Guest Blogger Jenny Heitz – Page 4

Guest Blogger Jenny: Every School Tells A Story——-Part 2

July 27, 2011January 14, 2013 admin 3 Comments

Looking At The School From The Inside

Unless you’ve been living in a cave somewhere, you already know the basics when it comes to assessing a private elementary school for your child. You’ve already balanced your educational belief system (progressive or traditional, etc) with what your child needs (and they don’t always match up). You’ve eliminated schools that would require a daily helicopter ride to attend. So far, so good.

There is, however, another side to choosing a school. Your child is the major attendee, of course, but you will end up attending the school as well. All private elementary schools demand a certain amount of volunteerism and annual giving. And sometimes, it’s really hard to get a grip on what the parent body (and subsequent pressures) really is at a particular school.

So you’re going to have to dig. Try talking to current parents of the school and subtly getting the scoop. For instance, every school has big fundraisers every year, but some are much more low key than others. You might prefer a daytime fair to a nighttime black tie event, for instance. But you won’t know that unless you inquire about the nature of these events. If the school holds events at exclusive country clubs, where the price to join is $100K, you can be fairly certain that parents at the school have memberships at the club and do their socializing there. That’s great for those who have memberships at the club, but what about those who don’t?

Another good indication is the type of silent auction items that are in demand at a school. All private schools have these silent auctions (and guess who supplies the goods? YOU!!!). But while at one school the hottest item that went for the highest price might be some great Laker tickets, another school might offer a pricey dinner party catered by a family’s private chef, at their mansion. Or, to ratchet up the bidding, how about a trip on a family’s private plane to a lavish vacation home, fully staffed (also owned by the same family)? These are status symbols that garner big payoffs for the school. What’s important to you, and fits with your value system? Remember, you’re going to have to put up with this production every year, so you might as well be able to tolerate it.

How about teacher and staff gifts? This has been a longstanding issue at many a private school, since elaborate gifts (think the latest Gucci bag kind of gifts) are often given out quite liberally by wealthy parents. This could be seen as some sort of bribe. Some schools have a very strict policy regarding gifts (Mirman is one of these), and simply doesn’t allow expensive gifts to rain down upon the teachers. Other schools have similar policies, but the parents blow them off and distribute the largesse anyway. Try to get a parent to answer these questions honestly, because it will save you aggravation later. (See piece below about Holiday Gift Giving)

In previous posts, we’ve squawked on about the cars in the carpool line. Are they window tinted Escalades or a bunch of Priuses? Yes, it seems so shallow and judgmental, but if you aren’t a luxury car driving parent, a parking lot full of Range Rovers and Porches might not really mesh with your priorities. You know that totally obnoxious car ad involving the boy embarrassed by his parents’ car? Do you want your kid to start making those snotty noises at you?

And speaking of snotty noises, you should try to find out what the celebrity quotient is at the school. Now, there’s nothing wrong with celebrities. L.A. is full of them, and they help keep our economy afloat (when they’re not collecting swag, that is, but I digress). I went to Crossroads a million years ago, and I benefited greatly. For instance, when we did a Sergio Leone unit in English Communications, James Woods came in to talk to the class about “Once Upon a Time in America.” Ditto for Martin Sheen during our Conrad Heart of Darkness and Coppola “Apocalypse Now” section. It was incredible.

What wasn’t incredible, though, was being at a school heavily dominated by industry types when I didn’t come from an industry family. So, if you are in the industry, you’ll probably have no issue sending your child to a more “Hollywood” school. But, if you aren’t involved in entertainment, it might seem much less appealing.

Finally, all you moms applying to schools out there, please check out the current mothers at the school. Although I’m a firm believer that there’s a place for everyone in the universe, shared aesthetics and values are important. If you’re a crunchy mom, you might not enjoy a school full of moms wearing 3-carat diamonds and pumped with enough Botox to kill a small village. Just saying.

Jenny Heitz has worked as a staff writer for Coast Weekly in Carmel, freelanced in the South Bay, and then switched to advertising copywriting. Her daughter started 4th grade at Mirman School this year. She previously attended 3rd St. Elementary School. Jenny has been published recently in the Daily News and on Mamapedia, The Well Mom, Sane Moms, Hybrid Mom, The Culture Mom and A Child Grows In Brooklyn. She now writes about gift ideas and products on her blog, Find A Toad.

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Guest Blogger Jenny: Sleep Away Camp: A Transformative Experience

July 23, 2011May 13, 2013 admin Leave a comment

My child is no stranger to sleep away camp. By the tender age of seven, she was asking to go away (I said no; she couldn’t even brush her own hair then, so there was no way she was going away for two or more weeks). When she was eight, I gave in and sent her to the camp my sister, step-sister, and myself attended.

