Parenting Teens

I’m getting on my soapbox today, about an issue that I’ve seen discussed a lot of places, but I don’t see any results from all the discussion!

Last night, I attended the annual Awards Night at my daughter’s high school (she brought home awards in Math and Band, her two favorite subjects!). The program we were handed at the door was very nicely done. You could tell that a lot of hard and thoughtful work had gone into it. The school auditorium and it’s lobby were nicely decorated. The refreshments served were delicious. The principal, teachers, administrators and invited guest speakers were articulate, friendly, and obviously enthusiastic and enjoying this program. The one thing that threw a monkey wrench into the evening was that only about half of the approximately two hundred students who were being honored with awards bothered to show up!

Now, I realize that there are emergencies and, sometimes, scheduling conflicts that people simply can’t work around. It’s impossible to attend every school event. However, I believe I lay this particular problem right where it belongs: at the feet of parents who are so apathetic and unimpressed with academic achievement that they do not encourage their kids to show up at such an important event!

I know a lot of the parents who have children at my daughter’s school. I talk with them when they do attend school events and during morning and afternoon dropoff and pickup times. I did not see quite a few parents and teens at the awards ceremony, who show up for every ball game! Even though they don’t have teens who are players, cheerleaders, or otherwise have to show up!

I have, at long last, reached some sort of breaking point when it comes to parties and sports being put before academic achievement! I have tolerated this for many years, even while fighting against it. My daughter has never been into athletics. From the start, her achievements have come in the classroom and in more academic extracurricular activities-the academic team and math team, for example.

It’s a wildly celebrated (though very rare) event when the football or basketball team makes it into the playoffs. In the past year alone, the varsity and junior varsity math teams brought home more trophies for the school than all the football and basketball teams combined have brought home in the last ten years! The school’s academic team is going to the national championship this year. Neither of these teams have been mentioned at all in our local newspaper, yet football and basketball scores are there the day after every game!

The sports teams have buses which transport them to every game all year. This year, the math teams and academic teams had bus transportation to only about half of their competitions. The rest of the time, parents provided the transportation and paid entrance fees for their kids to compete. The sports teams have their uniforms provided. The math team members and parents did two fundraisers, just to be able to buy t-shirts for the team.

It’s not like I don’t know this inequality hasn’t existed for a long time. As I said, I’ve lived with it. And I enjoy a good ball game as much as anyone. But something about people not showing up to celebrate their children’s academic achievements when they show up for sporting events finally made me snap!

I’m sure there are some out there who share my viewpoint, and some who do not. Please let me hear from you about this! If I haven’t put you off with my ravings, that is!

public schools, academic achievements, academic awards, math, science, education, public education, education funding, parent apathy, parenting teens, parenting teenagers