Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Volunteering at Your Child's School

Post contributed by Leonard Phelps

It's vital for every parent to get involved in their child's life. However, when they spend the majority of the day at school and you at work, it's difficult for you to have the energy and time to get actively involved in your child's life. One of the best ways to do so is to volunteer at your child's school during special events. One such event is career day.

I volunteered my services and visited my child's school to explain my job as a customer service representative. Since many high school dropouts end up in the service industry, I felt it was my duty to scare the kids straight about getting their education. So I related to them many soul crushing stories of waking up in the morning and be forced to listen to the whiny complaints of customers for nine hours a day. I told them how I failed to study in high school and how struggle to keep afloat our family and the college dreams of my child. While I'm sure this was a highly embarrassing speech for my kid, it was very fun and I encourage everyone to volunteer their services on career day. The fear in the eyes of the children was priceless, as I'm sure they all did their homework that night.

Before I leave to volunteer, I always make sure to turn on my Total Alarm Systems alarm. The last thing I need is to be robbed of my possessions as I rob my son of his popularity.

1 comment:

Kimberly Spanier said...

You are so right… parents need to volunteer at their children’s school, but it’s sad how many do not. I think if schools had the ability to disclose all the volunteer activities available, parents can choose a volunteer activity based around what best fits their life. Your readers may want to use Lotsa Helping Hands http://www.lotsahelpinghands.com/ -- a free, private, web-based volunteer coordination service that allows parents, teachers, students, and neighbors to create a community and manage the various volunteer activities available at all schools - whether arranging volunteers for classroom parties, organizing events, or bringing people together to help a local family in need.

The community helps solve the problems of endless phone and email tag by using an intuitive group calendar for scheduling responsibilities, and provides many other features for enhancing communication and building school community including customizable sections for sharing photos, announcements, needs of the school, messages, and resources for parents.