To all -

All opinions are respected here. Please feel free to disagree. But please make every effort not to be disagreeable. Sometimes the anonymity and distance and impersonal nature of the web encourages discourages tact. Let's guard against that.

Thanks,

Tim

I read with dismay PEARLIE's comments about divorced parents and singling out children, blah blah blah - Get in the real world Pearlie and those of you who keep reminding us WE HAVE TO BE POLITICALLY CORRECT. Let kids be kids and have fun. Its a bunch of BULSH. We do a Father Daughter event and and MOther Son event at our school and both are well received. They STRENGTHEN the family bond. I am so sick of conforming to the minority rather than the majority. Must everyone pay for the fact that there are family issues, ie divorce, family discord, etc.... What about those of us who don't have that problem - Oh - OK we must be punished so as not to hurt others feelings.....

Please also note that we put on the flyer home to students. FATHER/MALE FRIEND and student, and vice versa for the Mother Daughter thing.

We started doing donuts for dads last year in conjunction with our Book Fair. We also did a muffins for moms day. Dads buy LOTS more books than moms, plus many of the dads that come are never in school any other time (can't believe the number of comments I heard like "where's your class" or "wow, your school is really nice"). We dropped muffins for moms this year and had two donuts for dads mornings.

Our school is very large (900 students) and we could never have an event where every child showed up for donuts for dads. We don't have an auditorium and our multipurpose room only holds 150 - plus we have a school breakfast program that uses the space. So we limit the number of kids and dads to about 60 per morning. It's free to anyone that wants to attend and yes, we did get a mom and kids. Unfortunately, it wasn't a divorced mom, just a mom who likes to think she's special and likes to break the rules. We would never have turned down a mom in any case.

I do think it's sad that we have kids who come from families out of the "norm", but as has been said here before, you can't please everyone. We offer many opportunities to get families into our school - we have a family night of some type every month (art nights, bingo nights, art show, science nights) so there are plenty of opportunities other than a donuts for dads morning. We have not had one complaint about it and doubt we will. After all, we still have a Halloween Carnival (just had our 31st annual) and they will rename it a Fall Festival over my dead body. We have Holday Parties and I think that's really appropriate, but Halloween is Halloween!

Sometimes it's hard for parents to separate themselves from their children...we want for life to ALWAYS be fair, and that everyone has the same thing, all of the time. We want to protect our kids, it's only natural. But children need to learn that not everything in the world pertains to, or includes them at all times. That's one of the wonderful things about a parent's group involvement in school. When you offer a variety of events, people can pick and choose what they'd like to attend. You don't expect that EVERY FAMILY will attend EVERY EVENT...that's not realistic. But you still need to offer a variety of things so that parents have the ability to choose what would be the best fit for their family situation. I'm the president of our PTA, and I don't attend every single thing at our school that the PTA hosts. I pick and choose. But I also wouldn't want for the events to be cancelled simply because my schedule doesn't allow it, or that it doesn't fit in with my familylife. If it opens up an opportunity for children and parents to share some time at the school together, on their terms, it's a success in my book!

OK, my .02 here.

HELLLLOOOO! has anyone heard of a male/female mentor attending? It doesn't have to be a teacher or someone else from school. Does the child have a male/female that is involved in their lives? Pastor, Sunday school teacher, next door neighbor, Big Brother/Big Sister org., friend of another child, parents co-worker, someone, anyone who takes an interest in the child? There must surely be someone that the child knows that would be interested in participating in such events. How hard would it be for an orgaization to come in and get to know the kids that need a mentor? The school knows which kids may have a need for this.

My opinion, which is just that, is that every child needs a mentor. Wether it be family or an organization that provides the needs of a male/female mentor. And if a mother shows up for a "dad's" thing or vise versa I say more power to them. The main thing is that the child knows that mom/dad is always there for them. Yes, there have been times when do to work schedules I haven't always been able to participate, but my children know that I'm very involved in their lives.

As far as not having a program because certain kids could't attend, NO WAY! Why punish the whole school just because of being political correct. Kids need to be kids and need to know that not every situation is a bed of roses.

Ok, of my soapbox now. No offense intended.

Yes, there are definately other solutions to these types of events - I still prefer the idea of holding a family breakfast, in which parents who ARE involved with their children, can participate.

As I stated in a previous post, my son does not have male relatives that would attend, and he does not play sports, so no coach either. And I certainly don't know of a male that would take time off from work to attend an event like this so.....I'm sure that there are students who would be in the same boat.

And as far as kids without dads going with teachers, that a nice gesture but,..I don't think it can be assumed that all kids from divorced families would need a charitable hand-out, I personally wouldn't feel comfortable with that, since I am capable of paying.

BTW, my son does has problems forming friendships because of some eccentricities he has (kind of like a little professor or geek)but, he certainly is capable of participating in an event such as this, if he had a male figure to do this with.

Good suggestion soccermom about holding an event for children of divorced families, but I have some mixed doubts about whether it would be appropriate to spend PTO funds for such a select group of kids.

I honestly don't think our PTO would ever agree to spending funds for breakfasts with parents, since we don't have an abundant supply of money to begin with. Our Ice Cream Social held at the beginning of the year is pretty much all we can afford to provide for free to build and enhance any type of community environment. Our Spring Fling seems to be more of our community event, but we have to charge to make money