She did not love it. She said the kids were mean and the counselors unfeeling. Still, she gave it another try, returning at age nine for yet another session. She reached the same conclusions. After that, she was hesitant to go again.

But I knew that camp was good for her. Rather than spend the entire summer in smoggy L.A., going to day camps she didn’t much like, she could be in a beautiful, rural environment learning new skills. Besides, I didn’t want her to give up. It wasn’t camp that was the problem, it was finding the right camp. Her father sent away for info on camps in, of all places, Maine. And she found one she liked.

Three and a half weeks away on a lake in Maine. Formidable stuff for a kid who claimed to not like sleep away camp. I have to say, it looked amazing. All girls. There was an endless schedule of activities like riding, sailing, gymnastics, and tons of art stuff. There were plays and beach days and clambakes. After viewing the DVD, I wanted to go there, too.

Anna flew out of LAX with a positive attitude, and it served her well. I tracked the camp’s activities every day through its website, checking the photos for signs of her. She was happy and smiling in most of the shots. When I spoke to her for one of our two phone calls, on her birthday, she practically blew me off in an attempt to get back to her party (I was not upset by this; it’s a good sign when your kid is at camp and isn’t interested in speaking to you because there’s too much fun stuff going on. This is what you pay for). Her letters were laughably short and upbeat.

The time kind of dragged on for me. Almost a month without your child is a bit rough. I started to feel like part of me had been amputated. But hey, that’s my problem. My job as a parent is to let my child have new experiences, and learn to function without me.

Upon her homecoming, I fully expected her to be totally obnoxious. After all, she’d just spent almost a month with pubescent girls, getting as teenaged silly as possible. Surely, she’d be mouthy, sulky and difficult.

Nope. Just the opposite. She came back more mature. Not to mention helpful. Sleep away camp, you see, really is a character builder. It used to be that we went away to escape our parents and enjoy some freedom from the tyranny of chores and nagging. But kids don’t really have that relationship with their families anymore. Many of our kids go to private schools that offer tons of activities and endless amusement. Parents tend to want to be their kids’ friend rather than authority figure. And chores? Not so much.

So camp has become the place where kids are given housework to do, group responsibilities to fulfill, and self-reliance is paramount. Sure, they’re watched over, but they’re also expected to tow absolute lines. Anna came back with a new attitude of cooperation. She cooked her own oatmeal and offered to walk the dog (and took pride in the fact that he behaved so well for her). Camp gave her a sense of being a part of a larger unit, and she seems to have transferred that to our own tiny family unit. And my worries of Miley Cyrus mouth? Totally unfounded. If anything, Anna acts even more like the world’s smallest 30 year old.

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Guest Blogger Jenny: Are You A "Never Enough" Mom? Than L.A. Private School Might Finish You Off

July 14, 2011January 5, 2015 admin 3 Comments

Homemade vs. Store Bought Cupcakes

In the endless discussion of parenting, female identity, and self-flagellation, the latest incarnation of such is the contrast between the “Never Enough” mom and the “Good Enough” mom. According to Becky Beaupre Gillespie and Hollee Schwartz Temple, authors of the new book, Good Enough Is the New Perfect: Finding Happiness and Success in Modern Motherhood, issues like the cupcake dilemma–and the myriad other choices moms must make in the name of ”balance”—are actually part of a brand new Mommy War, especially for working moms. To read the interview with the authors at The Mother Company, click here.

Apparently, the “Never Enough” mom usually has given up some high-powered job and focused all that energy onto the raising of her children. She constantly strives for perfection in all things, including homemade lunches, home baked cupcakes for her kids’ birthdays, and shuttling them to every class and event on the parenting docket.

The “Good Enough” mom, of course, isn’t exactly the opposite (that would be the “Doing Time” mom), but she definitely has lower standards. She doesn’t always run the bake sales (or, show up to the bake sales). Her kids aren’t booked into activities every waking hour (mostly because she doesn’t feel like driving them everywhere, at all hours). And often, those birthday cupcakes are from Pavilion’s instead of Mama’s Cucina. The implication of all this is, of course, that the “Never Enough” moms are going crazy in their endless pursuit of perfection, and the “Good Enough” moms are always wondering if they’re really “good enough,” or really “kind of stink.” As I always wonder if I “kind of stink,” since I take time for myself and don’t go to every event, I can relate to these women. It’s a no win situation for sure.

