I help run a holiday playscheme. We work damn hard despite being "only" volunteers. Thanks to the efforts of the girls who sort the fundraising forms out we've managed to keep our costs to £10 for a week of playscheme [That's 3 hours per day Mon-Thu then a full day Fri as we go for a trip]. Everything is covered all week including a snack and drink daily, entry for the trip etc.
For trips we ask the parents to send the children with a sandwich/roll/wrap/sausage roll type item. The main part of their lunch basically, and a bottle of water. We then provide everything else - a juice, some fruit, etc. We always give a specific list of what will be provided so that they know that their child is absolutely not going to go hungry. We ask them not to include chocolate, fizzy juice etc. We've explained time and time again that we do lunches this way because it makes everything equal, some of our parents are from a very deprived area and money is super tight. The whole point of the playscheme is that from the second the kids come in the door the kids are equal - being poor or rich doesn't make a difference to what you get.
Last year we resorted to saying that if people wanted to give chocolate/haribo/whatever then they needed to provide enough for all of the children. We didn't actually want donations, but it meant the kids were the same.
Today we go off, have a merry time and then we get to lunchtime. We discover that five, of forty, children have parents who have completely ignored the rules. There's fizzy juice in one, chocolate in three, a lunch that would feed about eight people in the other. There's also so much food that instead of finishing their lunch and only having their water bottle to carry this afternoon they end up still humphing their bag around (they are asked to bring a plastic bag that can just be put into a bag of bags after lunch) which means adults minding six bags at the park and a whole day of "Barnaby don't forget your bag?" and "Whose bag is this? Mary is this your bag? No, what about you Joseph is it yours?"
Why do people not listen? We speak to the kids, they help plan the lunch, they choose their fruit etc. We work everything round so that allergies are catered for. Yet they don't bloody listen.
AIBU to get really ratty and search bags before we go on the bus next week?
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AIBU?
AIBU to get really ratty with these parents.
39 replies
lalalalyra · 29/07/2016 17:56
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