Ds is complaining the school day is to long

amother

Thu, Oct 23 2014, 8:22 pm

My 6 year old ds comes home from school happy, but is always complaining the day is so long. He's in school from 8:30-4:00. It really is a long day for a 6 year old. He doesn't have much time to play, plus he has homework, dinner....
Is this a common complaint? Will he ever get used to it?

amother

Thu, Oct 23 2014, 9:02 pm

My ds had the same schedule, with a 1 hour commute each way. I came up with a schedule that allowed DS to have plenty of free time.

5:00 come home and eat dinner. He was "starving"

Free time

6:30 homework and then a bath. prepare clothing for next day.
homework shouldnt take more than 20 minutes in total for a 6 year old

7:30 bedtime - morning bus was at 7:40 and I find that my kids do better in the morning if they have a full hour to get ready calmly.

My DS never complained about not having free time. He wasnt happy with his early bedtime, but he got used to that. Now that DS is older and hhis bus scheduled changed to a shorter commute he has way to much free time.

granolamom

Thu, Oct 23 2014, 10:03 pm

amother wrote:

I think it is a long day. some kids, maybe most kids, learn to deal with it and cope ok. some kids, not so much.
this was one reason I chose to homeschool (not the only reason obviously) one of my children.

If your son is coming home happy, that is a good sign. I would try to keep homework to a minimum (maybe talk to the teachers and see if they can excuse him from some of it, at least until he acclimates to the long day a bit better). Another thing I do with some of my kids is give them a day off every now and then (like once a month or so) so they can spend the day daydreaming, playing, talking to me, whatever. Its like a free-time-catch-up day. or maybe pick him up early now and then. but so long as he's happy, I'd assume he'll be ok.

Bruria

Fri, Oct 24 2014, 5:30 am

Don't worry, it's a common complaint. Some kids need more play time than others, and if we think about it, it really is a long day for them. At least they have weekends to have tons of unstructured play time, remind him of that! Smile