I never went to talent shows (and never understood how lip-synching was a “talent.”) Lie that poster, I actually enjoyed most of our kids’ activities, and most of the rest were at least tolerable. But the one event that still stands out 15 years later was a HS forensics club awards ceremony.
Don’t get me wrong, forensics is a fine activity. But the participants tend to be - um - pretty full of themselves. Especially the top performers - who tended to garner most of the recognition. So we sat on these INCREDIBLY ucomfortable chairs in the HS lunchroom (those hard little round stools affixed to the tables?) for well over 2 hours, while the same kids went up there time after time and gave extended acceptance speeches demonstrating what they considered their tremendous speaking skill. Meanwhile, the damned introductions and everything else were stretched out and presented as dramatic events. Sheer torture!
So what was the low point for you parents? A never-ending baseball game in a driving rain? A performance in which your kid bombed?
Middle school band concerts are right up there. I believe more than one of the students may have been out of tune. Those seats got pretty hard by the second number.
For me it was all the fundraising. Selling wrapping paper, candy, popcorn, etc constantly gets really old. I understand the need, but wished schools would offer an opt-out option where you just plunk down a check to cover what your child is expected to bring in and skip the part where you have to annoy family and co-workers 4 times a year.
Thinking about it - I imagine the worst activities were the ones my kids did not do well at. So I never minded the concerts, because my kids were always pretty god at music (and music was something I enjoyed.) I’m not a big sports fan and my kids were not great at school sports, so watching the was pretty rough.
As far as fundraising - we ALWAYS asked for the opt-out. If there was none, too bad.
School plays are even worse than talent shows. My daughter was typically the only kid who could act in the slightest way (she went on to high school and college theatricals), and it wasn’t just boring but excruciating to listen to to kids speak their lines with blank faces, in a monotone, while moving like spasmodic wooden robots.
Track meets. Hours and hours to wait for your kid’s 4 minute event. They really seemed to delight in having as much down time as possible between events.
Make work homework projects. Build the lunar landing site. Build a Navajo village. Always needing way too much parent involvement.
I liked the talent shows. True, my daughter excelled each time, but I was always amazed by how much talent the other kids had too.
Maybe not quite in the spirit of the question, but I didn’t mind school-related activities. What I hated was filling out the inevitable packet of forms they would require parents to fill out at the beginning of each school year. I’d shove those things across the table to mrs. dirtball and say, “Have at it.”
PTO meetings. I went to one - just one - and never, ever went to another one again. I was the only mom whose kid was new to the elementary school in the room and these catty women kept texting back and forth and turning to giggle at each other in the middle of the meeting. No one wanted to step up to do diddly, they were literally just there to be seen and hang with their friends. Everyone but me already had at least one kid go through elementary (one of the ladies had 5 children, three of which were in elementary) and had been members of the PTO for years.
Track meets were unbearable. I only went to three. Sat on stadium benches for hours, one time in freezing rain. It was so cold I left to go to the Dollar General down the street and buy a sweatshirt to put on. The girls were standing down there, milling around, soaking wet with little flimsy wet blankets over their track suits. I made a run to the gas station and brought back as many takeout cups of hot tea for them as I could carry. It was a helllish experience. But my daughter seemed to enjoy it, even without parent participation.
Yeah, the kids can socialize for a few hours on the field. That’s all they want to do at that age anyway. We usually ended up sitting in the car sneaking some wine to pass the time.
Ha! I ran track, so I always enjoyed the meets. At least in decent weather. Sure, you are waiting for your kid’s event, but unlike sports like football and baseball, there is always SOMETHING going on. So while you are waiting for your kid to run his/her 100m heat, you can watch the other races, or the field events…
The plays and concerts depend so much on the teachers. My son’s schools were really dedicated to putting on a good show for the parents, so they were never painful. The 1st grade play is a chance to watch your kid get dressed up and on stage for a little while, the students are always wooden, but if the teachers do a good job, they’ll be wooden and cute.
