Print Blog
Email a FriendToday was “rock star” day at my daughter’s elementary school in honor of Red Ribbon Week. Now when you think of a group of people that are generally acknowledged to be most likely to have drug and/or alcohol problems who do you think of? Rock stars. Not exactly the kind of role models I want for my 6 year old. My daughter’s school has 3 of these so-called “spirit weeks” every year. They completely take the focus away from what students are there for in the first place and then they wonder why it takes 8 hours a day to get mediocre results. As an aside, to those of you who will undoubtedly wonder why I don’t just rip her out of school and bring her home for school, my husband is just not on board with that plan and we can’t afford Catholic school right now. Prayers would be greatly appreciated in that area.
Crazy Sock Day
Posted by Lisa Hendey in Just me on Tuesday, October 25, 2011 5:00 PM
A working mom in my life (whose husband is—by the way—a stay at home dad) called me yesterday in a bit of a frenzy. She was headed out to find “crazy socks” for today’s “crazy sock day” that is a part of the Red Ribbon Week at her children’s Catholic school. I told her to stay in her car, drive home, and look through her own sock drawer. A few suggestions I offered were to find mismatched Christmas socks, to take a pair of Dad’s tubesocks and to sharpie them with designs, or simply to let the kids go on a sock hunt of their own. I was happy to receive her text a bit later sharing the good news that the perfect “crazy socks” had been located right at home with no purchases necessary.
I remember being the mom not too long ago who was driven a bit crazy by things like “spirit week” or overly ambitious elementary school projects. By the time my boys graduated from eighth grade, I’d learned to have a glue gun always at the ready for late night announcements of “Hey, Mom, I need a ....”. You can likely fill in the blanks—it ranged from a costume, to an elaborate project (always due tomorrow), to any other number of out of the ordinary and definitely educationally-questionable items.
In truth, things like Crazy Sock Day are super fun when you’re the second grader who gets to sport a cool pair of socks to school. They break up the routine and add mini celebrations that are some of what kids attending school remember in years to come. But it’s important to keep them in their proper perspective. That means—taking Crazy Sock Day as our example—not feeling like you have to run out and spend money to have the craziest socks at school. It can be a good lesson in creativity and also stewardship for our little ones when we allow them to solve their problems in unique ways. It’s also a good thing to train them not to wait until the last minute for such reminders and to plan in advance especially if outside items will be needed.
Have you lived through your own version of “Crazy Sock Day” and what did it teach you about yourself and your parenting style?
Comments
Page 1 of 1 pages
After 4 kids and being in school for 12 years straight, I’ve lived through it all. Crazy hat day, pajama day, spirit day, wear your favorite jersey day, dress as a teacher day, dress as a famous person, dress as a Founding Father day, etc. etc.
What have I learned? Don’t let perfection be the enemy of the good. Nobody remembers the details.
Our policy has always been that the kids need to find whatever they need for these spirit events around our home. Now I have two daughters in high school and one of them drives, so she has been to Goodwill on her own for items for spirit week. Our kids have been taught to be resourceful and more creative because we are so cheap!
I don’t ever want to buy stuff for “special-dress” days that can’t be used again. Case in point: when my oldest was in primary grades, the school let them wear red or green shirts on the last few school days before Christmas. I didn’t mind buying one red turtleneck and one green one. They became part of the child’s winter wardrobe and that was fine. Over the years (my oldest is 19 now and youngest is 9) we have done the “raid your own wardrobe” thing and the “hunt in everyone else’s closet” thing and the “borrow from friends and neighbors” thing.
The fun-dress days are only fun when they are rare. And they’re only fun for the parents when there’s adequate notice!
I agree with Barb. They are fun - when they aren’t happening every month. And they are fun when you get adequate notice (eg don’t rely on a first grader to tell Mom and Dad about the crazy hat day, send a notice home a week ahead). This is our first year in public school and frankly I am surprised how they waste time compared to our former (now closed) Catholic school. It seems that they are either wasting time with yet another celebration (the teachers have told me that Halloween is a day of zero instruction) or they are spending the entire day doing exercises for standardized test prep on a weekly basis. I hope and believe that not all public schools are like this, but ours is and it is disheartening.
As the mother of an only child (a 2nd grader), it’s easier for me than most to help her do “crazy sock day,” which happened to be today for us, too. Yesterday was “bring your favorite stuffed animal to school day,” and she forgot her pillow pet on the kitchen counter. My instinct was to run it over to school so she wouldn’t be without, but then I thought it was a great lesson in logical consequences—and it was killing me! She bemoaned her fate when she got home, but then she said it was too big to fit on her desk anyway and not such a big deal. Yea…for both of us!
I’ve gotten caught off-guard with this just this week. We took a family vacation last week because my kids had 3 days of fall break and we decided they could miss a couple of days. However, the two days they missed must have been when the notice about all these “crazy” days went home. Fortunately, I’ve been able to improvise so far. My daughter was able to turn her shirt backward easily enough on Monday when she got to school and it was “backward day.”
Honestly, this year with four children in three different schools situations, I have just had to adopt the attitude that we can do it all - we aren’t doing every fundraiser, special day, whatever. It’s just too much stress for me to keep up with it all and my children aren’t quite old enough to handle these things on their own.
We just did this a few weeks ago. I’m very thankful that my son’s teacher posted in big letters on the flyer home. “Do not go to the store!” She instructed the kids to search around their house for silly socks. My kindergartener spent an hour happily making sock puppets for his feet with magic markers and white socks. I also offered him a pair of my blue striped toe socks like the picture above -which he chose to stuff his crocs inside of to make them even crazier. He then wore his sock puppets on his hands during the silly sock parade.
I love these fun days when they serve a good purpose. My son’s silly sock day was the culmination of letter “S” week. The kids were encouraged to create their own design which uses art skills and problem solving. Even I was excited about it. But I can remember some other “fun” days from when I was a child that I hope I don’t see again - such as dress like a baby day… Why?
Post a Comment
By submitting this form, you give Faith And Family Magazine permission to publish this comment. Comments will be published at our discretion, and may be edited for clarity and length. For best formatting, please limit your response to one paragraph and don't hit "enter" to force line breaks.
