Advocate for your children, because no one else will. I live by that motto, I embrace it. Perhaps this is because my mother never really did this for me. I was talking to her the other day about a situation where I didn't get a part in a play when I was in 5th grade. I still feel the sting of that rejection even now. It was a semi-political decision, and my mother had made the powers that be unhappy. Hard to imagine, but she didn't want to play with them anymore and they took that out on me.
I asked her, what if any thing she did to change the situation. She told me that she did nothing. That she just let what was going to happen happen. She wasn't one to rock the boat, or advocate for us kids. Her words, not mine. She then went on to say that one thing that she has always been impressed by was how much I advocate for my kids, that I am not afraid to stand up for them. I can't really say how well this has worked for me, but the truth is, if you screw with my kids I am going to have something to say about it.
I have advocated for them a lot recently. Sometimes with a happy result, sometimes I insert myself into situations where I do not belong, and sometimes well, I just muck up the works and make everything worse. I talk a lot about my screw-ups, but today, we are going to celebrate a win.
The school board was going to cut Mac's gifted reading program. Well, as you can imagine, that was not happening on my watch. So much bad has happened to us since we got here, but the bright spot has always been the education and I was going to go down in a ball of fire before I let this change. So much of the bad stuff has really been out of our control. This, at least I had some ability to impact the outcome. I could lobby the board. I could ask everyone I know to help out. I hatched a plan, and then I realized, I was not alone. I got to meet some amazing people that have done some amazing things for the gifted education in this town. I was humbled to be in their presence. When one of them stopped to talk to us in the parking lot as we were gabbing, I was amazed, she talked to me... it was like a freakin' rock star. These ladies have changed the way gifted education is delivered in this area, they deserve a hats off salute. They made this happen. I just got to ride on their coat tails and see it happen.
Their work paid off. All the parents lobbied the school board, and guess what, it worked. They changed their minds. Mac gets to stay in his special class. Mac is not going to be left behind. The system worked.
Let's put a hash mark in the win column. YEAH!!!!!!
that's great that you got them to overturn the decision to abolish the program! i'm sure mac is thrilled!
ReplyDeletei agree with the importance of being an advocate for your child. i am for my children, especially for my older son with his hearing loss. however, i don't think that parents should have influence over whether their child gets onto a team or in a play. it's healthy for children to have competition and to understand that they're not always going to win. if they won everything, it wouldn't be exciting for them anymore. that's why it's annoying when teachers don't set kids up to be competitive. Hashem forbid, they should lose at something. I've lost at my fair share of things, but when I did win, that made the victory so much sweeter! I would have hated if my parents' influence was the reason i won or earned something.
anyway, i think you'll like my blog project post for tomorrow. stay tuned!