My son, in fifth grade, is scheduled to go on a scout outing this weekend. He has his heart set on going.
We are in the process of applying for a middle school for him. There is one school that is far and away our (Ms. Plan B and I) first choice. My son likes it but isn’t crazy about it. There are other schools which he’d prefer. The school just notified us that he MUST be there on Saturday for his interview. Of course, our first choice in coping with this is to explain to the school that we had other plans and could we please re-schedule for a later date. This may work, and in that case, no brilliant creative outside the box solutions are needed.
But, the immediate feedback is that they aren’t going to budge. For those that are curious about how they could be so inflexible, I’ll just say that the school has caught on in popularity big time in the last year and they are overwhelmed by the number of applicants. To cut down, they arbitrarily set an early cutoff date for applicants and they are sticking to it. So, they could just as easily eliminate all applicants who don’t show up at the right time, and still have too many qualified students.
So, let’s just say we are facing this situation on Thursday night/Friday morning. The interview is Saturday. The outing starts on Friday night. If we refuse to let our son go on the outing he could easily blow the interview; remember he’s not crazy about the school. The best solutions we can think of have to do with bribery, big time. For instance, if you give up this outing you can have any trip you want, a dude ranch, skiing in Utah, Club Med, Disney, you name it.
One other point that might lead to a different solution. It just so happens that I’m scheduled to have lunch with the principal on Friday afternoon. The way this happened is that our older son goes to this school and I was the high bidder at an auction in June for a lunch with the principal. I’m not the world’s best talker and I worry that if I try to get her to loosen up the school’s policy I’ll be too blunt and blow it. You know: “Hey, I donate a lot of bucks to this school and if you want to see any more of it you’d better take care of me!” OK, I could do a bit better than that, but any suggestions on how to diplomatically bring this up and leverage the donations would help.
The principal cannot help you out until you ask her. If she could, she’d be making a lot more money as a mind reader. Just casually bring it up “hey, Scott has been looking forward to this scouting outing for months now, and it’s going to be next-to-impossible to make this interview. Are there any other openings or alternatives to an in-person interview? We’d all really appreciate it.” If you’re not good at bringing something like that up, mention during the lunch Scott’s involvement in scouting, how much he enjoys it, etc. These are certainly things that are going to help him get into the school, and definitely shouldn’t be the reason for him not to.
Failing all that, I’d have to go with bribery. If scouting is something that he really wants to do, and the school is something that you really want him to do, and he chooses scouting (if he had his druthers), then a more attractive option needs to be on the horizon.
Okay, I’ll play Mister Wolf to your Vincent Vega. Some quick questions:
How many other schools has your son applied to? What are his prospects of being admitted to them, what happens if he doesn’t get admitted to any, and has he already been accepted to the one he wants to attend?
What is it about this school in particular that you like so much (and is that the reason that you’re already a big donor to it)?
How long has he been a Scout, and where are they going? Which of his best friends in the troop are going? Which ones aren’t?
Some tentative ideas that revolve around the answers to my questions:
Plan A: invite another friend of his who’s not going on the outing to come to the interview location, and from there, on some other adventure that they’d both enjoy. The lesson you teach him is that long-term obligations (like doing his best – part of the Scout Oath!) are sometimes going to force him to make short-term sacrifices, but that if he adopts a good attitude, he can still have fun.
Plan B: have him pack all of his stuff for the outing, and bring it along in the car with you. Stay overnight in a hotel near the middle school or do whatever it takes to get him into the first slot on Saturday. This may involve chatting up the principal Friday. Talk to him about how much you like the school, and how much your kid has already sacrificed to be able to interview at all… when negotiating this sort of thing, use a delicate touch. Phrases like “I know how hard it must be for you” and “I can’t imagine you making an exception this late, but…” and pow! you’re in. First thing Saturday, he interviews in a coat and tie (right?) and then changes into his Scouting gear, and you drive like Hunter S. Thompson to get him to the campsite. The message that accompanies this is that sometimes you have a lot of things that need to get done all at once, and the only way to get everything you want is to be prepared and to work together for everyone’s benefit. Talk to his Scoutmaster or someone in the troop whom he respects – let them know how important this is, so that when he shows up late, he gets messages of “Oh we’re glad you could come / I hope you did well” rather than “It’s about time you got here / you probably won’t get in.” Consider showing up with cookies or brownies for the scouts. Not THAT kind of Brownies, you sicko!
You shouldn’t have to use bribery. I’m really against that method. Tell your son to do his best because you want him to, and he should try to please you. Explain to him why you think it is the best school.
This school is far and away your first choice* and you have to be there on Saturday for an interview. School comes before scouting and soccer and extra-curricular activities. It’s a no-brainer.
