Thursday, September 17, 2009

Helicopter parents ...listen up!!

Tonight we attended Michael's curriculum night at Walnut Creek Middle School. It was the typical introduction of teachers, course descriptions and classroom guidelines. I love that they have these so you can put a face with a name and you know exactly what the policies are so that when your child tries to tell you how cruel so and so teacher is you know what they really mean is they are tough and they hold me accountable.

During the principle's speech she informed us about a new district wide program where the kids even if they are paying cash for lunch have to log their student i.d. number when they go thru line. This is apparently so that they can keep track and log onto a web site and she exactly what your child had for lunch. Seriously????? There are days I am so tired that I don't even care what they have for dinner much less logging on to check their lunch. Is their a parent out there that between checking their grades online, emailing the teacher and working has time to not only log on but keep track of what their kid had for lunch? Do these kids get no wiggle room? In the good ole days parents didn't know what your grades were until you brought home your report card. Yes they actually trusted the kids with the actual cards. This gave kids time to be creative with an explanation and also time to try to alter the grades with a pencil. You could pull the old " I left it in my locker for a couple of days. Fun times! You could take your lunch to school and trade with anyone you wanted. If your parents let you buy lunch they gave you real money and you took it to school. I made ten dollars a week in high school by having pie and iced tea everyday and pocketing the rest of the money. It was a brilliant plan. Now my parents would be able to log on and see I was eating pie for lunch.

If we don't stop micro managing every little aspect of our kids lives we are going to end up with a very screwed up generation. To the mom out there that is logging on every day to check grades, tardies and lunch intake I say get a frickin life and maybe your kid will have a chance at a normal life as well.

No comments: