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Former teacher gets brutally honest about the 'denial' some parents have about their kids' education

"They're more concerned about the optics…than about taking care of the child's needs."

@bodacious.bobo/TikTok

A former teacher breaks down the "denial" some parents have about their kid's academic performance

Many kids are seriously struggling in school. According to US News, an estimated 49% of public school students started off the 2022-2023 school year behind in at least one subject compared to the previous year, which saw 50% of students behind. While that's an improvement of 1%, it's not enough to show that kids are getting back on the right track.

While there are several factors contributing to this issue—the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, a lack of resources for many public schools, a teacher shortage—several educators feel that a majorly overlooked aspect is parents involvement, or lack thereof, in their child’s education.

Recently, one former teacher bluntly stated that it was parents' “denial” that’s to blame. Odion, who now works as a flight attendant, made her case in response to another teacher's TikTok asking parents why they're unaware that their children are underperforming for their grade level.

@qbthedon

Lets chat!! #fyp #viral #teachertok

In the original video, user @qbthedon laments that his 7th grade students still perform at a 4th grade level, and, despite his efforts, those kids still move onto the next grade even though they're not ready. The worst part is that the parents don’t seem to be aware that their kids are extremely behind.

This lack of awareness and engagement dates back further than the pandemic years, says Odion, who taught Pre-K and Kindergarten in 2013.

Case in point: parent-teacher conference nights, where virtually no parent would show up. Odion then recalled one father who did attend with his daughter, called Tia for the story, but would not believe that Tia did not know the full alphabet.

"In kindergarten, you have to at least know, I think it was 80% of the 52 letters, as in uppercase and lowercase, and you have to be able to identify at random. So, I'm telling the dad that she barely knows 10 letters. And he's in denial. 'Nah, you know, she knows her letters,'" Odion says.

She then acts out that night, using a makeshift flashcard like she did to test Tia.

"I literally said, 'What letter is this?'” Odion says while holding up the letter “M.” “She said something that's not it. Put another one down. 'What letter is this?' She don't know it."

education, teachers, parenting, parental involvement, TikTok, viral video, school, academic performance, learning gap, teacher stories A teacher holds up a piece of paper while speaking on camera@bodacious.bobo/TikTok

Still, the dad insisted that Tia knew her letters. Eventually, he blamed Tia’s older brother, who, despite only being a sixth grader himself, was “supposed to teach her.”

“It is not up to a child in elementary school, or middle school, or really any of your older kids, as someone who's an older child... It is not up to the kids to teach younger kids,” Odion says in the clip.

Using another example, Odion states that a fifth grader in her class was reading at a kindergarten level and could only process basic sentences like “I see you” and “I like to see.”

In this instance, the students should be held back in order to fully learn the year’s curriculum. But Odion argues that parents fight against it because "they are more concerned about the optics of a child being held back than actually taking care of the child's needs."

education, teachers, parenting, parental involvement, TikTok, viral video, school, academic performance, learning gap, teacher stories Hotel stationary with the words "I like to see" written on it @bodacious.bobo/TikTok

In this instance, the students should be held back in order to fully learn the year’s curriculum. But Odion argues that parents fight against it “because they are more concerned about the optics of a child being held back than actually taking care of the child's needs."

While the research shows that holding kids back a grade does improve their academic performance by granting them more time, there are still significant pros and cons to consider. In other words, being held back might not be the best solution for every struggling child. The biggest point Odion seems to be trying to make is that in addition to teachers and administrators, parents need to be more proactive in their child’s education.

@bodacious_bobo

#stitch with @QBSkiiii if these children are our future, we should all be terrified

"Parents, y'all can't be backseat drivers about your child's learning. You have to help reinforce it at home. You put a kid in front of that phone or iPad whenever they come home, it better be on YouTube, and it better be learning about letters and sight words. You can't tell me you can't read to the kid. It takes 10 minutes to read to the kid. No one is that busy,” she concludes.

This article originally appeared earlier this year.

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Pediatric physical therapist shares truth behind 'lime method' of teaching babies to walk

Here's why it actually works.

Photo credit: Canva

Pediatrician Olivia Reyes explains why using limes can help babies learn to walk.

