(Attn: PETA, the house is for a cardboard groundhog not a real one so please don't freak out on me)
It's not that I don't adore doing crafty things with him because I totally do. It's the fact that the houses are going to be judged for first, second, and third place. While this probably wouldn't be a problem for a normal person...I'm kind of psychotic when it comes to competition. Especially when it involves my kids. It's not that I really care if they win, it's that I don't want them to feel bad if they don't. And yes, I know, losing builds character, blah...blah..blah. But I'm good with them not getting any extra character until they are about ten.
The hardest part of all is the fine line between helping them with the project and "doing" the project. You always have the parent who constructs a project with motorized parts and looks like it took an engineering degree, which is beyond annoying when I've spent a day trying to figure out how to make a couple of cotton balls look like a couch.
My son hasn't decided if he wants a game room, a workout room, or a library (you can guess which one I'm pulling for), but whatever he decides we'll do our best and have fun!
Did you have a project in school that your parents "helped" you with a little too much?
xo,
Stephanie
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4 comments:
My mom is a teacher so I never got any more help than absolutely necessary. I was a pretty artistic kid, though, so my projects typically held their own against those put together with the help of or (or entirely by)parents. P.S. I vote for the exercise room. LOL
I did almost all of of my own projects, but got assigned to make a weather vane for the classroom in 5th or 6th grade--with wood and bolts, like something a high school woodworking class would make as a final project. I tried to tell the teacher it was way out of my skill level, but she wouldn't listen. Bless my father for stepping up and making it for me, but of course, I couldn't tell the teacher that, and in turn, she accepted it with a nod and an I-told-you-so. Something's real wrong with this story, huh? ;)
My parents didn't "help" me at all, which wasn't bad, because when I went to school it hadn't yet been decided by the powers that be that "homework" and "projects" were really for the parents to do.
Some of the other kids in my school got helped...and i kind of hated them. I didn't meet my Camp Fire candy sales goal, but the girls whose dads sold the candy at work did. I got only a "satisfactory" on the cardboard Egyptian musical instrument I made (probably because it wouldn't really play), but all the kids with wood instruments got "excellents." (Though they of course didn't actually make them! No one lets their eleven-year-old use a power saw...)
And now on Facebook I'm being surrounded by parents selling Girl Scout cookies for their kids and skipping out on evening entertainments because their kid has a big project due the next day... I admit I really don't understand this world.
(And how can poor kids ever compete???)
Cara
My parents always helped if I asked, but never *did* my work for me. The one exception, I think, was an awful 7th grade science project. Btw, even though I was a science geek, I *hated* science fair projects. Blech.
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