Snowflake Syndrome

I was at a school council meeting last night where several proposed initiatives were questioned or shot down because it was worried that not all children/families would have the means/opportunity to participate. Some of these initiatives were passed through regardless (with a caveat from the principal that those students who might not have the financial means to participate would be seen to by the school's funds) but most were rejected.

As cold-hearted as it sounds, this irked me. I argued then, as I will argue now, that it is frustrating and near impossible to tailor each and every one of our activities so that they are perfectly accessible to each and every one of our over 500 students.

Now I firmly believe that all children should be able to participate in some activities, but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that sometimes, some children are going to have be told that the initiative in question just isn't going to work for their family.

I'm not just talking about activities that involve money. Some are points based activities, some are themed events that some parents might take issue with, some are volunteer based. So while not every child might be able to participate in every activity, every child should be able to participate in some activities.

This doesn't seem horrific to me. In fact, we already have several of these type of initiatives in place: milk program, pizza day, popcorn day, Scholastic, sports teams, social groups, band. Each of these activities is already in place and each will limit participation to some degree and yet introducing new activities that might not include everyone is met with fears of crushing our precious children's psyches.

I get it that we don't want a child to feel left out or unfairly marked, but when did we get so concerned with bruising our children's egos that we felt the need to shield them from all possible types of disappointment? Why is it so hard for parents to say "you know what sweetie, we're not going to do this because it's too expensive, or too time consuming, or because you're allergic, or ___________, but we will do ___________ when it comes around next month."

I have said no to my kids more than once. They have learned to deal with it. They accept it and they move on. Because disappointment is part of life and teaching my kids how to work through it is part of my job as a parent. Yes, school activities should aim to include as many children as possible and yes, students need to be given many opportunities to participate so that if they can't do one activity they have the option to do another, but denying an activity to the whole school because some children might not be able to participate just doesn't feel right to me. Least that's how I see it.