Parental Pressure

Our school is going to become a registered high school. What this means is that students can sit for some stupid new york state test and get a high school diploma. There was a discussion about this on our google group and one person mentioned that a potential downside was that parental pressure would be exerted upon a student to take the test.

My initial reaction was a defensive one. Why? Well I thought this person was making an argument against doing it because of possible parental pressure. It doesn't make sense to me to not do something because of a purely hypothetical reaction. And a hypothetical reaction that takes place out of school at that. I don't think it is staff or school meetings business to worry about how people parent their children. It does happen naturally of course. I mean you get to know people and you can guess how they will react to certain situations but ultimately, unless it's a case of abuse, it really is out of their control. I feel the debate about what is and isn't offered at school should focus solely on the opportunities it presents to the students and the school. As parents we know that we give up a great deal of control over our kids when we send them to this school but the school should, and I think is, be respectful of the fact that it's official influence ends when the kids go home. To make a decision in an attempt to influence or subvert a parents wish for their child does not sit well with me. Not that that's what was going on here.

I heard another argument against offering things at school that weren't generated by the students as wrong because 'kids might feel bad if they don't sign up". I hope that I misunderstood this because these sorts of worries lead to decisions based on fear. And they are fears about things that cannot ever be controlled- a person's emotional reaction to something.

But back to parental pressure. Is it a bad thing? No, not at all. And it is often very subtle or even unconscious. I don't think it's wrong to give your opinion about something or tell your kid what you think they should do. It's definitely a fine line. To convince but not coerce. (I love alliterative phrases!) I think it's unrealistic to expect parents to instruct and socialize their children but have some sort of off switch when it comes to what they learn or what path they follow.