When my kids were little, my wish for the start of the school year was pretty basic. It started with making sure the kids were dressed, had breakfast, and were out the door on time and not still in their pajamas. Easier said than done.
There were all kinds of strategies:
- Lay out clothes the night before.
- Practice putting shoes on.
- Set the alarm.
- Forget laces and invest in Velcro.
- Darn, set the alarm for 15 minutes earlier.
- Explain what it means to eat your breakfast.
- Ignore socks that don’t match.
- Get homework, backpack, jacket ready the night before.
- Ooops. Get kids to bed 15 minutes earlier.
- Special Rule: It’s okay if mom is still in pajamas if she is driving kids to school. No one will see.
We all know there is a lot more to student success than just getting to school on time. But as Woody Allen once said, "90 percent of life is just showing up.”
Here are some additional tips from the California State Parent Teacher Association (PTA):
Ten Things Teachers Wish Parents Would Do
1. Be involved in your children’s education. Parent involvement helps students learn, improves schools, and makes teachers’ jobs easier.
2. Provide resources at home for reading and learning. Have books and magazines for your children and read with your children each day.
3. Set a good example. Show that you believe reading is enjoyable and useful. And it can be reading in any language.
4. Encourage children to do their best. Children need to be guided to set obtainable goals.
5. Confirm that academics are of primary concern, followed by preparation for the adult job and involvement in athletics and other extracurricular activities.
6. Support school rules and goals. Take care not to undermine school rules, discipline, or goals.
7. Use pressure positively. Encourage children while being careful not to apply too much pressure by setting unrealistic goals or by involving children in too many activities.
8. Call teachers as soon as a problem becomes apparent, so prompt action can be taken.
9. Exercise parental responsibility. Don’t expect the school or teachers to take over this job. For example, teaching basic discipline is a parental rather than a school responsibility.
10. Understand that alcohol use and excessive partying are problems. They take a serious toll on a student’s health and classroom performance.
You can find more resources to help start a new school year on the state PTA's website. Everyone is invited to join PTA as we work to improve the lives of California’s children.
Carol Kocivar is the president of the California Parent Teacher Association.
KDDT: Who else is going to provide your perspective here. Go kick the door a few times while saying our names out loud and rejoin us when you can.
I am all for doing things you are passionate about, really am. But first you need to support yourself and your family. What if the ART you ar so passionate about is not really marketable, or music or whatever? You need to be responsible, not try and game the system for support . This means adequately fund necessary insurance, shelter, sustenance. It seems that many chasing this dream forget the necessity and then cry that government isn't doing enough for them. I see lots of this in society today. Pure selfishness.
"Many young people I have met pursue worthless "passions" as a way to dodge actual work" - - - - > How many of these young people have you met? How do you meet them? How do you know they're dodging actual work? Do they tell you this? Or, are you inferring it? What criteria do you use to determine that these people are anything more than just anecdotal evidence? What evidence do you have that these people "cry that government isn't doing enough for them"? And for any of this to be relevant, these people would need to be representative of a larger population. Otherwise, you're just very poor at picking the right people to surround yourself with.
The problem with observing "changing views on objectives of parents," is that the meaning of words changes over time and based on context. I think the vast vast majority of parents "just want thier kids to be happy." But underneath the surface are a series of implicit assumptions. If getting a job and supporting yourself are easy/given, and the issue is whether you push them to earn 200% versus 300% of some "minimum" income, then you get one response. But if even the bare minimum of pulling your own weight in society is NOT a given, you get a different response. You also need to consider point-in-time "happiness" versus the "NPV" of expected cumulative lifetime happiness. When parents seem to be pushing for something other than "happiness" I suspect they are really promoting action to increase Lifetime Happiness at the expense of today's happiness. @ SportsFan: where do you find these kids? Start with OWS rallies (or almost any "gathering" where the median age is under 25 and more than 10% of attendees have unkempt beards).
The majority of people work and are self sufficient, but the minority who prefer to protest inequality and demand redistribution instead of enhancing the productivity and quantity of their own efforts seems to me to be increasing. I acknowledge that my perception might be wrong. If you have objective data on the topic, please share it.
I should think we'd want to indeed reject the notion (and thus earn God's blessing) that schools *not* provide academic/pragmatic education, which implies we'd embrace the notion that schools should provide academic/pragamatic education... Now you've got me really confused :)
Beyond that, for those in high school, skills like leadership, teamwork, public speaking, sales(wo)manship, showing up/doing a job/answering to a boss (among others) are valuable in the context of the adult job market and often learned as part of, for example, a sports or debate team, student newspaper or government, or a part-time job. More precisely, for those who want to pursue jobs in fashion design or architecture, time spent in after-school art/design/sewing classes or at a construction site are, in fact, important in "preparing for adult jobs" that they'd want to pursue. I'm not saying all of the above should take precedence over academics, just that they are important in rounding out the person and building the "personal resume" for college and/or life. I think the better advice for parents would be to stress the academics while teaching their kids to make the most of their 'extra" time to pursue activities/jobs that build on their interests, help them pay for the "extras," and broaden their world views and skill sets - for life.