My 3 year old has won a poetry competition - AIBU to think this is just another way to rip parents off?

[YellowDinosaur]

Today my 3 year old son came home from nursery with a letter and a medal which he was proudly wearing 'because I have been good'.

Inside the letter was a certificate and a letter basically saying he has written a poem that has been specially selected to be published in a collection of poems written by children in our area. The children were, apparently, given the format and 'filled it in with their imagination'.

On reading it it is a 10 line poem that couldn't possibly have been written by a 3 year old. There are possibly 11 words that could have been selected by him to personalise it, of which 6 I can identify as being things be would have said (this is out of about 70 words in the poem in total).

They are asking permission to publish it in a book that we are welcome to buy for £15.99 or can get 3 for the price of 2.

AIBU to think this is just a money making scam and if I was to ask other parents at nursery all of their children will have been selected too and they will all be 'allowed' to buy a book with their childs poem in too?

As dh said if it had been a poem that sounded as though he might have actually written, or even if it was this poem but illustrated by him we would have been well up for it and very proud. As it is we just feel irritated that this is yet another excuse to get money out of parents by a group of chancers.

I am perfectly prepared to be told I am wrong if others have had experience of this by the way!

[CristinaTheAstonishing]

Never heard of this scam. I don't think schools should allow them access.

[WeirdAcronymNotKnown]

LOL at SGB's poobumwilly idea!

[gkys]

i fell for this when DS1 was at nursery too! brought the books three of them, all I can say in my defense is PFB

[SpringchickenGoldBrass]

And then go to the papers with the story, of course.

[SpringchickenGoldBrass]

Though if DS ever brought one of those sheets home I would be ever so tempted to encourage him to fill in the blanks with 'Poo bum willy' and see if we still got the same 'Your child is an infant GENIUS' letter back.

[SpringchickenGoldBrass]

SHerlock: there are so many better ways to boost DC's creativity than by giving in to scammers. In fact, paying money to these shitbags harms children's creativity because the ninute they find out that their 'prize-winning poem' is nothing of the sort they might well get put off writing althgether.

[mum0fthree]

I bought this the first year DD "won" didn't bother the second year. Scam alert

[diddl]

At our school if the class all write a poem/story, they are all copied, laminated & bound & all the parents get one-at no cost.

[lilyliz]

my neice has just won the same and is 4 yrs old,she was read a poem and had to insert three missing words with her own words,parents chuffed to bits and ordered three books,1 for them and 1 each for the GPs.As you say one born every minute.

[SherlockHolmes]

My DD did this at High School. I Googled it, as I thought it was a scam, and lots of parents were talking about how it had boosted their DC's confidence etc so I bought the book. DD was so excited; she showed everyone the book and is really proud of it. Even though it's probably not worth much, it really has spurred her on to be creative and I think it was worth the £15 that I had to pay.

But that's a 13 year old, and the poem was all her own work. I wouldn't bother for a nursery-age child.

[forehead]

Maya

[forehead]

My dd (8) came home with a letter saying that shehad won a poetry competition. I was extremely proud of her and had ideas of her being the next Mary Angelou or Carol Ann Duffy. Until, i found ot that EVERY child in her bloody class had won and all were expected to purchase the book containing the poems. I refused to buy the book.

[SpringchickenGoldBrass]

Lulu is a print-on-demand publishing company. You only need to print as many copies as you want. THey have downloadable templates etc so you only need the most basic of tech skills to produce something that's entirely passable (particularly for something like a book of primary school poems intended for parents etc).
There are other companies as well, but I tend to recommend Lulu as I have used them and been pleased the results.

[YellowDinosaur]

On looking at the letter further it seems that the nursery with the most contributions will get £1000 (aways assuming they aren't bankrupt).

So we are almost certainly going to get pressured by the nursery. I don;t do many of the drop offs / pickups because my work hours don't fit as well as dh's but one or both of us will bring this up with them.

Tonight I have texted everyone whose number I have who is also at the nursery to tell them that firstly it is a scam and secondly the ompany may be on the brink of bankruptcy so even if they WANT the book they may well not get it.

[itsnicetobenice]

oh wow my 4 yr old also won this today and is being published - he is made up with his medal and his certificate but yes its a bit rip of pile of poo - last yr we were in our own movie sat in a boat - another pile of crap. The poem my dh actually did with him a few weeks back - it just had blanks to put inthe bit about what you saw on the beach, ate etc... crapola

[SuePurblybilt]

Such a scam. DD was also 'selected' aged 4. The poem was the most god-awful shite and she had obviously been quizzed for her contributions - mostly to do with favourite food, colour and best friends.

Something like:

My best friends are XXXX and XXXX they're so kind to me
Sharing all day, we're the best we can be,
I like to eat XXXX, that's my special treat
I like to make friends with the people I meet.

Absolute drivel, so bad I intially thought it had been made up on the spur of the moment by the staff, it sounded like some kind of round-robin rhyming game. £11.99 for the book if I remember rightly, I certainly didn't buy it.

[smokinaces]

When I was in secondary school we did a legit book of poems. All written by 11-13yr olds in the county, I have it upstairs and they are all very individual and clearly written fully by the children. (In fact one was mine)

To take this kind of concept and them warp it into a money making scheme is really off.

A 3 year old writing poetry?! My Reception aged son would even struggle with that!

[thefirstMrsDeVere]

My DS won this too. Despite the fact he could neither read nor write or understand very much that was said to him

The other parents were scandalized that I didnt buy several copies of the book.

Pffft.

[Flisspaps]

This was going on when I was still at school...I'm 29.

[SauvignonBlanche]

Happened to me too, at least at 3 you can just ignore it.
DD was 8 and was really excited so I had to buy the crappy book.

[WeirdAcronymNotKnown]

Damn. Tutorials not working on my phone - SGB could you tell me a bit more about this lulu thing please? Costs etc? Partly so I can bear it in mind for future fundraising, but also because DH and I are writing a few things and need to consider our options (if they turn out any good that is!)

Ta :)

[WeirdAcronymNotKnown]

Ooh I'll look up lulu.com thanks.

Yes it happens to adults too - my DH once, before I met him. Mind you he also sent a poem off to some charity after Dunblaine, and within weeks it was turned into a song, word for word, without his name mentioned at all

[Punkatheart]

Excellent post, SpringChicken. The fundraising is an excellent idea. My daughter's school has gone one step further and have their own printing press.

I want children to write poetry and be encouraged. This is not the way. I would rather go into schools and give my time for free than have these people fleece the poor parents.

[diddl]

I can´t believe that anyone thinks that this isn´t a scam tbh.

Do nurseries/schools get paid to hand the letters out?

Where do theyy think that this company is getting the poetry from if not them?

[SardineQueen]

Oh that's really shit. Starting with this crap at 3. Utterly depressing.