I’d say the worst one for me was going to a Science Olympiad. It was a 3.5hr drive, then we sat around the school while the kids hung out in the team’s assigned room. They’d go to another room for their event, which you didn’t really get to see at all, and it would be hellishly boring to watch anyway, then you wait around for the results, and drive back home. That was definitely a “bring the kindle” type of event. Woof.
For me it was watching my granddaughter play high school basketball. I did enjoy going to her summer leagues games though. She was one of the better players on these AAU teams and they always did very well. The last season she played she was voted best player in her league. Her high school coach was a real tool and decided my granddaughter play his way, which meant she rarely shot the basketball, that was left to another player. That meant the other teams always had 2 players defending this player. The only time my granddaughter would score would be off of rebounds. She was once pulled from a game because she took and easily made a 3 point shot instead of passing the ball the the team’s “star” player. In her 2 years of varsity basketball, the team went 3-37. The school brought in a new coach after my granddaughter graduated, they won the state championship 2 years later.
That would’ve been a type of torture I had not imagined. Fortunate we never had that. Well, one time my son was in choir, and the leader was a total jerk towards him. But that didn’t make the performances unpleasant.
I refused to torture our neighbors. Whatever my kids had to sell, I’d purchase whatever the minimum was. We ate the popcorn/candy but some of the stuff was pure crap and got thrown out.
I loved band concerts. My focus was on my daughter, and I clapped louder than any other parent. My son never did band or any other extracurricular stuff.
What I hated was parent-teacher conferences. My kids did well in school. I did not appreciate spending an evening hearing their teachers gush about how great my children were. I was there for constructive criticism, so I knew how to help them improve. Hearing praise? I knew they were great, it was awkward sitting in a tiny desk hearing what I already knew.
Got it in one. It’s also tough on the kids who are more talented musicians than the average kid. They may shine if they get to do a solo, but in the group they’re lost. Most of the band may have reasonable skill levels individually even if not star performers, but keeping them all in sync can be pretty tough, so it ends up sounding bad even if every note is in tune.
Good ones mentioned so far. I would like to submit - the graduation ceremonies. My kids had them at the end of 5th, 8th, and of course the end of 12th grade. Sure, it’s nice to take photos of you and your graduate, but sitting for what seems like hours on the stadium bleachers listening to speeches and waiting for the 20 seconds your kids’ name is called and they walk across the stage was miserable for me. And the clapping - you are somehow obligated to clap for every kid, and feel bad for the ones where little to no clapping is heard. I do feel it is polite to sit thru the whole thing rather than get up and leave after your kid is called, tho.
When my daughter graduated college, due to the pandemic, her graduating class was split into 3 sections, so they would not have to pack them close together where they sat on a field. The group she was in was about 300 graduates, instead of the roughly 1,000 it would have been. One silver lining for the pandemic.
Honestly, unless your kid was a total asshole or really struggling, the constructive feedback wasn’t all that helpful. My son in particular had trouble sitting still in elementary. I’d get these calls home and these comments during parent-teacher conferences, “Well, we have a hard time making good choices sometimes, don’t we?” I’d press for details and the teachers were like, “Well, he has a hard time sitting still. Have you had him tested for autism?” I chatted with other parents and found out, much to my horror, that 40% of the first grade class had been referred for ADHD or autism testing and about 80% of them were boys.
Turns out he doesn’t have autism (we were alarmed so we had our pediatrician evaluate him), but the school insisted durin our P-T conferences that he was too squirmy so he must have a disorder.
I feel this one. Boys mature slower than girls at that early age, and a rambunctious boy who has a hard time sitting still likely has nothing close to ADHD. I suspect the teaches just press the “easy” button to get the squirmy kid out of their class. I had this going on for my son as well as observing it for others. A few years later it’s not such an issue, after the boys have some time to catch-up to the girls.
No preschool graduation ceremony?! Those were kinda weird, but then again we’ve gone to puppy class graduation, complete with mortarboards and diplomas.