And private school doesn’t make it any better. If you’re already prone to being a “Never Enough” kind of parent, private school will bleed you dry. There are just too many opportunities for involvement, from committees to special events to weekly time consuming commitments. Say “yes” to just one or two, and you will be inundated with offers, emails, and phone calls requesting your services. And this can snowball into quite a standoff.

One mom friend of mine has a fairly demanding job; she may work from home, but she might be working 24/7; she never knows. Yet, because she started out her first private school year with typical “Never Enough” mommy gusto, she was completely burnt out halfway through her daughter’s second year. She was forced to start saying no. And the disgruntled sighs and bug-eyed stares of disbelief she received while politely limiting her involvement made her beat herself up even more. Because there’s nothing worse to a group of “Never Enoughs” than a “Never Enough” turning “Good Enough.”

Because I’m so “Good Enough,” I choose my volunteer opportunities carefully. I helped out at used uniform sales, worked a two hour shift at the bake sale during the school fair, managed to get three great silent auction items donated, and chaperoned one field trip. Paltry? Perhaps, but I live over 20 miles away from the school and have lots of other responsibilities. I must admit I did make homemade butterscotch brownies (recipe on Jenny’s blog, Find A Toad) for Anna’s school birthday celebration (at her request), but since they’re my specialty and I can make them in my sleep, I don’t consider that a big deal. However, you’d never catch me up at midnight baking homemade cupcakes; the kids just want sugar, and store bought works just fine.

For Anna’s second year, I plan on ramping up my involvement a bit more. But I know my limits, and I don’t care about being branded as “Good Enough.” To all you overachieving, super human, cupcake baking “Never Enoughs” out there, bless you, and may the deity of your choice help you create private school volunteerism boundaries that work for you.

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Guest Blogger Jenny: Congratulations! Your Child May Be Gifted…In Something

July 8, 2011February 21, 2012 admin 1 Comment

Bill Gates: The Gifted One

Gifted. The word conjures up all sorts of connotations for parents, from having a musical prodigy to spawning the next Bill Gates (like him or not, he’s definitely gifted). As the parent of a designated “highly gifted” child myself (you can read about Anna’s designation journeyhere), I was stunned to discover that, at least for the term “gifted,” there really isn’t any set criteria.

There was a post recently on Yahoo Parents (entitled, handily, “10 Signs Your Child May Be Gifted”) that tried to spell out exactly how to determine your child’s gifted status. The writer, not a psychologist or an expert (but, then, neither am I), had a list of traits that apparently encompass giftedness. These attributes included everything from longer attention spans to musical ability to your kid, essentially, being a chatterbox. It did not, however, give a set definition for what giftedness is, thus setting up a laundry list in which anyone’s child could fit at least a couple of the entries. So, please, read the article and congratulate yourself: your child is gifted… in something.

Whatever that means. Even LAUSD, when it comes to designating giftedness upon students, has three different ways to do it: IQ test (given by the district; good luck getting that scheduled), years of superior standardized testing scores, or teachers simply deciding your kid is smart, based upon a four item list. Confused? You should be. Some school districts (not LAUSD) even categorize athletic ability as giftedness (which it most certainly is, but not related to academics or IQ).

As someone who’s already been through the wringer with this process, I can say in all honesty that, in most cases, that “gifted” designation is a waste of time. The only reason to go through with it, pursuing the testing and all the other nonsense, is if you have some end goal in mind for your child. You think your kid is highly gifted and might benefit from a highly gifted magnet or school? By all means, test the kid. By the time we tested Anna, we already knew that public school didn’t offer the resources to keep her academically occupied. She was pulling top grades, bored and restless, acting out in class, and the teachers often used her as an adjunct teacher for other kids (something that happens to smart kids all the time, unfairly; kids are supposed to be students, not unpaid TAs).

In the end, the only benefits the gifted status bestows upon your child are academic. A high IQ score in the highly gifted range opens the doors to incredible summer programs, wonderful private schools like Mirman (where my daughter goes, and loves), and a few highly regarded public magnet schools. So, if you’re interested in getting your child involved in that, get him or her tested using one of the standard IQ tests, usually either the Stanford Binet or the WISC. It costs you some money, takes about ninety minutes, and the kid usually has fun (my daughter totally enjoyed her testing process, and felt no pressure whatsoever). You have the score in hand immediately, and then you can decide to proceed or ignore it (whatever you do, though, DO NOT tell your child the score. I believe it’s a set up for disaster. Anna will never know that she is smarter than her mother).