Part of your responsibility as a parent is helping your son learn how to deal with the inevitable disappointments in life. Bribing him teaches him nothing except mom and dad are pushovers. There is nothing wrong with offering to have a few friends over on Saturday night to compensate for the missed Scout outing. But a trip to Disney? You have got to be kidding. There is something wrong in this picture if you truly think your son will deliberately misbehave in order to blow the interview. I don’t care what his excuse is.
*I’m sure you’ve put a lot of thought into this, but be sure that you are choosing the school because you think it is the best FIT for your son, not because it happens to be trendy right now. A school that expects hefty donations and interviews for admittance sounds like a potentially rigorous school academically speaking. If they don’t offer a great tutoring program or academic intervention, this may not be the best school for a kid who is not “academically motivated.” A kid who feels overwhelmed will eventually shut down altogether.
There’s a fine line between bribery and positive reinforcement, IMHO.
Positive reinforcement is something like, oh, paying a kid for good grades. This teaches that work=money, and since money=good, work=good, something you definitely want to drill into that hard little head.
Bribery is paying a kid to do something he should do anyway, like actually go to school. (Yes, kids should get good grades, too, but sometimes the promise of reward gives them that extra motivation.)
Since the kid should behave at all times, I can’t see bribing him to be a good boy during this interview. It’d be cool if he could have friends over, but start rewarding him for stuff he should do and you’re going to end up with a man who wants a standing ovation every time he puts the toilet lid down.
I would think the principal would be willing to work with you, though. You know she probably knows the exact amount of money you’ve donated to the school. She’d be kind of stupid not to accommodate you.
A crazy suggestion would be to treat your son like an adult. Tell him that you really want him to go to this school, because you believe it is in his best interests, and his best hope for a bright future.
Acknowledge that he really wants to go on the camping trip, but tell him that if he decides to forego it to go to the interview, you will work with him to find a way to make it up to him.
Way to extrapolate meaning. Hell, I must have been a weird kid, I liked it when my parents were happy.
And you contradict yourself. You basically said what I said. “Tell him that you really want him to go to this school, because you believe it is in his best interests, and his best hope for a bright future.”
The only difference is you want him to decide. Your solution assumes he is mature enough to make mature decisions. He is ten years old. He will want to go to the scout camp. (Fair enough.) How many kids think about their future at that age?
Plan B would be very disappointed if his son picks to go to camp. Which he very well may if given the choice.
Why is this school so low on your son’s list? How do your priorities and his priorities stack up? If you have real reasons for overriding his preference, perhaps you can explain why, and change his mind instead of relying on bribery.
I’d guess it’s because he’s in 6th grade. Know a lot of 6th graders who put the same amount of importance on the quality of their middle school as their parents do?
Tell him that he better like living in that Boy Scout tent. If he doesn’t go to that school there’s a good chance that’s where he will be living as an adult.
Take your son to the “lunch with principal” thing on Friday afternoon. (Or if it the auction was one person and the principal, send your son to the “lunch with principal” thing on Friday afternoon, and opt out of it yourself.) Then, see if you can talk the principal into that being his application interview. The principal already has that time set aside, your son will miss a few hours of school (which is really not that much in the grand scheme of things) and you’ll get everything done.
But if nothing can be done, I’d say that school comes before scouting.
What would be the feasibility of letting your son go on the camping trip, pick him up in time to take him to his interview, then return him to his camping adventure? Have him dress in his Scout uniform; I cannot imagine that would hurt his chances at the school. However, I must say that I have no experience with this type of schooling. Good luck all the way around.
No contradiction. Telling him how you feel and letting him decide is very different than telling him “he should try to please you”. If I ever do that to my daughter, I’ve failed as a parent IMO.
It indeed is a risk. I’ll admit that, and perhaps not a risk to be taken lightly. But I believe that in situations like this, you should always at least consider letting the kid decide for himself.
Most parents wouldn’t consider it, because most 10 year olds aren’t mature enough. Or is it the other way around? In Kenya, 5 year old boys look after 30 head of cattle. An extreme example, perhaps, but it illustrates that if you give them responsibility, and they will quickly learn to handle it.
Well I think Plan B needs the kid to do more than just behave during the interveiw…the kid has to be motivated to shine. A child who was resentful for missing something he was looking forward to might well “behave” and go to the interview like his parents wished…then answer all questions with one word answers, look out the window when people are talking to him, sigh, essentially blow it. One way or another he needs to be WANT to do well at the interview, not just show up. If he’s angry at his parents it isn’t going to happen.
I’m a little surprised some people are being so dismissive of scouting vs school too. I was heavily involved in scouting at that age (I also did well in school) and it is debatable which field of endeavour is more important to me as an adult. In school we learned a lot of stuff some of which I haven’t needed since (Capitol of Ecuador, anyone?) but it was in Scouts that I first really exercised leadership, learned to plan ahead for desired goals, learned to challenge myself physically and mentally, work with people in small groups and other things.
School is undoubtedly important but in the right setting Scouts can be very valuable as well.
