believe it or not , kids have ‘rights’ today and in this case you may need to enforce them! Good luck

I was thrown out of class by my maths teacher as a no hoper. I worked in the City as an accountant for many years. Still hate maths. I don't believe in forcing children to study. It makes them hate it. I loved studying fortunately, except the blooming maths.

Have same problem with Kumon and 2 grandchildren.Seems dull as dish water.brightestchild has worked out repetitive pattern of sums and has arm across questions but gets everyone right.Negligible advantage outweighed by stress and pressure put on children who should be having fun.

Rather late in this discussion, but I would talk to your son / DiL and say that you do not feel able to do this.
Don't talk about your feelings around Kumon, or you'll get into a discussion about it instead of your grand-daughters.
If they say she will get behind, say you are sorry they believe that, but you cannot do this.
If they say you cannot take them on holiday / have them to stay (and they would have to be really daft to say that!) then say you will have to think very carefully about that, need time to do so, and ask them to do the same.
Your grand-daughter sounds old enough to talk to, say that parents get very worried that she should do well, and that the grown-ups are going to talk about it.

And don't worry about your grand-daughter's refusal - at least she has a mind of her own! You can let her know you sympathise without undermining her parents.

I guess they have you over a bit of a barrel - or you think they do - in that time with your DGDs might be conditional on you playing ball with something you disagree with.

I think you should not worry about that. By the sound of things they are more than happy for you to be taking responsibility for their children.

My DDs know that I will try to uphold their rules when their children are in my care; but they also know that there is an element of "My house; my rules" and raise no objections when some things are done a bit differently. If you are kind enough to take them on holiday then the parents have to accept your definition of a holiday.

I would just enjoy the holiday and when it is over and they ask about the maths simply say "Oh we were far too busy for that - we did XYZ."

If I were you, and other techniques to make it less miserable have been tried and failed, I would refuse to play bad cop.

I.e. if DGD said Im not doing it, phone her mum and tell her to ask her to do it, let DIL be the bad cop if she is the one being inflexible about it!

Great messages. And giving me lots of support thanks.

Update: GC was asked to do Kumon paper after breakfast and went straight to bed and refused to get up again.I phoned son and he said we needn't do it after all!! DIL phoned later and said GD had to catch up by Thursday

Son said that she does Kumon in order to help her focus and that she needs to learn to focus on boring things for an amount of time because that's what she will face in real life. The guy has been brainwashed - this is not how I brought him up!!

He also says she is top of her class in Maths! Not sure if Kumon achieved this but I doubt it as I've looked at last year's Maths books and there was a lot of shape and logic work (which Kumon doesn't do) as well as the number work.

I like the suggestion that the parents do homework while they're on holiday. And other ideas too. But my hands are firmly tied. ANY suggestion to DIL that she is wrong or misguided would I believe cause endless trouble.

I can see that she wants her girls to do well but she and I are not on the same track at all.

Other granddaughter doesn't miss the attention as she is also doing well at school and is being prepared as a sports star with loads of training.

It is my view that DIL has projected some of her own failings onto older girl and has found Kumon to occupy the younger one. She hopes (as we all do to some extent) that her children will reflect her own good parenting and choices, so it seems unwise to challenge her even though I disagree with her over several things. I have tried debating and discussion but she just gets angry and self-justified.

I don't think DIL has the confidence to actually help her own daughters. She doesn't read to them or help them at home apart from this sort of drill. I now remember that elder daughter had to do test after test (from bought test books) as well as set homework.

DIL watches endless BGT and Strictly (and their spinoffs) and children watch cartoons etc. I pointed out to my son that he should have more educational progs but he says they work hard enough (actually he could be right there!)

Yes and when you try to teach it at secondary they groan and say 'Not again!' That happened with Science - in Primary School some of tge most exciting experiments had already been done so it was hard to find new things to enthuse them. And they hadn't fully understood so it did have to be repeated.

The huge irony in this is that we force our primary age children into learning till it is coming out of their ears - and then when they get to secondary school they repeat it all during their first two years. So what was all the rush about in the first place? Madness total madness.

My friend's daughter had a Tshirt that said 'when the going gets rough I'm off to Grandma's'. yo Granny!

Forget the maths. Dump it! She is on holiday FGS! Maths may not be her best (or favourite) subject but she will have time to improve on it as she gets older - but she will never have this holiday time with you again. Yes, there will be other holidays, but not this one. She is just a child, let her forget about maths for a while and just enjoy her holiday with you. If her parents are disappointed in your action then I think I would be equally disappointed in their insistence of a rigid tutoring regime in the holidays.