Some advice for parents of school-going children

Two years ago, I completed 33 years of unbroken school lifts, concerts, sporting events, prize-givings and fundraising functions.

My children, including my youngest who had just written his matric, had received all manner of trophies, accolades, certificates and medals.

As a parent I got nothing other than bills for school fees and requests to man the tuck-shop.

I begged the headmaster at my youngest’s school to give me a hand-written certificate or cheap medal. Or, at the very least, an official letter absolving me from any further school functions, fetching and carrying and so forth, to wave under the noses of my children when they attempt to turn my occasional involvement with the grandchildrens’ education into a permanent routine.

Frankly, I don’t think schools or pupils realise the extreme sacrifices in time, money and effort which parents make in order to keep the whole system going. And it is about time that school prize-givings started involving parents for some other reason than just supplying the tea, cakes and applause.

For example, I would like to see a trophy and substantial cash prize presented for the most time spent by a parent in a school parking lot.

A trophy and gift voucher for the mother who had to most radically rearrange her day because her son was being punished by having to stay after school.

A peace and reconciliation trophy for patience and understanding shown by a mother when athletic trials end at 18:00 instead of 15:30.

A victim laborum trophy for the mother who actually did managed to be in six places all at the same time and still do swop shop duty

Among my bugbears are prizes that go to the totally wrong people. Like junior school projects. Really, who are they kidding? I’ve seen some science projects supposedly produced by a Grade 3 boy, but worthy of the best brains at the atomic energy board.

But now, having vented my spleen, perhaps it would be a lot more constructive if I looked back on my 33 years as a school-fettered parent and offered some advice to those young couples who round about now will be delivering their first-born into Grade 0.

Top of my list of tips is this: right from day one, sit your little one down and repeat as often as is necessary: “Whatever the problem, whoever is right or wrong, I will, as your parent, always, without exception, take your teacher’s side.”

The reason for this is critical. Kids are essentially born with a manipulative streak and this becomes prevalent when faced with going to school. Most kids do not want to go to school, even if they say they do. Taking their side against a teacher will lead to years of pain, suffering and tears of frustration as they pit you against those who are trying to educate them.

Then there is the temptation for parents to use every form of persuasion from bribery to threats and the withholding of donations for the new hall, in order to get their kids into football and netball teams, lead roles in the school play and special mentions at assembly.

Parents who resort to these tactics are always doing it for their own egos and not for their children. Bear in mind that one day children will leave school and no longer have parents to fight their fights. Which means they’ll struggle at university, struggle at their jobs and struggle at making marriages work.

Successful kids are those who make the football teams and school plays on merit.

And talking about football teams, there are those parents who seem to be under the impression that when their kids are running, jumping, swimming, kicking or hitting a ball, their performance will be improved if they get advice screamed at them from the sidelines.

There is irrefutable proof that children on playing fields simply cannot hear their parents. So, avoid embarrassing yourselves and causing permanent damage to your larynx, and just watch. That’s all your kids will ever ask. The last things they want or need are parents running on to the field and swearing at referees— which, believe it or not, happens more often than one imagines.

And finally, avoid writing letters of complaint to teachers. Most of them see complaining, lobbying, or threatening by letter, as a weakness. Talk it out face to face.

My final piece of advice is to teachers who get irate letters from parents. My father, who was an educator all his working life, solved the problem by simply taking letters he got from parents, marking them out of ten and sending them back with curt, derogatory comments about grammar and sentence structure.