My kids tells me about the classmate cliques they see. I tell them that the parent cliques are just as bad.

You get them in the classroom, just like the students get them. But you get them also in the PTA's, and extra-curricular events that are organized.

This may be one of the reasons my wife and I live such separate and compartmentalized lives. She always strives for the approval and validation of others; going overboard with school projects and activities. I find myself unable to bite my tongue and so I don't involve myself with the projects (cliques). With me the wild-eyed liberal and her father a state Republican Committeeman, she has decided to ignore politics as too much trouble. The problem with that is that the Repugs love the apathy as it allows them to continue down the path of the NeoCon.

What's interesting about school parent politics is that the parents come in all stripes.

There can be a group of parents that are as clique-sh as their children's school cliques. It's not a big deal unless you as a parent get messed-over (in minor sense in the grand scheme of things) for participation in some school event or volunteering.

My experience with parents at the elementary school level indicated that this kind of behavior isn't so obvious until the children are at the fourth grade level and beyond. Maybe because there isn't so much competition and/or attempts to be "the fustest with the mostest" before puberty sits in.

At my old school, there were a couple of mothers who had daughters in the 6th grade. There was rivalry between the mothers as to clothes, cars, houses, income, who could spend the most money on her daughter's attire, etc. The rivalry spilled over to the girls' interaction, which was more like a cat fight almost everyday, and the 6th grade teachers had a rough time of it for awhile.

When I was a Girl Scout leader, it was sixth grade when kids AND parents went over the edge. Unbelievable what happened when kids turned eleven and parents became so totally involved in wanting to run everything in their lives. It was as though they wanted to BE their own kids.

Is this the norm?

If I look at a sample of two: my wife and sister-in-law—YES! Both seem to have little self-esteem outside of their kids' accomplishments. This puts a tremendous amount of undue pressure on the kids when they already have enough on their plates like becoming rational human beings. It becomes almost impossible when mom is trying to vicariously trying to do the same thing.

That goes on in my husband's family and it's not just among the females. His only sister and her husband are so wrapped up in their two daughters...always have been. Now, the husband is insisting that both girls be enrolled at very exclusive girls' colleges in New England. Can you imagine the cost? Out of state tuition; plane fares home, spending monies, clothes...it boggles my mind just thinking of it!

If this is the situation, parents who have so little self esteem they want to be their own kids, what chance do the kids have? As APL said, there is already too much pressure on them just from growing up in this society (or any society maybe?) they certainly don't need more from their parents who are in effect jealous of them.

One of my mother's problems was that she was jealous of her own children--and it ain't no picnic for either parent or child.

Do we need a national psychology session?

Yep. fourth through sixth sounds right.

For a K-6 school, here, the Sixth Grade Parent committee is a "big deal" for some. It's only annoying because the communication on what they're planning has been weak this year.


Whoa!

The deal here was on who controlled how the Sixth Grade activities would be coordinated and where the funds would be spent.

There are two dances. And in one email, one of the "in parents" emailed everyone with a reminder to the dance organizer that the chaperon duties normally went to the parents who did the "most" all year.

No one really said much in response, but when I talked to some privately, they asked, "What was that crap all about?"

Before anyone knew it, there were "damage control" emails going around, spouting the virtues of the Sixth Grade activities parents.


No.

It's like politics. You have the motivated with some sort of personal agenda who take these "leadership" roles. Some do it to make sure things go smoothly. Others do it for the "power".

Most parents only care the stuff gets taken care of and all the BS is minimal.

I have to laugh at the parents who give their kids no breathing room at all to discover who they are.

There are some parents that have to be at everyone of their kids' field trips. And the hover over them the whole time. I think at fourth grade, the tether needs to be loosened a little.

There is one fourth grade teacher, here, who really wants his kids to be independent. There is a tradition for the parents of this school to mob the first day of school and the classroom their kids will be in. But this one fourth grade teacher pays them no mind and speaks directly to the students about what he expects of them. Once my wife and I got his clue, we were relieved and let him do his job.

This one you won't believe, but I swear it happened!

I was teaching a departmentalized third grade math and science program one year, which meant that all the students in that grade came to my room at some time during the school day for instruction. On conference days, I tried to meet with as many parents as I could. One parent had two adopted daughters. These girls weren't related at all, yet the mother seemed appalled that they didn't perform at similar academic levels! She just couldn't understand how one could make As and the other was doing well making Cs!

Believe it or not, the poor woman had spent many sleepless nights trying to solve this mystery! When she finally acknowledged and accepted that they weren't actually "sisters" and would always be very different, she and the girls were much happier!

Those girls are grown now...one of them is involved in a long-term gay relationship and lives in San Francisco and the other one (the C student) married a career air force officer.

I grew up in a family that went from 3 to 7 kids overnight, at age 9, when my folks took in 4 first cousins whose mother (my mother's sister) had died from getting the wrong kind of blood in an operation. The thing that became abundantly clear from this experience was that we were ALL different individuals despite being related. With my three I have to remember they should never carry the baggage of the others' foibles or achievements. Both of my parents had been the Valedictorians of their high school classes (class sizes 8 and 13) and never could accept that none of us were. Their investment in this idea almost got me ordered to boycott my own graduation but that is a story for another time.