Let me introduce you to my alter ego...

...Ms. Snarky.  She's going to come out to play today because well, Ms. Preppy is feeling a little bit snarkalicious today.  Please be nice to her.

Mrs. Mimi of It's Not All Flowers and Sausages was my introduction to the teaching blog world way back when I was in college {I say that like it was soo long ago} and when her book came out, I was first in line at my local Barnsey {that's Mrs. Mimi speak for Barnes and Noble, if you didn't know} and read it cover to cover.  And laughed the whole time.  I re-read it not so long ago because now that I'm in the classroom, it's even more funny.  There's one thing in her book that I end up discussing with my team at least twice a week.  I'm not sure of the exact quote, but she's talking about parent teacher conferences and how some parents seem to have a million things to do, none of which include actively parenting their child.  I love that.  Actively parenting.  It is not enough to simply feed and clothe your child.  You must actively parent them.  And unfortunately, there are entirely too many parents who aren't familiar with the practice of actively parenting their child.

There are many things involved in this active parenting phenomenon, but one biggie is teaching your child to accept responsibility.  Please explain to me why parents think that all they have to do is call me and explain that there is no way in the world their sweet little one did whatever it is I saw them do with my own two eyes and I'll just cave and apologize profusely and take away or make up for whatever consequence I've given...  Why?  I mean, that just doesn't work.  I saw your child cut another child's hair with their scissors.  I saw that.  It happened.  There's no getting out of it.  Why do you think it's a good move to allow your child to escape accepting responsibility?  How is that setting them up for success in adulthood?

I mean, if I decided to drive in reverse down the highway at 90 miles per hour with all of my doors open and my head poking out of the sun roof, I'm going to get pulled over.  And I'm probably going to get arrested.  Because I'm breaking the law.  And I can't use my one phone call to call my mommy and explain to her how horrible the police are to pull ME over because I wasn't doing anything wrong.  It was a pretty day and I wanted to try something new, is having fun illegal now?  Yes, my mom thinks I'm the cutest, sweetest, smartest person in the world.  But she can't come up to the police department and explain that it was just a little misunderstanding and that I would never do such a thing and could they please not send me to jail or give me a ticket.  That's not going to work in the real world!  But I'm afraid this is what's going to happen to some of my little friends if their parents don't step up and make them accept responsibility for their actions.  It's pretty scary.

Now, don't get me wrong.  I have some amazing parents who work with me and we support each other and it's just beautiful.  But then I have some who just have too much going on to be bothered with the responsibilities of actively parenting their child.  I'm sure we all have at least one or two of those!

So I'm thinking that at back to school night, we don't need to explain our rules for the CHILDREN...we need to explain our rules for the PARENTS.  I'm thinking a looks like, sounds like chart for active parenting.  What do you think?  What does active parenting look like and sound like to you?