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Well, your mother has old fashion ideals, IMO. I think parenting is both the parents' job - regardless what that task is whether it be changing diapers, playing, feeding, or in your sis' case, teaching reading/writing. Although it is a school's responsibility to teach, parents are EQUALLY responsible to be involved in their children's academia. It's a dog eat dog world and the more people who can help a child excel the better, IMO.
How does a single father with sole custody manage when he has to do the "woman's job" - which according to your mom is everything? The fact that your sis and her hub have the TIME to invest in their child's education and they are not doing it, to me, means someone needs to open their eyes. Kids are sponges when it comes to knowledge. If you don't foster that early, you're not helping and EVERY parent should have their kids' best interest at heart.
My grandson just turned 2 and he loves to learn - as do most young children. His parents got him a MagnaDoodle and its his favorite thing in the whole world. He'll hand it over to an adult to draw or write something. Sometimes its just fun for him to identify what's on the board, and other times he takes the pen and tries to copy what we've done. They're currently living with us, and he makes sure everybody gets a chance to play with him and his board every night. None of us see it as a job. Its fun to watch him draw a "double ubble ubble oo." And when we write something he's told us we get a high five and "good job, you smart" from the little stinker.
If they make it fun, they'll be amazed at how fast he learns.
In this day and age, it's politically incorrect to label something as a womans job or a mans job.
In my family, I (man) do the things that I do best. Mowing the lawn, handling the finances, paying bills, automotive maintenance, taking out the garbage, maintaining the house (for things that require tools).
My wife does the things that she does best. Caring for our daughter, cooking, cleaning.
Now, I could take care of my child, but then she'd need to mow the lawn and take care of the automotive maintenance. Not her skill set. So in our family, teaching the child is the mom's job while mowing the lawn and automotive maintenance is the dads job.
I think that the teacher and the OP meant "write" loosely, meaning how to hold a pencil or crayon and how to draw or color not necessarily how to write short sentences.
Mom, Dad, Grandma, everyone can and should help Junior be successful in school
BTW, in my area being able to write short sentences is an exit goal of 4 year old kindergarten. The children don't have to spell every word correctly, but they need to put several words together in a coherent sentence (with meaning) and write the letters well enough that others can read the sentence.
A child going into 5 year old kindergarten, who can not hold a pencil correctly would be doing A LOT of catching up to the other students.
I personally disagree and think that 4 is too young for handwriting and writing actual sentences but I didn't write or approve the curriculum.
P.S. A few of the 4 year olds were writing and illustrating short stories (3 or 4 pages) by the end of the school year.
From what I've read children shouldn't be holding a pencil properly until 5 or 6 years old, they hold it in different ways before that and trying to make them hold it the right way too early can lead to poor pencil grasp.
But if the curriculum says they have to then I guess they have to.
Most parents know that parental involvement with learning and school go hand in hand. In our house, in the early years, we actually viewed public education as supplemental to what WE were teaching at home. Any parent who thinks it is purely up to school to teach a kid what it needs to learn to be successful is woefully unprepared for parenthood.
Guiding and teaching children are the responsibilities of BOTH parents. Any parent who sits on his butt while a child needs help with anything is a lazy idiot. This poor child is doomed from the get go unless somebody (op?) steps in to give him the help he needs.
Use this as motivation to be a better parent to your own child if you ever become a mother. Otherwise, I don't know what to tell you in this case. If you ever visit, I suppose you could try to work with him. My son was writing in cursive when he started kindergarten and my daughter was writing very well too because we worked with them a lot and encouraged them.
Family should never argue about whose job it is to do something when it comes to the kids. The good of the child trumps everything.
My son was writing in cursive when he started kindergarten
Has the fact that he wrote cursive in kindergarten helped him in life in any way?
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