Opinion: The tamariki are school ready - but are the grown-ups?

Ilona Hanne offers some guidance for grown-ups as school starts for the year. Photo / unsplash

Opinion

As tamariki around Aotearoa New Zealand prepare to return to school this week, the grown-ups in their life have doubtless spent plenty of time ensuring they are ready for school. From the purchasing of stationery and uniforms, checking your 5-year-old knows to put their hand up when they need the bathroom, and your 15-year-old knows the school bus route, school readiness for pupils and students is something we all know to check for.

But what about the caregivers themselves? Are you ready for your children's school year? As a former secondary school teacher and current mother of three school-aged tamariki, allow me to offer some guidance on the school rules for grown-ups.

1. Always put your hand up: We encourage our children to put their hand up in class, but we need to as well. From supporting PTA fundraisers to helping on school trips, there are a variety of ways you can help your child's school. You don't have to bake 20 cakes for the annual gala if that's not your thing, and not every parent has the work flexibility to help on school trips, but every one of us has a skill set or talent that can be put to positive use to help the school in some way. So don't hide at the back hoping you won't get asked, put your hand up to help.

2. Do your homework: Yours, not theirs that is. Don't be tempted to get out the hot glue, pipe cleaners and glitter yourself when they are tasked with making a life-size model of the Taj Mahal at home of course, but do make sure you are doing your own homework when they come home with tales of an unfair detention or a mean teacher. Ask questions, check the facts and be willing to hear the other side of the story (because there always is another side to that story) before you demand to see the principal over the fact your child was last in the line to get their lunch two days in a row.

3. Don't be a playground bully, at the school gates or at home: Okay, this one sounds obvious, just as surely your child would never be mean to someone, of course you aren't either, right? Sadly, that isn't always the case and in fact, most playground bullies are simply reflecting or replicating what they hear and see at home. So before you describe another school parent in less than polite terms when talking to a friend on the phone, or tell your child to stay away from another child because you don't like their caregiver, ask yourself if you would be happy if your child was called the name you just called that parent, or was excluded from a game because someone didn't like your lifestyle choices.

4. Respect the teachers: When children hear the adults in their life criticising their teachers, it effectively gives them a green light to misbehave and disengage from their learning. Whether you agree with the teacher or not or whether you like them or not is irrelevant, what matters is they are an important person in your child's educational journey. Don't second-guess or critique the teacher's actions in the hearing of your child, and don't let your opinion taint your child's relationship with their teacher.

5. Limit screen time: Of course, you should absolutely make sure your children aren't spending every waking hour of their day staring at their phone or tablet, but this rule is for you too. Just as your child can easily get caught up in their Minecraft world and not hear you ask them to set the dinner table, so it is easy for adults to get caught up in their online world of social media or work emails and not properly hear what their children are telling them. Don't make them compete with your phone for your attention when they get home from school, or you get home from work, put the phone away and, to quote pretty much every new entrant teacher ever, "turn on your listening ears".

6. Take your turn: Remember back when you were at school and it took forever for it to be your turn to be leader of the day? It's not any different now. Remember that when you want to ask the (extremely busy) school secretary to just print you off a copy of the permission slip you lost, or the (equally busy) principal to personally discuss the school's uniform policy with you. It's not that your child's needs aren't important or special, they are. But so are the needs of the other hundreds of tamariki the school secretary, principal, teachers and support staff are tending to, so learn to politely wait your turn.

7. Attendance: I'm not advocating you send sick children to school here, but I am suggesting attendance is a key factor in your child's success at school. Not just academically, but socially as well. Their attendance is important, and so is yours. So make sure they show up and so do you. Don't let them stay off school because it's cross country day and they hate it, and don't skip the parent-teacher interviews or goal-setting days yourself. You and your child need to be present both physically and mentally for all parts of school life, not just the bits you like.

8. Remember your role: While schools are busy this week finalising their roll, you need to make sure you remember your role. Remember back in that first lockdown, when school moved out of the classroom and into our lounges. Remember how every second parent loudly declared "I am not a teacher". That's still the case. So let the teacher teach, and focus on your own role - that of parent / koro / granny /guardian.