A great idea at BF.

I've learned that BF is holding a "Snowball Social" in January -- a casual evening of dinner, dancing and fun for the parents of Benjamin Franklin Middle School students. Yay! Middle School is problematic for parents (understatement, huh?). Consider: it's normal that our kids start separating from us in middle school...it's normal that parents who were very involved at the elementary school will find fewer opportunities for involvement when their kids get to BF or GW. That's understandable...they're growing and maturing and they can't always do that if they think they're going to run into Mom or Dad in the hallways. HOWEVER, this natural separation from our kids results in parents becoming separated from each other. We lose our connections to other parents, so that by the time the kids get to high school, we know fewer and fewer other parents. The trouble is, middle school and high school are when we need those parental connections MORE. By the time the kids start driving or going to parties or whatever, even Ridgewood can seem like a mysterious black hole when our children leave the house on Friday or Saturday night. Having a strong (and large) network of parents gives us a chance to compare notes, find out things our children "forgot" to tell us, and alert each other to concerns or issues.

The funny thing is, when your kid gets to high school, there is a renewed effort to get parents involved -- band parents, sports boosters, HSA, Project Graduation -- but it's difficult to pull parents back in when that connection was lost during the middle school years.

So congratulations to BF for adding the Snowball Social -- a purely social event for parents to have fun together. (Too bad I'm not a middle school parent anymore, but oh well.)

P.S. I'm not neglecting GW! I'm just less familiar with the day-to-day over there -- if you are a GW parent and can share some info about parent involvement/socials at GW, please let me know so we can celebrate another great idea! (Something tells me I'm going to hear about some other middle school parent activities that I didn't know about -- bring it on and let's let people know!)