Ordinarily, there’s no question: school trumps sports, whether it’s college or earlier in my son’s academic career. He’s in sixth grade, so we’ve got a while to go before we have to worry about NCAA regulations. Which is why it’s so darn frustrating that we find ourselves in the scheduling remake of When Worlds Collide: the collision of the last basketball game and the evening performance of my son’s school play. The game is the last…Read More
A Dress Code for School Events
It’s buried in the email from the administration, a message about the dress code for the performers in the upcoming holiday concert: Please note that girls are now required to wear dress pants for concerts (no leggings, skinny jeans, etc.). What they aren’t saying there is that this isn’t about “leggings” or “skinny jeans” but about dresses and skirts that are too short. Not only are the musician students often on a raised platform, many…Read More
Parent evenings at school
My children go to a private school here in Colorado and have done for many years. It’s expensive, but it’s been a really good choice for us and we’ve become a part of the school community, even me as a single dad. As with most private schools, there’s a lot of parent participation in school life too, including driving on field trips, planning and organizing various events, sports judging and more. Another thing that’s a…Read More
Parenting and social media = lots of missed parties
Before the advent of social media, and particularly geolocation checkin games like Foursquare, it was easy for us parents to sit in blissful ignorance of what was going on around us later in the evening and even into the wee hours of the morning. Become a single parent, get some time off each week, and it’s like a ton of bricks: there’s a world out there after 7pm and it’s full of interesting people! Amazing!…Read More
Standards of Positive Sportsmanship
My 12yo A- is now part of the school volleyball team, which is awesome. What’s not so awesome, however, is that there are apparently a lot of parents who have no idea how to be supportive of their children in competitive sports and we get to live with these idiots at almost every game. Our coach sent out an email message about his rules for positive sportsmanship and suggested conduct at a game, and with…Read More