If you’re a parent looking for hacks to help your toddler learn to walk, you've likely come across the advice to give them a couple of limes. Other moms and dads seem to swear by this viral trend, especially as an alternative to any fancy, expensive gadgets.

But how exactly does this trick work? In a now-viral video, developmental physical therapist Olivia Reyes, aka “The baby PT” on TikTok, explains.

Stitched to a video of a baby boy holding two of the aforementioned fruits while effortlessly striding across the room, Reyes says, “This lime trick works and has really nothing to do with the limes and more so, everything to do with his ability to stand.”

“In order to walk, we have to be able to stand by ourselves, independently like he is doing here, for at least 10 seconds,” she continued. And in this instance, the lime not only offers just enough "counterbalance" to help make that happen, they also give little ones something easy to focus on. It also helps that mom is nearby to help boost confidence.

The adage of “you’ve gotta crawl before you walk” should really be “you’ve gotta stand before you walk,” it seems, which is why in an interview with TODAY, Reyes also touted the benefit of doing standing exercises.


@thebabypt

#duet with @wendysanchoa #lemonmyth The lime myth makes a lot of sense when your baby can stand already! Love to see it! #MomsofTikTok


“Because standing is the first time babies balance their entire body weight in a vertical position — before then, they crawl and roll ... horizontally, which distributes their weight over the body.”

That said, Ryese encourages parents not to panic if the baby only gets a few steps in before reverting back to crawling. “That’s a developmentally appropriate stage,” she told TODAY.

All in all, limes just happen to be the perfect size for baby hands to grab hold of and keep their hands busy, and have an eye-catching color, but certainly other items could do the trick. Case and point below:

And this brings up another good point. While learning to walk-independently, babies will be tempted to reach out to their parents for support. And in turn, parents will want to help their little one along. This can be very enjoyable, but according to some pediatricians, not the best way to actually teach walking.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

As for standing exercises, Reyes has some very simple examples in this video, involving furniture and toys.


@thebabypt

How to help your baby walk? Make sure they can stand for at least 10 seconds! Heres some standing tips to get your baby confident with standing and walking! #momsoftiktok #firsttimemom #newmomsoftiktok

No matter what strategy you go with, teaching a baby to walk requires creating a safe environment, providing just the right amount of support, and encouraging exploration. This way babies can gain more confidence—arguably an ingredient far more important to their development than lemons.

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Boy joyfully greeting his mom at daycare pickup for five years is the cutest compilation ever

That squeal of delight is just too precious.

@TeesePeese/Twitter

A mom shared five years of daycare pickups, with her son squealing in delight every time.

There is nothing more pure in this world than the love between a child and a caring parent. But even in the world of healthy attachments and strong family bonds, this viral video takes the cake. Twitter user @TeesePeese shared a compilation of highlights showing her son's reaction at daycare pickup, and it's seriously the most precious thing ever.

"I really do love this video," she wrote. "I recorded my son's pick up almost every day and this is his reaction every single time. For his 5th bday (yesterday) I took my favorites and made a lil compilation, from infancy to just last week." The squeals. The smiles. The skipping for joy. Gracious, it doesn't get any sweeter.

Clearly that's a boy who adores his mama—and also has an adorable sense of enthusiasm.

Some new parents may worry that sending their child to daycare will negatively affect their child's attachment to them, but according to psychologist Noam Shpancer Ph.D, that worry is unfounded as long as the family environment is healthy at home.

"Available data indicate that, for most children, parental attachment processes are not disrupted by daycare participation," Shpanccer noted in a 2017 article for Psychology Today. "Home variables, such as maternal sensitivity, are the strongest predictors of parent-child attachment, even for daycare children."

Clearly this kiddo's parent-child attachment hasn't suffered from being in daycare. Research also shows what common sense should also tell us—the quality of daycare matters.

daycare, kids, parenting, quality, childcare Kids in daycare. Canva Photos.

Unfortunately, quality daycare can be prohibitively expensive, which is why the proposed affordable childcare provisions in former President Joe Biden's 2021 Build Back Better plan were a huge deal during his administration. Millions of parents have to work to support their families and middle-class American families spent an average of 14% of their income on childcare in 2021—double what the limit was under the Build Back Better framework. in 2025, that number has ballooned to 22% according to Care.com's annual Cost for Care Report.

