parenting – parentingourbest

So it is the first week or so of school…

And you are looking forward to, praying for a smooth and productive year.

When my kids were in elementary school, I liked to start the year off with a note and gift to their teachers.

Now, I have three kids and when they were all in middle school with 6 teachers a piece the gift was very simple and inexpensive.

It is not about the cost of the gift, the gift is a token of your acknowledgment of the important role that teachers play in my children’s lives.

The note was to remind myself, my student and their teacher that we were all working together to make the academic process as effective as possible.

So imagine during the start of the school year, Ms Math Teacher receives a box of sharpened pencils with a note that reads.

Dear Ms. Teacher,

Happy Back to School and welcome to TeamMyLastName

Our student and team captain, Childs first name is excited and happy to be in your class

As a part of the coaching staff I want you to feel free to contact me for any reason

My name home/ work/ cell #

Husbands name home/ work/ cell #

Child’s name has an allegy to peanuts and an IEP to use graph paper for all work in Math.

Thank you again

Here is to a GREAT Year

GO TEAM!!!!

Gift ideas

Coffee mug

Post-it notes

Box of chalk, pencils, markers,

It is important that students have ownership of the educational process.

One way we as parents can help that develop is to start to model it when they are younger.

And then keep it up as they get older.

Teachers and Parents are not enemies.

I as a parent am concerned about the education of one student and the teacher for all students.

As a parent I am concerned about all of my children

And the teacher is concerned about all of her class

The overlap is my child in her classroom

Everything that she does that helps the students in her charge helps my child

And let’s face it Teaching is an underpaid and unappreciated profession.

Starting the year off with informed cooperation may make the year better for everyone involved.

HOW WAS YOUR DAY?

So yesterday, a friend reminded me that as a parent you have to stay involved. Be engaged.

It isn’t always that easy.

There are teachers and administrators who believe it is there job to separate you from your children, because you are holding them back.

There are perfectly normal developmental phases where children clam up to individualize.

So here is my tip.

Ask your kids to tell you about their day.

I am sure that you, like me, ask “how is your day?” and your kids says “fine” and you say “good”.

This was my story until I heard a man on TV tell a story about getting busted by his dad, a teacher, for skipping school.

His father would ask this man and siblings about each class. So on this occasion the father asked how was English Lit, and the man related a variation of what had happened the day before. What he didn’t know was that the English Lit teacher who was pregnant, was planning to be away and had given the “substitute” all her lesson plans. The father was to be substitute teaching the class.

Now, I haven’t substituted in nearly 3 decades, so I don’t have that kind of info, but I do know how to read a syllabus and reading list.

Everyday, I asked my kids… how was your day? What happened in Homeroom? How is Mr. Davis, is he still limping?

Class by class,

subject by subject,

teacher by teacher,

friend by friend

At first it was painful, but then I learned the names and stories and personalities of the people involved.

It became a conversation.

And as my children got older, the conversation became more and more two-way.

They would ask and hear about my day.

My goal as a parent is to put myself out of a job.

To raise people into adults that I would want to be friends with. Adults you love and respect me but don’t need me.