You Have to See Your Kids Dancing
March 3, 2010 6 Comments
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By the end of the school year, when I was eight years old, the teacher asked me to wait in the class and not to leave early with the other students. I was afraid that I have done something wrong, but I waited anyway with two classmates not knowing what is coming next. After half an hour he came back and asked us to go to the Principal office and wait in line for our gifts. I discovered later on that I was participating in a ceremony made special for students who scored high marks through out the year. That was my first and last time in the Principal office. They told me that my father was present at the Principal office when I got my gift, but I did not see him there. Back then, if the student is called to the Principal office or his father was called to school thats mean one thing: TROUBLE! There is no other reason for the student parents to be in school other than that.
Now, the parents have to attend parents day, progress report day, social functions, “we want to show you what we are doing” day and so on. Not attending one of these days means that the parent is irresponsible. The kids are expecting their parents to be present on these days and will be sad if they did not. I have three kids and I can not be present on most of these day because of my work commitments. I was thinking what if all the parents attended these functions, who will be at work? Once my wife was telling me that she is confused to either perform five scheduled LASIK surgeries or to go to the kindergarten and watch our daughter sing and dance. What do you think she did?
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From my point of view,I use to be so happy when it was the open day at school .I was suggesting to my mother what to wear and would be waitting to see her talking to my teachers and hearing all the nice comments about me.I was feeling sorry for those girls whom their parents were not able to attend.I might be a bit emotional but that was my feelings,and would love to be present in any of my kids school activity.A suggestion to the specialized people in the educational field to transfer the morning activity to the evening time. This will allow parents to attend without causing any problems in their working area.
Very good suggestion, thank you.
اما عن نفسي (بعد الترجمة الحرفية لان اعرف ثقافتي فقط فرنسية) اذا سوا تكريم لابنائي في المدرسة اترك جميع اعمالي لأن حضورالاب للطفل راح يكون له أثر محفور في الاذهان وسند له
مع تحياتي لكم طارق مال الله
وانا اتفق مع الدكتوره عبير
You are right, going to school is important for the parents and the children. The problem is the invitation would be too lated for the parents to rearrange their busy schedule. Parents have to work to do and they might be teaching in other schools also. Imagen that a school that have 500 students and the call the parents for one of the functions then 1000 of the parents have to leave their work to attend the function. Imagen 1000 firemen, policemen, teachers, engineers and doctors have to stop their work for that day. Multiply the same number for each school and you will realize the size of the problem. On the other side, please remember that most of our parents did not go to school 20-30 years age, that does not make pose problem on us as a functioning generation now.
I heard a great piece of advice recently: ‘Enjoy your parenting!’. For some reason it suddenly made a lot of sense. Allah ykhallekum 7ag i3yalkum o ykhalleehum likum 🙂
I enjoy being a parent, but the school think that we have nothing to do but waiting for them to tell us that tomorrow we have to come to school and watch them dance. I usually attend these functions but I would prefer of the school tell me one week in advance to arrange my busy schedule.