Lazy Parenting Award: Part Huit
By Glinda
I’ll be honest with you.
These particular recipients of the Lazy Parenting Awards, I just don’t get. Try as I might, I cannot understand why they do what they do.
Your child’s education is one of the most important factors to their success in life.
Why then, would you choose to remain completely uninvolved in the institution that is instrumental in delivering that education?
There are parents who do not ever volunteer at their child’s school. There are parents who simply ignore the room mother’s plea for contact information. There are parents who only see their child’s teacher, grudgingly, on parent conference nights. Parents who take their child’s word that they have done their homework without actually checking.
If you have no interest in your child’s schooling, why bother even sending them? Oh yes, that pesky law. And maybe you do indeed have some stressful, important things going on in your life that are keeping you occupied. Well, get over it, because so does everybody else. Maybe you figure that there is always someone else who can do it. But how do you know that for sure?
Involved parents make a school. In these times of state budget shortfalls, parental involvement or lack thereof can affect almost every aspect of a school’s morale and performance. If parents are not there to hold principals and teachers accountable, as well as lend a helping hand whenever needed, schools suffer. And that means that most likely your child’s education will suffer as well. Not to mention that if you obviously don’t care, why in the world should your kid?
So to you, parents who see their children’s school merely as a free babysitting service, I give you today’s Lazy Parenting Award!TM
October 9th, 2008 at 10:20 am
I agree that parents who don’t get involved in schools deserve this award, but I also have to say that there are too many schools out there that while they would appreciate PTA meetings and whatnot get angry when there is any attempt on the parent’s part to control curriculum or other serious involvement like that. And when like me, you believe that parents are the ones ultimately responsible for their children’s education, not the schools, then those schools have earned a dishonorable mention as well.
October 9th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
It’s also important to realize that some schools confine their requests for help to volunteering during school hours. Unless you’re on welfare or doing well enough not to have to work, it’s simply not possible to provide what they ask for. Schools need to realize they exist in the 21st Century, not the 20th, and ask for things that people can provide.
October 10th, 2008 at 11:22 am
Some parents may simply be unable to volunteer and help the school. I go to school full time and work full time. I do check my kids homework. I attend award ceremonies and school carnivals. I buy one item a year at the fundraiser they do at christmas. I check homework every night and look for those hidden educational lessons every weekend. I am concerned with my kids schooling but I cannot spend afternoons at the school all the time. And to be flat out honest, I am so not a PTA mom. The PTA at my childrens’ school is dedicated to making themselves look good and it is quite frankly a popularity contest that has extended from high school. Sure if I even had the time I could try to come in and revamp, but I couldn’t get in because the other moms don’t really care to know me. In my opinion those mothers are equally as lazy because they are NOT putting their kids education first but their own egos.