What mistakes do parents often make with children's science projects?
I Think that science projects are probably the bain of most parents' lives. Parents do not look forward to science project season. It comes in the spring, and everyone kind of is waiting for it, and it hits, and it's just a disaster. There's a lot of mistakes that parents make. One of the biggest ones is--sometimes they suggest them, other times they let their kids talk them into them--projects that are just really difficult, very technical, very time consuming, and basically guarantee that Mom or Dad is going to be locked in the garage over the weekend constructing the electro-magnet or constructing the exploding volcano. It requires all sorts of tools the child's not allowed to use and doesn't understand, and it becomes not the child's project at all. Another common mistake that parents or kids make is they choose things that require, for instance, plants to grow. But, they start the project three days before the project is due, and there's not enough time for plants to grow and then feel the effects of whatever it is you're going to do to them. So, anything you're going to do involving plants needs to start really early. And the other thing that parents do is they tend to take over their kids' science projects. Once again, teachers don't expect second graders to do professional science projects. They expect second graders to do second grade level science projects. You want to keep your eye on the ball. You want to make sure that everything that's done is something that your child could actually do himself, and wants to do, and will do.
