{"id":740,"date":"2013-04-26T08:01:14","date_gmt":"2013-04-26T12:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/?p=740"},"modified":"2016-01-18T21:05:31","modified_gmt":"2016-01-19T02:05:31","slug":"red-light-for-parent-communication","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/2013\/04\/26\/red-light-for-parent-communication\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Light for Parent Communication"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friday is show and tell day at Honeybun’s\u00a0school.\u00a0 Last night at bedtime she told me \u201cMommy, my teacher says for show and tell tomorrow we\u2019re supposed to bring a pet.\u00a0 Like a polar bear or a lion.\u00a0 Something that lives in Winter.\u201d<\/p>\n

1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lions do not live in Winter<\/p>\n

2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Why are they still talking about Winter when it\u2019s April and 85 degrees outside?<\/p>\n

3)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Why is my 4-year old telling me this at bedtime Thursday night?<\/p>\n

The only one of these questions I can really provide an explanation for is #3:\u00a0 There is no parent communication.\u00a0 Last week for show and tell Honeybun\u00a0informed me they were supposed to bring \u201ca pillow for jumping on.\u201d\u00a0 WHAT?!?!\u00a0 Luckily I was keeping her home that day anyways to meet the midwife before baby comes.<\/p>\n

Parent communication this year with her teacher has been completely non-existent.\u00a0 I found out about a pajama party the class was having while standing in the hallway with the other parents before class was let out.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Sometimes the teacher will put a note on the door about things the children need like when they are having a party and want parents to provide food or when we were expected to bring a bag of plastic eggs filled (\u201cwith whatever we choose\u201d) and labeled with our children\u2019s names.\u00a0 But actual communication, as in verbal or written that comes home\u2026NADA.\u00a0 The only conversations I\u2019ve had with the teacher are those when I\u2019m complaining about something (like why Honeybun\u00a0was in the same work group for 5 months instead of working with different children) or when she has an accident form I need to sign.<\/p>\n

As a preschool teacher for many years, every program I worked at required us to send home DAILY written communications to EVERY family.\u00a0 We also talked daily (usually at drop off and pick up) with each parent.\u00a0 Hubby usually drops Honeybun\u00a0off for me in the morning and while she goes to the 3 year-old room until VPK (Voluntary Pre-Kindergarten, a free Florida State program), they drop her bag in the VPK room and see the teacher each morning but she says nothing to him.\u00a0 Pick-up is totally chaotic.\u00a0 Because the program is part time, most parents pick up right at noon and we are required to wait in a narrow hallway while two classes of children are let out one by one to their parents.\u00a0 There is little room or time for one-on-one conversation.\u00a0 The few times I have waited to talk to the teacher, other parents were waiting as well and the conversations ended pointlessly.<\/p>\n

\"SONY<\/a>\u00a0As far as written communication goes, for a while we were getting weekly \u201cstop-light\u201d report sheets which showed how Honeybun’s\u00a0behavior was each day.\u00a0 We were supposed to sign and return the sheets but Hubby and I stopped because Honeybun’s\u00a0were always just filled in with all green lights and no comments, so what\u2019s the point?\u00a0 I thought maybe I was missing written notices because we do not get homework.\u00a0 I told the teacher early in the year we would not be doing homework but I would gladly work on any skill Honeybun\u00a0was struggling with if the teacher let me know what to work on so she hasn\u2019t sent the homework home with Honeybun\u00a0at all (but still reminds the class each week to remember to return their homework which used to panic Honeybun\u00a0when she didn\u2019t have it to do).<\/p>\n

I\u2019m just glad the school year is almost over and I\u2019ll hopefully be able to stop relying on my 4-year old to know what\u2019s going on at school.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friday is show and tell day at Honeybun’s\u00a0school.\u00a0 Last night at bedtime she told me \u201cMommy, my teacher says for show and tell tomorrow we\u2019re supposed to bring a pet.\u00a0 Like a polar bear or a lion.\u00a0 Something that lives in Winter.\u201d 1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lions do not live in Winter 2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Why are they still talking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[284],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-home-school-zone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=740"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10051,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740\/revisions\/10051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}