by Cindy Viesselman

Created on: June 20, 2008   Last Updated: June 22, 2008

Dear Parents,

I've been teaching young children for a long time, and I have picked up a few tips through the years which I thought might be helpful:

Your child didn't eat breakfast this morning because her stomach hurt. But then you knew that, didn't you? You must have known because she told me her complaints the minute she got to school. Having her skip breakfast so she doesn't vomit at home is not the solution to the problem nor is sending a note to school saying she should stay in at recess. She is SICK. You'll be receiving a call from school to pick her up very soon. In the meantime, she will have the opportunity to share her germs with 375 kids and 75 grateful staff members - not to mention the one janitor who gets to clean up the mess.

When your child is not sick, he should probably be in school since there are laws about that kind of thing. When the school office calls you to inquire about the reason for his absence, you say he's sick. When he returns to school the next day he tells me exactly why he was absent - whether the reason is that no one in the family managed to get out of bed in time to make the school bus or that you spent the day shopping at the mall in a nearby town. But, never fear, on those days when he's absent, he's still learning - about truancy and dishonesty. Oh, and, by the way, don't bother doing any of the make-up work he brings home. Teaching him is my job, not yours.

Check your son's backpack every evening. He doesn't know what's in there. Yes, I realize that he's the one who put everything inside. He stuffed it all in there, and once he zipped his backpack shut, those papers no longer existed in his mind in the same way they didn't exist in his desk until I demanded their removal. He will need a reminder. Yes, every single day you need to ask him what's in his backpack and insist on looking at the papers. Oh, and also please remove that moldy, half-eaten apple while you're at it - the coat room is starting to stink.

And speaking of checking your child's backpack - You say you didn't know about those conferences and other special events you missed? I guess including that information in my newsletter for three weeks in a row after personally placing the newsletter in your child's Friday Folder to take home in her backpack just wasn't enough effort on my part. Barring a personal phone call to the parents of each and every child in my class for every event, I'm not sure what else to do. I suppose I could quit doing my family's laundry

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