On the other hand, you could look at the incredible art your child produces, or her love and mastery of the guitar, or even her stealthy kicking gifts on the soccer field and know, right down to your bones, that no standardized test could ever measure such gifts. A high IQ is a measurement of academic and intellectual potential, a raw quantitative analysis of what might be possible if your child decides to use it. But it’s not a pursuit, or a passion, or an achievement in and of itself.

Guest Blogger Jenny: Big Recital Fail: Are We Rewarding Our Kids for The Mediocre?

June 22, 2011May 13, 2013 admin 4 Comments

Recently, I attended a piano recital where my daughter and a horde of other people’s kids, ranging from ages 5 to 18, performed. With the exception of three of the players (not, unfortunately, my daughter), every single one of the piano students made big mistakes.

Actually, that’s putting it kindly: they mostly stunk. And yet, there was applause. Cheers, even. The Sunday afternoon dragged on interminably as sour notes built. These kids had six months to work on their pieces, polishing them to perfection. This was supposed to be a command performance, of sorts. But instead, we listened to mediocrity.

I primarily blame the parenting and teaching culture at large for this. That whole “positive self esteem” movement has really messed with the idea of real achievement. While my daughter was waiting her turn, she muttered to her father that she was nervous. “What if I make a mistake?” she asked him. Knowing how little she seemed to practice, I figured she’d be lucky to just make one mistake.

“Don’t worry about it,” he replied. “Everyone makes mistakes.”

“On the other hand, “ I added, “you might want to do a really great job, since everybody’s sitting here on a Sunday.”

He glared at me. Obviously, I was not a supportive parent. Then our kid sat down at that grand piano and really stunk the place up. When she finished and came back to her seat (rather sheepishly, I thought), her dad said “Good job.”

Good job??? Give me a break. It wasn’t a good job. It was a mediocre job. And it wasn’t just my daughter doing a crummy job. The majority of the kids screwed up constantly, without any sort of sense of self-consciousness about it. After all, their teacher (a fairly hardcore Russian lady who seems unlikely, at her core, to put up with this nonsense) had even told them that everybody makes mistakes. The kids weren’t competing; there was nothing at stake here. And since all these kids are used to adults arranging their lives around their kid schedules, the fact that we all sacrificed a Sunday for this didn’t impress them, either. What else do we have to do than sit around listening to Mendelssohn being utterly demolished?

So I didn’t say anything, one way or the other, about her recital piece. Her stepfather patted her once and said, “Well, at least you showed up.” I thought that was kind.

Now, I’m not some crazy Tiger Mom with a musical agenda. I’m no nonsense when it comes to school (where my daughter has no problems with performance whatsoever), and mellower when it comes to extra curricular activities like piano. I’m not going to hang over her, screaming that she practice every day for hours. As a result, she doesn’t practice as much as she should (obviously, since her recital was terrible). But, I also know that I don’t nag her much about schoolwork, either, and she manages to handle her own schedule quite nicely. I’ve heard her practice oral reports in her room for hours (and then score great grades on them).

I think it all comes down to environment. Anna goes to Mirman, where top performance is stressed and work is pretty competitive. Mediocrity is never rewarded. Mistakes aren’t punished, but no one up at that school is going to tell her she’s done a good job on something when she most decidedly hasn’t; it would be an insult to her intelligence.

But then she goes to piano, where nothing is competitive, she’s told it’s fine to make mistakes, and no one has impressed upon her that there’s anything at stake (including, I suppose, pride) if she screws up. It doesn’t matter what I say about it, since I’m just one voice and she has many telling her something very different. There’s no incentive to work really hard and play a piano piece perfectly if everyone gets a rose and applause, right?

This experience of reward for mediocrity extends beyond the piano recital, though. Recently, I’ve seen blog posts from mothers bemoaning the recent school practice (both public and private) of having “graduation” every time the kids switch a grade. What, exactly, makes moving up from 4^th to 5^th grade an accomplishment? Isn’t that the least we can expect? Matriculation from lower to middle school, or from high school to college, makes perfect sense; one marks a boundary from childhood to early adolescence, the other a switch from home and comfort to a completely different living and educational situation. But, if the kids “graduate” every year, what becomes special about graduation, anyway?

I’m planning on switching piano teachers soon. While I have no issue with Anna learning to play and enjoying it, I’m tired of the recital charade twice a year. It’s meaningless, and in fact might be harmful. We do our children no favors rewarding lousy performance. Later in life, just showing up isn’t going to cut it, and kids who have been raised this way will be confused later by the lack of praise directed their way. Some competition, some pride, and some high expectations are all great things to give our kids; without these things, they’re going to find life in the real world difficult indeed.