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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am a SAHM.  I am in my children's school twice per week, but there most certainly are those parents in the school more often. I volunteer for one hour in one of my children's classrooms and an hour for an after school activity on another day. There are many parents who have regular roles there for the year (math helper, reading helper, etc.). One of my friends does twice weekly reading groups.

Parents are free to have lunch with their kid any day of the week whenever they want. They don't generally "help out."  They just sit with their kid for lunch.  Our school has an open policy about it.  Anytime you want , you can eat lunch with your kid.  I just do it on my kids' birthdays and Thanksgiving.  But my daughter told me that one of her friend's moms eats there quite often (every few weeks).

I attend most all school events. Once in awhile DH takes off and goes, but that's rare. Last year my child was in Kindergarten and the teacher had a handful of events for parents. She usually did it first thing in the morning so more parents could attend, but there were always a few whose parents didn't/couldn't come.  But I'd say at least 3/4 were there.

Every child is different whether they want you at the school or not.  I missed one event last year because I plumb forgot about it, and my daughter is still talking about it a year later. My other child doesn't seem to care much if I'm there or not.

Perhaps you can ask the teacher for advance notice of party days or field trips and you can go over the calendar with your child and tell her you can attend two things, which ones would she like you to attend?  Also, if you sit and explain why you can't attend, it might help, "Susie's dad works down the street that's why he is there more often. Brian's mom is home with her baby, that's why you see her at lunch sometimes.  Your mommy and daddy can't take off work that easily but let's figure out two days this year when I can."[/quote]

I honestly think that the policy described above -- of a school allowing parents to come for lunch any day (!) -- is a bad one. Of course the SAHMs will love it. But for WOHMs, this creates an immediate feeling of letting your kids down. More importantly, many kids will feel bad because of this policy.  Why have a policy that will have 50 percent of kids feeling bad?

My sister has her 3 kids in private school in this area, and I know she has said that the school limits parental visits during the school day.   I am ok with parents in the classroom so long as they maintain the privacy of the children. It seems good to have a parent there supporting the teacher, although less ideal than just having a teacher's aid  (the same person each day rather than a rotation of parents). [/quote]

I'm the parent who wrote that about open policy for lunch.  We've been at 2 different elementary schools and one middle in two different districts, and they all have the same policy.  I don't know that SAHMs love the policy.  I never ate at the school for many years because I had younger ones at home and, as I said, I only go on their birthdays and on Thanksgiving when almost everyone goes.  Last year, I did volunteer in my child's classroom and it happened to end right before lunch started so my daughter would ask me to eat lunch with her almost every week.  I didn't, though, because I had things I needed to get done, but I did eat there more often that year - maybe once per month.

On a given day if I'm in the lunchroom, I usually just see a handful of other parents there (fewer than 1 per classroom) so I don't think it really makes the other kids feel bad because most of the kids are there without their parents.  The other kids actually seem to like it when a special visitor is there and will often tell them stories, ask questions, etc.

I agree that parents should maintain the privacy of the children she or he works with.  And most of the parents I see there are good, kind people who want to help out.  And it really helps to have extra hands in the classroom.  Last year, my daughter's class did book clubs once per week for an hour during class.  The teacher split the class into 5 groups of about 5 students each - the teacher took one group, the aide took one group, and 3 parents each took one group (one parent was not even a parent from their class).  I thought it was a great activity for the class and could not have been done without the parents' help.  [/quote]

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