October 29, 2005
@ 04:33 PM
Comments [8]
I'd Be An Annoying Parent

Yesterday I was at a Halloween event at a local grade school and I was peeved by at least three things I saw

  1. The lunch menu had "pizza", "cheese sticks and sauce" and "mini cheeseburgers" on it. Feeding growing kids junk food for lunch on a regular basis just seems like starting them off on the wrong foot nutritionally.

  2. The whiteboard in the gym had a list of reasons to excercise and on it cardiorespiratory was incorectly spelled as cardiorespitory several times. .

  3. There were a few bean bag toss games set up. Each kid got the same prize independent on how good or bad they did. The kids who got the bean bag through the difficult holes all 3 times got the same amount of candy as the kid who missed all three. That seems to send the wrong message about competition.

I could actually see myself complaining about one or more of the above if I was a parent with kids at the school. It looks like I'm going to be one of those parents when my time comes.


 

Categories: Ramblings

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Saturday, 29 October 2005 18:59:34 (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
I completely agree (at least with number 1 & 3). The whole idea of not hurting any feelings by treating everyone the same is wrong. Competition is all around and letting kids believe that it's not is doing them a disservice.

As they get a few years older, competition cannot be hidden. Sports start to keep score. Grades become much more competitive. And, that's nothing compared to when the get out into the real world. Better to prepare them sooner rather than later for the competition that's all around them.
Pedro Silva
Sunday, 30 October 2005 00:19:14 (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
You may well find that once you're a parent, the things you decide are worth complaining about are very different than the things that annoy you now. :)
Liz Lawley
Sunday, 30 October 2005 01:43:33 (GMT Standard Time, UTC+01:00)
"was incorectly spelled"

Missing an 'r' there.
hemebond
Sunday, 30 October 2005 02:16:35 (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
Agree on all three (as a parent of a three-year-old.)
ucblockhead
Sunday, 30 October 2005 14:29:54 (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
Pedro, don't you mean to say that you agree with 1 & 2?

I'm also in agreement on the diet and spelling points, but yes, it is ironic that you made a typo on "incorrectly". :)

Competition is a controversial subject. Competition should exist in schools - it's a part of real life, after all - but it's hard to say how old a child should be before you start putting him/her in competitive situations.

By the way, did I mention that I really like the new layout?

PeteCashmore
Monday, 31 October 2005 17:20:02 (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
No, I only agreed with 1 & 3 - mainly because I already knew that I couldn't spell... :)
Pedro Silva
Tuesday, 01 November 2005 12:33:33 (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
1 & 2 for sure, but re. the wrong message about competition - what is the right message? Aside from the co-operation vs. competition arguments (a pit I'm not going to walk into ;-), in real life few competitions are played fairly, let alone "judged" fairly. Should the kid really be given the idea that rewards are proportional to ability?
Danny
Wednesday, 02 November 2005 16:00:43 (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
1 - I agree with you completely.
2 - it might or might not be relevant... certainly important, but at the end of the day I would not make too much of a fuzz about it... misspelling are largely corrected by spell checkers these days so people tend to relax about those...
3 - I do not agree. I do agree with Danny (of the previous comment) instead. Competition is not necessarily what a kid NEEDS.... I would say they all need the opposite. This world is already going to be too competitive for them when they'll grow up, and all that surrounds them is so full of it already, that I don't see the point in stressing them even more... I actually would say that pushing competition is not the right direction in general or at all... but but... but... I am walking in those murky waters of the co-operation vs. competition argument here.... ;-)

Jokes aside, keep up the great work!
Daniele Muscetta
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