The U.S. remains an outlier in this area. According to The New York Times in 2021, other wealthy nations contribute an average of $14,000 per year for a toddler's child care costs, while the U.S. contributes merely $500. In 2024, Statista revealed U.S. couples with two children must spend 20% of their disposable income on childcare while single parents spend 37%, according to data gathered in 2022 from the OECD. In comparison, in Switzerland, the second most expensive OECD country in the world, single parents must contribute only 18% of their income if working full-time. It's a huge difference no matter how you look at it, and in 2023, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called the state of childcare in the U.S. a "broken market."

finances, childcare, costs, parenting, daycare The state of childcare in the U.S. has been called a "broken market."Canva Photos.

The virtues of stay-at-home motherhood versus working motherhood have been debated for decades, but no one can deny that childcare should be high quality and affordable whether a parent chooses to work or has to work. Personally, I was able to and chose to stay home during my kids' early childhoods, but I would be thrilled for my tax dollars to go toward helping all families get the support and childcare they need to make their individual situations work.

At any rate, we love seeing kiddos loving on their mamas, especially ones with infectious grins and delight-filled squeals. Thanks for capturing your sweet boy's joy and sharing it with the rest of us @TeesePeese. You brought smiles to so many faces.

This article originally appeared four years ago. It has been updated.

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Watch a 5-yr-old Italian piano prodigy blow away the crowd with his extraordinary ability

Alberto has talent beyond his years.

Alberto Cartuccia Cingolani/YouTube

Alberto Cartuccia Cingolani wows audiences with his amazing musical talents.

Mozart was known for his musical talent at a young age, playing the harpsichord at age four and writing original compositions at age five. So perhaps it's fitting that a video of five-year-old piano prodigy Alberto Cartuccia Cingolani playing Mozart has gone viral as people marvel at his musical abilities.

Alberto's legs couldn't even reach the pedals, but that didn't stop his little hands from flying expertly over the keys as incredible music pours out of the piano at the 10th International Musical Competition "Città di Penne" in Italy in 2022. Even if you've seen young musicians play impressively, it's hard not to have your jaw drop. Sometimes a kid comes along who just clearly has a gift.


Of course, that gift has been helped along by two professional musician parents, but no amount of teaching can create an ability like this.

Alberto first started playing in 2020 in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Italy was one of the first countries to experience a serious lockdown, and Alberto's mother used the opportunity to start teaching her son to play piano. Alessia Cingolani and her husband Simone Cartuccia are both music conservatory graduates, and mom Alessia told Italian entertainment website Contrataque that she and her husband recognized Alberto's talent immediately.

piano, child playing piano, piano prodigy, impressive, children, prodigy Some kids discover and develop their musical talents very early.Photo credit: Canva

She said that although Alberto spends a lot of time at the piano, he also has plenty of time for school and play and television, like a normal kid.

There's genuinely nothing "normal" about this kid's piano playing, though. Watch him playing a piece by Edvard Grieg in front of a crowd in Italy at age five:

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Wow, right? There are countless adults who took years of piano lessons and never got to that level of playing.

According to Corriere Adriatico, by the time he was four and a half years old, Alberto had participated in seven national and international online competitions and won first place in all of them. His mother told the outlet that he started out practicing for about 10 minutes a day and gradually increased to three hours.

"He has a remarkable flair for the piano," she said. Um, yeah. Clearly.

Some commenters expressed some concern for the boy based on his seriousness and what looks like dark circles under his eyes in the competition video, but if you check out other videos of Alberto playing at home, he is more relaxed. In interviews, his mother has made it clear that they prioritize normal childhood activities.

Alberto also plays with other musicians. Watch him playing Haydn along with a small orchestra at age eight in 2025:

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Where musical ability comes from continues to be somewhat of a mystery, and experts frequently debate how much is due to nature and how much is due to nurture. Some argue that anyone can develop musical skills with enough practice and a supportive environment, but sometimes a kid clearly displays an innate musical sensibility that defies explanation. Some children are just genuine prodigies, and Alberto certainly seems to fit that bill. Can't wait to see what kind of musical future awaits him.

This article originally appeared three years ago and has been updated.

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