Life's usual frantic pace is hotting up into ye old raging inferno.
This week I have the annual Special Needs Audit with the Independent Schools Association and the House BBQ; next Saturday the exchange student arrives; the followingWednesday reports are due and two weeks after that we have exams. In the midst of all that I have a couple of inservice days and the pressure of writing units for next year's Year 12.
My Bestie is moving house; my daughter's netball teams keep losing and my stepson needs a haircut. Apart from that everything is normal.
In an amazing moment this morning we managed to get three members of our family down to the Police Station for a 'police check' prior to the arrival of JF next weekend. All members of the family over 18 have to prove they're above board you see.
Himself: So...er what exactly does this police check show up?
Me: Don't worry, I don't think your 1985 brush with financial ruin is going to be a problem.
Himself: It's not me I'm worried about, it's No2 Son.
Me: Again, I don't think trespassing on school property is going to be an issue.
So it was a united Arizaphale family that fronted at the Cop Shop at 10:30am Saturday morning. Despite the 'early hour' there was lively discussion as we waited for them to photocopy the proof of our existence. No2 Son inevitably expressed the opinion that he wanted this 30 minutes of his life back and I immediately bit. The Policeman, in a stage whisper, mouthed the words 'Gen Y' to me.
This only served to rile me up further.
Me: You see officer, they are only Gen Y because we have made them that way.
Friend of No2 Son: So it's the parents fault?
Me: MOST definitely!
Friend: Wow. Harsh call.
Me: Maybe. But at the end of the day, it is parents who bend over backwards for their children, cosset them, cocoon them from discomfort, rescue them and lead them to believe that life will be easy, that are to blame for the selfish behavior of Gen Y. If you guys thought about the amount of time your parents had spent, picking you up, dropping you off and waiting for you in uncomfortable situations, you would not dream about complaining about having to do something as simple as this.
silence
No2: Well I'm here aren't I?
Sometimes I just have to shut up and acknowledge.
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The BA has been going through that ubiquitous 'we can't win a game' phase with her two netball teams. Himself calls it, 'Premiership Hangover'. There is a slight change in her schedule this year in that she plays two games a day, one with the school (8am) and the other with her club.
I think , due to their age, a lot of the girls are in this situation for the first time. It seems to be taking a toll on them.
The 8am game is a school game and the BA plays for the Year 10 A team. Unfortunately the rest of the team are 'boarders' which makes them very 'tight' and the BA has been a little bit on the outer. Also, she has been switched around in terms of positions as the coach finds out what the girls' strengths and weaknesses are although I am proud to say she has dealt with this very well and gives 110% whereever she is on the court. She has actually done a really effective job in Wing Attack which is quite a different role to her normal defending position. The problem with this team is that they're all too quick to shift the responsibility of loss onto each other. Rather than 'I'm sorry, I'm not doing very well in x,y,z position' as the BA's other team has always done, these girls are all about blaming each other. The BA has found this quite difficult. As a mum I am usually pretty quick to criticise her and her game, especially if she's having an off day; but even Blind Freddy could tell you that she is one of the key players on the team and it does make me rile up a bit when I hear one of them (in particular) call out to her 'watch your passing' when she misses one out of 200 passes that otherwise went to the right place.
I am encouraging her to grin and bear it and to be positive in the hopes that some of it will rub off on the rest of them. It has happened once before so I have faith that good example can spread and influence for the positive. Why does peer pressure have to be a negative thing eh?
Her other, usual team is experiencing a slump too and many of the girls just seem tired on the court. Perhaps they're all experiencing a growth spurt? Don't know if the boyfriends that now come out to watch have anything to do with it :-)
But now, I must away and get on with preparing for the Audit.
In the words of Titus Oates: I may be some time.
3 comments:
Glad to see that you all passed your background checks with flying colors! :)
Well glad that there wasn't anything too unseemly in your collective pasts to keep the student away. ;)
Love that you called them out for why the Gen Y'ers are so selfish. Yes...the parents and lack of saying no.
I had to deal with much tears yesterday in teaching Kai why saying no is a good thing. A fellow daycare mate wanted to trade a toy with Kailan. Being such a pushover, he didn't say no like he wanted. Come to find out it was that kid's last day there, so no hope of a "trade" back. Much. Tears. Learning experience for him, I'm afraid.
I can say on the netball front, or indded any sport front, from our pretty wide experience of multiple sports and multiple kids, the fact is that when they get to about 14+ either male or female, the intensity and physical toll from the games just does increase due to the physical size and speed that they now have. So where once our 13 year old son was able to play 2 games of hockey on a Friday night, sat morning club basketball, sat afternoon tennis, sun morning basketball training and many other trainings during the week and never really wear out, a couple of years later he had dropped tennis and basketball and one junior club, one school and one senior game of hockey for the weekend with club and state trainings thrown in meant that he regularly spent the evening after a game asleep on the couch completely wrecked! So it's a big ask to play two netball games in a day, even for a fit 15 year old, especially when one of them starts so early, and combine that with part-time jobs, school etc ... Unfortunately it is the age when many girls drop out of sport. So hopefully BA will hang in there regardless of the team behaviour ...because the positives from a good team experience are so worth it, as I know she knows from other years.
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